Guild Wars 2

+1 billion +1’s

because it takes skillz

Zergs are a byproduct of a lot of things:

“Open world” bosses that are intended to occupy 5-100 people.
Shared mob tagging. Everyone gets loot, as long as they contribute to damage.
Most mobs have very pitiful AI and attacks that are singularly focused. This encourages “auto-attack” gameplay and “stacking” in dungeons.

Additionally:
Bosses are kept under lock and key, except for when they’re “allowed” to come out, once every 3 hours. This makes for a rush of people trying to get the credit when it’s still possible in their slim play windows.

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

Ugh, gods no. It’s a much more complicated issue than that. There’d be zergs even if there were tanks and healers. Because tanks would sit up front trading off aggro while the healers lazily lob heals and dps safely nicks away at the boss.

So just no. It’s not that.

If you wanted a simple answer, it’s because the content is open world and anyone can wander in or out at their leisure. The zerg’d content provides some of the better rewards (I don’t want to say “best”, because rewards in GW2 are… bad) for relatively safe and efficient participation.

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

No.

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

Lazy people.

Simple as that.

You a) may be hardcore; b) may be casual; c) may want to play the game on your notebook with a donut and a youtube. The c) niche is usually occupied by Facebook flashgames which are not epic enough for a regular gamer; GW2, however, in its business model takes a step in that direction and grabs a large amount of one-time buyers who get a “real” RPG which requires next to no skills and effort to succeed in.

And eventually, we receive enough people liking megazergers and pushing us out of the main target audience.

Zerging is human nature. It is how wars are won, how battle are won, how fights are won. The more people you have the better. The game emulates life in that regard.

OP – Don’t you count Dungeons as content?

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

Non-existent and non-enforced encounter mechanics.

Simple as that.

Fixed for you

I think the main problem with the open-world events is the fact that the events don’t really accommodate larger groups as it scales up in terms of the mechanics of the fight.

Look at the Shatterer: No matter how many people arrive, mechanics such as the healing crystals and imprisoning players doesn’t really scale up, meaning the majority of players can ignore the mechanics of the fight without the success being really affected.

Now, if each of these boss fight had its own scaling formula that caused the scaling to make the fight equally challenging on all levels (and not simple ‘more adds and more health’), you’d find less of a problem, because the mechanics couldn’t be ignored by 50% of the players there.

So taking the Shatterer as an example again:

• For every 5 players, an additional healing crystal spawns in a random place in the area of the event.
• For every 10 players, the Shatterer will also do an AoE imprisonment aimed at the largest congregation of players.

Another change I’d personally make is, as well as scaling mechanics, don’t simply have one mechanic happen at a time.

For example, when you’re breaking the healing crystals, nothing else is going on. Now, imagine at certain intervals that two mechanics happened at once. For example, the Shatterer does his healing crystals, and as an additional effect, the next mechanic immediately after / any mechanics done while the healing crystals are in effect are boosted. Imprisonment crystals also emit a Static Field, for example.

Same reason why they didn’t release the real super mario brothers 2 outside japan until recently

TheDaiBish.9735:

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

Non-existent and non-enforced encounter mechanics.

Simple as that.

Fixed for you

---

I think the main problem with the open-world events is the fact that the events don’t really accommodate larger groups as it scales up in terms of the mechanics of the fight.

Look at the Shatterer: No matter how many people arrive, mechanics such as the healing crystals and imprisoning players doesn’t really scale up, meaning the majority of players can ignore the mechanics of the fight without the success being really affected.

Now, if each of these boss fight had its own scaling formula that caused the scaling to make the fight equally challenging on all levels (and not simple ‘more adds and more health’), you’d find less of a problem, because the mechanics couldn’t be ignored by 50% of the players there.

So taking the Shatterer as an example again:

• For every 5 players, an additional healing crystal spawns in a random place in the area of the event.
• For every 10 players, the Shatterer will also do an AoE imprisonment aimed at the largest congregation of players.

Another change I’d personally make is, as well as scaling mechanics, don’t simply have one mechanic happen at a time.

For example, when you’re breaking the healing crystals, nothing else is going on. Now, imagine at certain intervals that two mechanics happened at once. For example, the Shatterer does his healing crystals, and as an additional effect, the next mechanic immediately after / any mechanics done while the healing crystals are in effect are boosted. Imprisonment crystals also emit a Static Field, for example.

Stuff like this would go a long, long way to making bosses and champs more interesting. Imagine how surprised the QD zerg would be if the boar suddenly did a breakthrough charge that left a burning field after it. Instead, sad piggy bops its nose at one person at a time. :\

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

Actually, this is not accurate. I’ve played WoW for years and jsut started playing GW2 a few weeks ago, and WoW has the same problem with world bosses. The issue is simply that it is impossible to design mechanics for a boss that can truly scale to any group size/level.

There truly is a sliding scale for any world boss. Too little, it’s impossible. Too many, it’s cake. With a Holy Trinity system, particularly gear based, all you do is reduce the number of people necessary to make the boss cake as people get better gear. A world boss goes from needing two tanks and six healers to maybe one tank and two healers, for example. And if you have unlimited DPS support, each additional person just makes it die that much quicker.

Granted, since GW2 is all DPS, that last statement is the entirety of it. But it is incredibly hard to make boss dynamics for a group of any size. The best way to get dynamic bosses is to tailor them for a specific group size and level, i.e. dungeons and raids, regardless of the Holy Trinity.

There no increased reward for doing things solo or with a small group.

Warhammer online (yes I know it was crap), was the first game to have public quests really open world stuff like mega bosses. And they made it so zerging it was harder, and the chances of a good reward was A LOT smaller.

To iterate, take jormag. If you solo him you get a chest and 2 rares. If you kill him with 200 people… you get the same chest and 2? rares. If they used the warhammer system…

There are 3 gold chests, 5 silver 10 bronze, and infinite “bags” (consolation prizes). You roll a dice 1-100 and this is added to your contribution, based on time being there, dps, healing, supporting others etc… up to 200. the gold chests go to the 3 ppl with highest scores, 3-8 get the silver, etc… you can see were zerging is discouraged.

In “WvWvW” killing a player yielded a ton of XP, but that was divided by how many people tagged them. So again solo/small group play was greatly encouraged and rewarded.

Solution could be- less players pr. server/shard. (aka the opposite of Mega servers)
Being 2-5 man against Maw or similar is quite challenging -at least for me. I’m sure some one will come and say they solo it.

Have caves with the monster in it. and that system sets a max number of players. (low 1-25) pr. shard. scale it accordingly. Have the AI do a random adjustment to behavior when group enter so the encounter is slightly different each time.
Give every single boss a kick- it uses every time players are all in one spot.- that knocks them back in opposite directions.
Let finishing move be an actual animation based on that characters weapon choice.. Much like Dragonage (1) had. and remove the stupid banner finisher from pve monsters.

Rauderi.8706:

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

Ugh, gods no. It’s a much more complicated issue than that. There’d be zergs even if there were tanks and healers. Because tanks would sit up front trading off aggro while the healers lazily lob heals and dps safely nicks away at the boss.

So just no. It’s not that.

If you wanted a simple answer, it’s because the content is open world and anyone can wander in or out at their leisure. The zerg’d content provides some of the better rewards (I don’t want to say “best”, because rewards in GW2 are… bad) for relatively safe and efficient participation.

Completely agree. Zergs would still exist, even with the holy trinity. I have played several mmorpgs that had the holy trinity, and in WvW/RvR/PvE the zergs were just as bad.

I am not sure why some people seem to think that the holy trinity would fix elements of this game. It would cause more problems, imo, as it would push this game backwards towards the older style mmorpg.

I, for one, am glad there is no holy trinity in this game……one of the reasons why my wife and I got this game in the first place. She used to always play a healer in past mmos, and when we first got this game, she was like “omg, I can actually hit back with some efficiency now and don’t have to kite all the time in PvE when soloing!”

The holy trinity, imo, is an out of date concept in mmos anymore. Glad to see that this game stepped beyond that with it’s classes.

LoreChief.8391:

Zerging is human nature. It is how wars are won, how battle are won, how fights are won. The more people you have the better. The game emulates life in that regard.

So your telling me that if I went out picked a fight with a bunch of wonnabe tough guys and end up beating them by myself I’m breaking the law of nature? Forget that crap.

The weak, The stupid, The lazy, The worthless zerg by nature NOT the people who stand out. Look back at human history. Thousands of people have stood over the peek. Simple really some people are better then others at different things. Over all tho most of the general people are useless in their own right. Why do you think half the world can barely use a computer[besides lack of funds] For example my father/sis cant do anything with a computer yet my brother/myself are great using one even able to make programs. Its all in genetics whether a person will be good at something or not, and 9 outa 10 times people follow a crowd instead of doing what they want to do.

Like the OP said zerging takes out all the fun out of the game thats why i’ve been asking for a hard mode that would get rid of the zerging. Cause the people who zerg wont be able to handle the harder setting.

I think the main message, or vision, for this game always was “the more the merrier”.

I would not want a system where my first thought seeing other players would be “oh great, less loot – go away!”

Don’t get me wrong – I love to roam solo (PvE).

Larenc.1269:

LoreChief.8391:

Zerging is human nature. It is how wars are won, how battle are won, how fights are won. The more people you have the better. The game emulates life in that regard.

So your telling me that if I went out picked a fight with a bunch of wonnabe tough guys and end up beating them by myself I’m breaking the law of nature? Forget that crap.

The weak, The stupid, The lazy, The worthless zerg by nature NOT the people who stand out. Look back at human history. Thousands of people have stood over the peek. Simple really some people are better then others at different things. Over all tho most of the general people are useless in their own right. Why do you think half the world can barely use a computer[besides lack of funds] For example my father/sis cant do anything with a computer yet my brother/myself are great using one even able to make programs. Its all in genetics whether a person will be good at something or not, and 9 outa 10 times people follow a crowd instead of doing what they want to do.

Like the OP said zerging takes out all the fun out of the game thats why i’ve been asking for a hard mode that would get rid of the zerging. Cause the people who zerg wont be able to handle the harder setting.

Hard mode = courses in logic and philosophy.

/ahem

Instead of blaming the players, consider how the game is designed to interact with the players. There’s any number of psychological principles involved in gamecraft: risk/reward structures, time investment and commitment, social attachment, difficulty/frustration curves…

The list of research topics is HUGE. (And covered in an ongoing series by the Extra Credits team~)

Rather than fighting the zerg, the devs would be better to learn to manipulate and disperse it. Tequatl, Marionette, and Triple Trouble were all good starts in that direction. Wurm especially, since it involves completing objectives while in combat, rather than “bash all the things.”

Changing the reward structure would help as well, but that has a high chance to backfire if not done with total elegance. (I don’t have much confidence in the current thinkers on the topic…)

Because this is a very casual game centered around easy PvE and cosplaying with your friends in major cities.

You won’t find PvE challenge in GW2 unless you solo dungeons or something.

I view GW2 as an MMOARPG, rather than a traditional MMORPG.
Takes a lot of cues from games such as Diablo and Dungeon Siege, while still borrowing from more traditional RPG’s.
All you do in ARPG’s is zergzergzerg.
But that’s just my opinion.
Also, that’s a huge reason I like this game. I hate the holy trinity, love open world content, and love ARPG’s.

Zepidel.5349:

There no increased reward for doing things solo or with a small group.

Warhammer online (yes I know it was crap), was the first game to have public quests really open world stuff like mega bosses. And they made it so zerging it was harder, and the chances of a good reward was A LOT smaller.

To iterate, take jormag. If you solo him you get a chest and 2 rares. If you kill him with 200 people… you get the same chest and 2? rares. If they used the warhammer system…

There are 3 gold chests, 5 silver 10 bronze, and infinite “bags” (consolation prizes). You roll a dice 1-100 and this is added to your contribution, based on time being there, dps, healing, supporting others etc… up to 200. the gold chests go to the 3 ppl with highest scores, 3-8 get the silver, etc… you can see were zerging is discouraged.

In “WvWvW” killing a player yielded a ton of XP, but that was divided by how many people tagged them. So again solo/small group play was greatly encouraged and rewarded.

I can somewhat understand your points(and yes, Warhammer was a piece of disappointing junk)….but if you brought back dierolls, peoples’ amount of damage and/or time spent on a boss or other encounter, then that would only bring back kill stealing, loot jumping, griefing, and a generally uncooperative/everyone for themselves type of mentality that exists in so many other older mmorpgs.

I am not sure why some people get so perturbed and annoyed that someone who joined the fight halfway through gets the same rewards, when the people that were there for the whole fight still get the full reward as well. Isn’t that the point of the boss fight….to get the drops and have the fun of taking the boss down? Why be so overly concerned that some other player got the same drops for being there for only half the battle…..so what? How does that affect one’s own play? I would be much more upset and peeved if someone came in and did a kill/drop steal, or got a super lucky die roll and got the prize, rather than just equally giving the prize to everyone who participated.

And as another poster already said, scaling never seems to work quite right in mmorpgs. Just the way it is. Maybe it can be adjusted better….maybe not.

The reason you have zergs is that there is no player collision in the game, there is an AOE cap on most damage skills, and the ranges on most support abilities are short, often below 600. Between those three reasons there is no disincentive to not stand as close together as possible.

Player collision alone would be enough to mitigate the majority of zerging, and removing the AOE cap or increasing it greatly to 8 or 10 would put the last nail in the coffin. Increasing the range on support skills would also enable people to spread out more without feeling like they have to be standing inside one another in order to get the full effect of an ability.

Player collision means the few can block the many.

AOE cap increase means the few can damage the many.

Support range increase means the few can support each other more effectively.

No more zergs, tbh.

foofad.5162:

The reason you have zergs is that there is no player collision in the game, there is an AOE cap on most damage skills, and the ranges on most support abilities are short, often below 600. Between those three reasons there is no disincentive to not stand as close together as possible.

Player collision alone would be enough to mitigate the majority of zerging, and removing the AOE cap or increasing it greatly to 8 or 10 would put the last nail in the coffin. Increasing the range on support skills would also enable people to spread out more without feeling like they have to be standing inside one another in order to get the full effect of an ability.

Player collision means the few can block the many.

AOE cap increase means the few can damage the many.

Support range increase means the few can support each other more effectively.

No more zergs, tbh.

Then they just all stop standing on top of each other and start ranged zerging.

Rouven.7409:

I think the main message, or vision, for this game always was “the more the merrier”.

I would not want a system where my first thought seeing other players would be “oh great, less loot – go away!”

Don’t get me wrong – I love to roam solo (PvE).

Completely agree. If players want that type of of mmorpg, there are tons of other ones out there that offer the “oh great, less loot – go away!” system of playing. I am glad that GW2 chose not to go that route.

viralthefrog.6130:

foofad.5162:

The reason you have zergs is that there is no player collision in the game, there is an AOE cap on most damage skills, and the ranges on most support abilities are short, often below 600. Between those three reasons there is no disincentive to not stand as close together as possible.

Player collision alone would be enough to mitigate the majority of zerging, and removing the AOE cap or increasing it greatly to 8 or 10 would put the last nail in the coffin. Increasing the range on support skills would also enable people to spread out more without feeling like they have to be standing inside one another in order to get the full effect of an ability.

Player collision means the few can block the many.

AOE cap increase means the few can damage the many.

Support range increase means the few can support each other more effectively.

No more zergs, tbh.

Then they just all stop standing on top of each other and start ranged zerging.

If you’ve got five, and they’ve got ten, and both sides have the same cap of 10 on their AOEs, then the five are doing more aggregate damage than the ten. Doesn’t matter if they’re ranged or melee. Meanwhile, assuming a balanced number of players per side, you have another 5 guys that can be off capping or whatever else.

To be honest though, even if all it accomplished is abolishing stacking I’d be happy.

viralthefrog.6130:

foofad.5162:

The reason you have zergs is that there is no player collision in the game, there is an AOE cap on most damage skills, and the ranges on most support abilities are short, often below 600. Between those three reasons there is no disincentive to not stand as close together as possible.

Player collision alone would be enough to mitigate the majority of zerging, and removing the AOE cap or increasing it greatly to 8 or 10 would put the last nail in the coffin. Increasing the range on support skills would also enable people to spread out more without feeling like they have to be standing inside one another in order to get the full effect of an ability.

Player collision means the few can block the many.

AOE cap increase means the few can damage the many.

Support range increase means the few can support each other more effectively.

No more zergs, tbh.

Then they just all stop standing on top of each other and start ranged zerging.

I have to agree. Your ideas wouldn’t stop zerging, foofad….it would just cause the blob to spread out a bit more. You would have the same zergs with the same number people….they would just take up more physical space in the game.

Zergs are fun sometimes if I run across one,
but then I get tired of them after a while and like to go off on my own somewhere.

Since I’m the type of person in real life, who likes being around others,
but then after a while gets tired and wants to go be alone, because being around people too much is also annoying to me, (even though I like certain people most of the time);
so mimicking that behavior in a game kinda makes sense for me,
since that’s how I am

But then there’s a lot of people who don’t like to be alone at all,
and I think that behavior manifests in games as zergs, because it seems to be human nature to stick together, really.
We learned early on in human development that being in a ‘pack’ is key to survival, kind of like wolves
So, I think it’s just human nature to zerg, even though sometimes it’s annoying

It was never that way in Warhammer, no one “kill stealed” or ninja looted. You couldn’t anyways, the people who were there longer and did more had a way better chance at higher tier loot.

A system like this wouldnt really benefit GW2 PvE, but it would make a world of a difference in WvWvW. I cant stand zerging in PvP, and there literally zero reason not to in WvWvW, as there is actually LESS reward for doing so, and if you want your small scale fix SPvP exists. Not to mention the server rotation and no player names means you can’t make sworn enemies with people on the other realms.

The core issue i hear is not the number of people, but standing still pressing 1 = win.

Events need to require skill again… bosses send out ground targeting aoe and also blockable/dodgeable aoe but boss aoe works like Piercing Arrows so the whole zerg feels it, immobilize people for 30 seconds who dps through the wrong phase (kinda like Lyssa only more punishing), put reflect back on bosses so people can spike themselves to death, have bosses spread mass aoe conditions, rase the condition cap on bosses and/or make player applied conditions last 1/12 of what they normally do but cause 12 times more damage (so conditions are still viable but a zerg can use their condition builds), remove the blinding ball of light so that you can see boss mechanics, boss range is 0-2000 on all attacks so range or melee you gotta watch, blah blah blah…

It’s not the zerg that’s the problem it is making all fights a dps check instead of a dodge, heal, armor, vitality, timing and ultimately skill check.

For those who are still struggling with this… basically the idea is have a boss fight where the boss self destructs (aka dies) regardless of the dps, the reward is for those who stay alive inside a set area. This extreme would be boring I think but adding such elements into a boss fight to make them less zergy and more interesting.

Rauderi.8706:

Stuff like this would go a long, long way to making bosses and champs more interesting. Imagine how surprised the QD zerg would be if the boar suddenly did a breakthrough charge that left a burning field after it. Instead, sad piggy bops its nose at one person at a time. :\

Again, doing that with low level content presents problems of it’s own, since low-level content should be used as a tool to help low-level players, thus the mechanics shouldn’t be too complex.

Maybe having abilities do % damage, or have the area cause a debuff that reduces the effectiveness of Traits (For example, instead of +20% damage, the Trait would do a lower % of damage based on the area).

Or, building on that idea, a Hard-Mode toggle that players can switch on and off that places limitations on the player:

• Reduces damage, healing, endurance regeneration and condition, CC and boon duration and effectiveness by x%.
• Reduces Trait, Rune and Sigil effectiveness by x%.
• Increases incoming damage and condition / CC duration and effectiveness by x% (so if a move would usually apply 2 stacks of bleed for 10 seconds, 50% would increase this to 3 stacks for 15 secs).

If players want the Champ boxes from lower level areas, then this toggle would have to be switched on. To prevent exploiting it (such as switching off when going to loot the chest), the toggle would have a cooldown per map where you can’t switch it off OR you have to speak to an NPC to switch the toggle on and off.

A lot of the early bosses have the problem of just being walls to auto-attack, but I think more recent bosses like the marionette and Scarlet (though not her guards) have been solid improvements in making positioning and learning the fight more important, which I interpret as they want to make the fights more than just winning with numbers. They still need to continue making improvements, but I feel like they are working towards the right track.

Open world bosses (minus the big 3) don’t take any real skill. In PVP the side with the most people generally wins. Zerging is simply the most effective strategy for most everything.

Zepidel.5349:

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Teon.5168:

Zepidel.5349:

There no increased reward for doing things solo or with a small group.

Warhammer online (yes I know it was crap), was the first game to have public quests really open world stuff like mega bosses. And they made it so zerging it was harder, and the chances of a good reward was A LOT smaller.

To iterate, take jormag. If you solo him you get a chest and 2 rares. If you kill him with 200 people… you get the same chest and 2? rares. If they used the warhammer system…

There are 3 gold chests, 5 silver 10 bronze, and infinite “bags” (consolation prizes). You roll a dice 1-100 and this is added to your contribution, based on time being there, dps, healing, supporting others etc… up to 200. the gold chests go to the 3 ppl with highest scores, 3-8 get the silver, etc… you can see were zerging is discouraged.

In “WvWvW” killing a player yielded a ton of XP, but that was divided by how many people tagged them. So again solo/small group play was greatly encouraged and rewarded.

While I understand your points(and yes, Warhammer was a piece of disappointing junk)….but if you brought back dierolls, peoples’ amount of damage and/or time spent on a boss or other encounter, then that would only bring back kill stealing, loot jumping, griefing, and a generally uncooperative/everyone for themselves type of mentality that exists in so many other older mmorpgs.

I am not sure why some people get so perturbed and annoyed that someone who joined the fight halfway through gets the same rewards, when the people that were there for the whole fight still get the full reward as well. Isn’t that the point of the boss fight….to get the drops and have the fun of taking the boss down? Why be so overly concerned that some other player got the same drops for being there for only half the battle…..so what? How does that affect one’s own play? I would be much more upset and peeved if someone came in and did a kill/drop steal, or got a super lucky die roll and got the prize, rather than just equally giving the prize to everyone who participated.

And as another poster already said, scaling never seems to work quite right in mmorpgs. Just the way it is. Maybe it can be adjusted better….maybe not.

It was never that way in Warhammer, no one “kill stealed” or ninja looted. You couldn’t anyways, the people who were there longer and did more had a way better chance at higher tier loot.

A system like this wouldnt really benefit GW2 PvE, but it would make a world of a difference in WvWvW. I cant stand zerging in PvP, and there literally zero reason not to in WvWvW, as there is actually LESS reward for doing so, and if you want your small scale fix SPvP exists. Not to mention the server rotation and no player names means you can’t make sworn enemies with people on the other realms.

At least we agree that Warhammer was mostly a piece of junk(and I had such high hopes for that game, too!)

Because it’s actually called teamwork and strength in numbers

Zerging isn’t actively encouraged. There is just nothing to stop it.

Other games with open access, large scaling events also have zergs. GW2 has open world events as a feature so it should really find some solution to scaling and zergs.

Angelweave.1856:

The core issue i hear is not the number of people, but standing still pressing 1 = win.

Events need to require skill again… bosses send out ground targeting aoe and also blockable/dodgeable aoe but boss aoe works like Piercing Arrows so the whole zerg feels it, immobilize people for 30 seconds who dps through the wrong phase (kinda like Lyssa only more punishing), put reflect back on bosses so people can spike themselves to death, have bosses spread mass aoe conditions, rase the condition cap on bosses and/or make player applied conditions last 1/12 of what they normally do but cause 12 times more damage (so conditions are still viable but a zerg can use their condition builds), remove the blinding ball of light so that you can see boss mechanics, boss range is 0-2000 on all attacks so range or melee you gotta watch, blah blah blah…

It’s not the zerg that’s the problem it is making all fights a dps check instead of a dodge, heal, armor, vitality, timing and ultimately skill check.

For those who are still struggling with this… basically the idea is have a boss fight where the boss self destructs (aka dies) regardless of the dps, the reward is for those who stay alive inside a set area. This extreme would be boring I think but adding such elements into a boss fight to make them less zergy and more interesting.

Some interesting ideas. Correct me if my memory is not serving me well, but I seem to remember that the really big generals/bosses/scarlet’s commanders in the LA destruction story required a bit more skill/effort/time. I remember being in a zerg trying to kill one of them before the final kill scarlet mission, and he had lots of adds around him, as well as moving a lot, doing some random aoe(although there was always some sort of que that the aoe was coming), healing, and generally just being a real pain in the rear to take down. I even remember that pets needed to be stowed on some of them, as they caused more problems with the encounter.

Are the bosses in some of the PvE areas with the huge zergs a lot easier?

Angelweave.1856:

For those who are still struggling with this… basically the idea is have a boss fight where the boss self destructs (aka dies) regardless of the dps, the reward is for those who stay alive inside a set area. This extreme would be boring I think but adding such elements into a boss fight to make them less zergy and more interesting.

So what’s stopping me from just showing up at the end – hitting it 2-3 times and tagging the reward? Nothing.

And if you want to stop me by forcing participation to be tied in with the start of the event – well that’s not open-world anymore is it? It’s instanced – even if the instance is in the open world.

So no – there’s no way to make open world bosses “interesting” since enforcing harder mechanics will result in one of two things :

1) Players won’t do the boss if it’s too hard and the rewards are really bad.
2) If the boss is like you say a survival check then simply show up at the last minute and get some hits in to tag the event.

There is nothing wrong with zerging.
Zerging is what happens when a lot of people want to do the same thing at the same time ( because with the new timers there’s only a few times/ day you can do said events).

That’s why open world is ‘bad’

Rauderi.8706:

Zergs are a byproduct of a lot of things:

“Open world” bosses that are intended to occupy 5-100 people.
Shared mob tagging. Everyone gets loot, as long as they contribute to damage.
Most mobs have very pitiful AI and attacks that are singularly focused. This encourages “auto-attack” gameplay and “stacking” in dungeons.

Additionally:
Bosses are kept under lock and key, except for when they’re “allowed” to come out, once every 3 hours. This makes for a rush of people trying to get the credit when it’s still possible in their slim play windows.

Also, most events, including champon ones, can be done repeatedly for guaranteed rewards. A player that would go somewhere else do something else sticks around and adds up to the zerg.

Instead getting players spreading, you get them gathering.

We could use some sort of bounty system that continuously lures players to different places, spreading people.

Reasons :
- DPS only thing required in PvE.
- Horrible and no boss AI.
- Open world content must be dumbed down so everyone can play it.

Contrary to stated opinions, zerg (or herd, as I prefer to call it) play is not a function of: lack of Holy Trinity, lack of encounter mechanics, or lazy players.

Herd play is the result of decisions made by the developer:

• ANet committed to a game that put a heavy emphasis on large encounters in the persistent world. This commitment was made known as early as the first announcement about GW2.
• ANet decided to control access to rewards once it became apparent that players were achieving goals too quickly. They also decided that they did not want to split the player base too much by pushing content in too many parts of the game. To achieve these two aims, they concentrated rewards in the large events the game was designed to feature in the first place.
• ANet decided that new content would come in the form of the Living World. To entice players to use this new content, they put material rewards and achievement points in for completing it. The combination of players rushing to the new content, plus the temporary nature of that content created herd play in the LS releases also.

Apologies to those who think that lack of mechanics is the issue. It isn’t – at least insofar as the OP’s use of the word zerg is concerned. S/he is talking about herd content, as in large groups of players. I know this because the post presents a desired alternative of smaller group or solo content that allows one to feel one made more of a contribution. Putting mechanics into herd events may address the original meaning of the word zerg — heedlessly and mindlessly throwing oneself at objectives, but putting mechanics into GW2 large events does not address his/her concern. Just look at Teq, which is designed for a herd — though not, maybe, a traditional zerg.

It seems as those the meaning of the term zerg is evolving.

Zerging is encouraged by Anet, because having the players concentrated in big groups allows them to be more predictable and more controllable.
Basically, zergs, as someone mentioned before, are a byproduct of laziness. Laziness on the part of the players, and laziness of the developers.
(though i disagree on one point with that poster – it was the hardcore players that introduced zergs. Casuals just join them. Hardcores are also very keen on maximizing their efficiency, and zergs in this game are very efficient).

Don’t be confused with gears-oriented games and non-gears-oriented games. Guild wars 2 does not prioritise in gears thus there is no such thing as almighty powerful gears. Also, guild wars 2 is also not the type of grindy game where there is only a small group of high level players. So, the idea of heroism doesn’t really work here. There is also no competitions within guild wars 2. In fact, guild wars 2 promote group play.

Since there is nothing to discourage zerging and guild wars 2 has such massive number of players, it become a norm.

Zepidel.5349:

To iterate, take jormag. If you solo him you get a chest and 2 rares. If you kill him with 200 people… you get the same chest and 2? rares. If they used the warhammer system…

… you kill the game. Period.

The people who zerg do so for two reasons.

1) It’s easy.

2) It’s rewarding.

Take away either of those things, and the locusts will not break up into small groups and learn how to be better players. They’ll just quit and play something else. Ergo, Arena.net has to cater to them. They represent the bulk of the playerbase (and really the bulk of the MMO market). Sorry.

Zerg is not a problem, it’s the mentality of the players and their skills or ability to adapt to play the game.

Consider:
No Zerg, not enough people to do the event, all players are experienced and skill full, but event fails (i.e. Teq)…
No Zerg, enough people to do the game, they use their skills to complete content (i.e. Fire Shaman, Ogre Chieftain, pre patch Grenth Kill Risen Priest)

With Zerg, everyone and I mean everyone, doesn’t do necessary things to complete event, the event fails (i.e. Tri Wurm/Teq/Marionette/etc)
With Zerg, many choose TO BE lazy (or simply don’t know better), many chose NOT TO be lazy, and the event still continues, but probably takes longer than usual (i.e. Golem using range attack)
With Zerg, everyone CAN STILL choose to be NOT lazy, they use their skills to complete the content, and the event completes A LOT faster.

With zerg, players who are clueless, CAN STILL get rewarded. They can use their experience to be better next time, or never learn. It is up to the player. After learning (or not learning), they can choose to use their knowledge (or lack of) and play the game.

Without zerg, players who are clueless, WILL NOT get rewarded, for the failing event. They can use their experience to be better next time, or never learn. It is up to the player. After learning (or not learning), they can choose to use their knowledge (or lack of) and play the game.

=======

As you can see, whether the zerg exists or not, players can still fail and can still succeed in events. And even if players continue to play the game WITHOUT the zerg, they can still never learn if they easily gives up, or just bad. Take a look for example Orr. This zone has been nerfed to death, it’s so easy, but you can still read forum complaints how the Orr mobs are hard (or cover up, by saying, they are annoying). Simple fact: Orr has been nerfed, mobs not as hard as they were during launch, and people still complain. All the players need to do is familiarize themselves with how Orr mobs fight, and avoid unwinnable situations, or, bring the power of the “zerg” with you.

eleshazar.6902:

All I see is more and more content that encourages zerging in this game. With the addition of the megaservers, we literally cannot escape zergs.

I personally enjoy the challenge of doing things by myself, or in a small group, and relying on my skill. To me standing in a massive amount of particle affects pressing 1 is not heroic at all. I play video games to feel like I matter, feeling like you make a difference in this virtual world is exciting (which is what I imagine is the reason many people play, even if they don’t want to admit it.) Zergs/Zerg content takes that epicness out of the game, and forces you back into the reality that you are just one tiny being amongst many, and it really doesn’t matter if you press one or not, things will just continue as they were anyway.

What happened to the epicness of this game? The feeling of being a hero? If you look at the personal story, the reason so many people hated it was because it was all about Traherene. People want to feel like the hero, like what they did is awesome and made some difference. Maybe I’m just too much of a fantasy lover, but Guild Wars 2 has lost that appeal to me now. The megaserver took what semblance there was of that left and destroyed it. Now you just take a number and stand in line to receive your loot. It feels like a chore. Working for rewards that aren’t pleasing because in actuality all you did was run as fast as you can to press 1 as fast as you can so that you get loot before something melts.

I doubt anyone from Anet will read this, but honestly the zerg content and zerg centric changes are killing the game. There is no feeling of greatness, no epicness. Community destruction aside, even if you were guildless and didn’t belong to a tight community before, these zerg centric updates just take the fun out of the game. It makes me sad to see this game deviate so far from its manifesto. When did the players become mere numbers to be corralled, and ceased to be your loyal customers that you cared about?

I keep reading on the forums something to the effect of “because it’s an MMO noob, which means multiplayer – go solo somewhere else”. As another player who prefers solo/small-groups, I empathize with you.

Let’s put it this way, a couple months after the game came out we saw anet staff build a catapult right next to a wall and fully charge it before firing!

i.e. the anet staff are not skilled players and from the looks of it most of them are zerglings, so they make the game they way they like to play = ZERGS!

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

Rift has a holy trinity. Rift has zergs.

It’s the trend of the MMO playerbase (in fact the gaming world as a whole). Games are getting so much easier with low risk, high reward content. People don’t care about achieving something through hard work anymore. They’ll be incredibly happy just to walk up to a boss with 100 others and tap a skill till that red bar is depleted, as long as they get their reward.

I miss MMOs where you had to pick your fights and think tactics beforehand, rather than charging into an army of mobs and smashing your fists on the keyboard.