Guild Wars 2

Nage.1520:

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

Rift has a holy trinity. Rift has zergs.

Rift also has real raid content and endgame.

I agree with you OP.

ANet monitors the game. They know what the player base is doing. They know what and where the players gravitate toward.

Taking that into consideration, now consider the following…

I play ESO and I’ve noticed a glaring design flaw. Things like mines, Dwemer ruins, Ayleid ruins, etc. are not instanced. They each have a boss npc at the end with better drops than the typical mob. Guess what? Zergs. It’s like the Champ train except the zerg doesn’t actually move from location to location.

They don’t do this because the game forces them to. They do this because the game allows them to.

It’s pretty well known that the forums tend to be the vocal minority of the game’s player base. So going back to what I first said to consider, ANet is a business. They will appease the masses to line their own pockets. Since the majority of the masses simply want to play the meta of amassing in-game wealth and decking their toons out with shinies, the easiest and most effective way is to champ train, or boss spawn camp, etc.

So the content is centered around this. Zerg centered content. Sure, you get massive scale battles involving dozens of player but there is a cost to this.

1. The complexity of the battle on an individual level is inversely proportional to the number of individuals involved. The more people there are, the more the fight becomes standing in place pressing 1.

2. The feeling of personal accomplishment is inversely proportional to the number of individuals involved. The more people there are, the less you matter.

With ESO, they are in a place to fix the situation. All those explorable areas involve pressing “E” (default) on a door and going through a loading screen. They could make these areas instanced. They could also set the boss up with a trigger. Clear the randoms to access the boss. They could also make the boss spawn as a boss npc only once per character. After that, the boss is just a regular mob. If you want to get another shot at the boss, you’ll have to party up with someone who hasn’t completed it yet. All kinds of possibilities that would fix the current camping/botting situation.

As for ANet and GW2….I’ve all but given it up completely. Although I’m close. I suppose they could modify the dungeons so that you have to clear the randoms along a path before you can access the boss(es) of the path. It would kill speed running them.

Phy.2913:

Nage.1520:

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

Rift has a holy trinity. Rift has zergs.

Rift also has real raid content and endgame.

Which is completely irrelevant to what is being said here. Someone said the reason zerging exists in this game is that there is no trinity. Rift has a trinity and zergs, so the premise is wrong.

And yeah, Rift has real raids. They were very (snore) challenging). You learned them, you geared up, and you moved onto the next raid like every other crappy raiding game.

If you like raids, you can play Rift. I hear it’s free to play now. Some of us are here because we don’t enjoy raiding and think raiding is boring and annoying. It certainly didn’t feel challenging to me.

Nage.1520:

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

Rift has a holy trinity. Rift has zergs.

Quoted for truth. I occasionally play RIFT, and I love zerging with my healbot.
Although, GW2 is way more fun and the holy trinity is terrible. Glad Anet decided against that for GW2.

Deamhan.9538:

I agree with you OP.

ANet monitors the game. They know what the player base is doing. They know what and where the players gravitate toward.

Taking that into consideration, now consider the following…

I play ESO and I’ve noticed a glaring design flaw. Things like mines, Dwemer ruins, Ayleid ruins, etc. are not instanced. They each have a boss npc at the end with better drops than the typical mob. Guess what? Zergs. It’s like the Champ train except the zerg doesn’t actually move from location to location.

They don’t do this because the game forces them to. They do this because the game allows them to.

It’s pretty well known that the forums tend to be the vocal minority of the game’s player base. So going back to what I first said to consider, ANet is a business. They will appease the masses to line their own pockets. Since the majority of the masses simply want to play the meta of amassing in-game wealth and decking their toons out with shinies, the easiest and most effective way is to champ train, or boss spawn camp, etc.

So the content is centered around this. Zerg centered content. Sure, you get massive scale battles involving dozens of player but there is a cost to this.

1. The complexity of the battle on an individual level is inversely proportional to the number of individuals involved. The more people there are, the more the fight becomes standing in place pressing 1.

2. The feeling of personal accomplishment is inversely proportional to the number of individuals involved. The more people there are, the less you matter.

With ESO, they are in a place to fix the situation. All those explorable areas involve pressing “E” (default) on a door and going through a loading screen. They could make these areas instanced. They could also set the boss up with a trigger. Clear the randoms to access the boss. They could also make the boss spawn as a boss npc only once per character. After that, the boss is just a regular mob. If you want to get another shot at the boss, you’ll have to party up with someone who hasn’t completed it yet. All kinds of possibilities that would fix the current camping/botting situation.

As for ANet and GW2….I’ve all but given it up completely. Although I’m close. I suppose they could modify the dungeons so that you have to clear the randoms along a path before you can access the boss(es) of the path. It would kill speed running them.

While I agree with a lot of your points, I am not so sure that all people play the game just for the shinies and/or rewards. Imo, there is probably quite a large number of people who play it for the exploration and different things they can do in game. A lot of those players are casual, as I am. Sure, shinies and glowies are cool, but they’re not required for a lot of people who enjoy the game for different reasons. Jmo, of course…..I certainly could be wrong.

I most certainly agree with your point that the forums are not necessarily a good place to garner any sort of valid opinion on those that actually enjoy and still play the game.

^well pve needs more events and chain events to unlock the bosses…

This is how see it:

In WvW, zerg its a product due map size and game “lack” of mechanics.

Maps are just AB shrines with walls, just a rush game, take tower while empty move to next where castle/tower/keep design is not competent imo, the zerg its a easy solution to take it almost with zero effort.
Siege is the “mechanic” Anet wanted to fight the zerg but forgot that towers can be taked with just easy naked pvd under 2.30minutes, almost the time that an entire group can cross the map, wich leaves to the lack of “want to deffend/need to deffend”, and the redundancy starts over and over after each RI ends.

I am not against large groups, but on gw2 they look far more
clueless just spamming 1 key and roolling to avoid auto atack mostly.

Aeolus.3615:

^well pve needs more events and chain events to unlock the bosses…

This is how see it:

In WvW, zerg its a product due map size and game “lack” of mechanics.

Maps are just AB shrines with walls, just a rush game, take tower while empty move to next where castle/tower/keep design is not competent imo, the zerg its a easy solution to take it almost with zero effort.
Siege is the “mechanic” Anet wanted to fight the zerg but forgot that towers can be taked with just easy naked pvd under 2.30minutes, almost the time that an entire group can cross the map, wich leaves to the lack of “want to deffend/need to deffend”, and the redundancy starts over and over after each RI ends.

I am not against large groups, but on gw2 they look far more
clueless just spamming 1 key and roolling to avoid auto atack mostly.

It certainly can be that way in WvW. But one can also be more creative and go in small havoc groups with friends and just run around and disrupt things, take on small roaming groups, etc. The zerging mentality has been around since the start of mmorpgs with WvW/RvR, and the mechanics don’t seem to matter much to that mentality. Jmo, of course.

Oh man, the potential for WvW is huge.

For Borderlands:

To take a tower, you must first take and hold two adjacent supply camps. To take a keep, you must take and hold two adjacent towers.

For EB:

Same as the borderlands with the addition that you must capture and hold the keep of faction claiming the castle, and capture and hold the two towers closest to the castle of that same faction, in order to take the castle.

There, it’s not as much of zergs going in circles. You actually have to defend, not only for the sake of keeping it from you enemy but you must also defend in order to take more.

Nage.1520:

Phy.2913:

Nage.1520:

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

Rift has a holy trinity. Rift has zergs.

Rift also has real raid content and endgame.

Which is completely irrelevant to what is being said here. Someone said the reason zerging exists in this game is that there is no trinity. Rift has a trinity and zergs, so the premise is wrong.

And yeah, Rift has real raids. They were very (snore) challenging). You learned them, you geared up, and you moved onto the next raid like every other crappy raiding game.

If you like raids, you can play Rift. I hear it’s free to play now. Some of us are here because we don’t enjoy raiding and think raiding is boring and annoying. It certainly didn’t feel challenging to me.

Zergs in Rift, or any other game, happen on easy content. Zergs fail when content requires strategy, and then they come to the forums and cry because it’s too hard.

Deamhan.9538:

Oh man, the potential for WvW is huge.

For Borderlands:

To take a tower, you must first take and hold two adjacent supply camps. To take a keep, you must take and hold two adjacent towers.

For EB:

Same as the borderlands with the addition that you must capture and hold the keep of faction claiming the castle, and capture and hold the two towers closest to the castle of that same faction, in order to take the castle.

There, it’s not as much of zergs going in circles. You actually have to defend, not only for the sake of keeping it from you enemy but you must also defend in order to take more.

Agreed. You do see some zergs that just do the circle runs, but most of the zergs in WvW I have run with do it somewhat the way that you post about, which is a lot more interesting, imo.

Deamhan.9538:

Oh man, the potential for WvW is huge.

For Borderlands:

To take a tower, you must first take and hold two adjacent supply camps. To take a keep, you must take and hold two adjacent towers.

I regret being negative to a constructive suggestion, but in that case all that is required for the defensive side is to travel as a Zerg and wipe one third of the attacking team’s forces at a camp. Off peak on low pop servers would be interesting.

I would like to see it play tested, but really I could see it causing more angst than joy.

Phy.2913:

Nage.1520:

Phy.2913:

Nage.1520:

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

Rift has a holy trinity. Rift has zergs.

Rift also has real raid content and endgame.

Which is completely irrelevant to what is being said here. Someone said the reason zerging exists in this game is that there is no trinity. Rift has a trinity and zergs, so the premise is wrong.

And yeah, Rift has real raids. They were very (snore) challenging). You learned them, you geared up, and you moved onto the next raid like every other crappy raiding game.

If you like raids, you can play Rift. I hear it’s free to play now. Some of us are here because we don’t enjoy raiding and think raiding is boring and annoying. It certainly didn’t feel challenging to me.

Zergs in Rift, or any other game, happen on easy content. Zergs fail when content requires strategy, and then they come to the forums and cry because it’s too hard.

Ergo it’s not the trinity or lack of trinity that forms zergs. However, there are things in Guild Wars 2 where zerging doesn’t really work (such as the three headed wurm and the marionette). Hell even zerging Teq doesn’t work if the right people aren’t on guns.

It’s because there are no diminishing returns. When the same amount of loot is shared by more people, each person gets less so people want to split up. When loot is duplicated for each additional person such that everyone gets their own drop, people want to group up, the more the merrier, so the weak can ride on the coattails of the strong. This was always the case in GW2, megaservers only made it more obvious. But there were already zergs in WvW, FGS, world bosses and Queensdale.

The only times at the moment where people DON’T want a zerg are when this does not hold true. There are three instances – 1: Lyssa, where the champion gorillas she spawns at a rate of ~1/15 people make large zergs simply large graveyards while 3 men can kill her in 4 minutes. 2: Shatterer siegeweapon collection pre, where more people scales up the siegeweapon requirement but doesn’t increase the number of mobs sufficiently such that it can be soloed in 45 seconds but takes a zerg 6 minutes to complete. 3: WvW camp raiding, when adding people doesn’t increase capture efficiency at all, but removes people from the tower/keep assault teams (or parallel camp assault teams) leading to lower points per hour. And in all three cases, a lot of players who are ignorant of the mechanic try to zerg anyway and get hated on by those who do know about it.

But since cooperative play is part of the GW2 design philosophy in the first place, this is unlikely to ever change, even though it is the cause for the zerg.

Therefore, get used to zergs, or change a game. If you want a challenge, go solo champions in nonzerg maps. There are still a few that people don’t want to fight even though there is a high population on that map. Sector Zuhl’s Champion Destroyer Troll for instance.

Trinity is irrelevant, it’s funny how people are even taking that seriously.

Deamhan.9538:

Oh man, the potential for WvW is huge.
For Borderlands:

To take a tower, you must first take and hold two adjacent supply camps. To take a keep, you must take and hold two adjacent towers.

For EB:

Same as the borderlands with the addition that you must capture and hold the keep of faction claiming the castle, and capture and hold the two towers closest to the castle of that same faction, in order to take the castle.

There, it’s not as much of zergs going in circles. You actually have to defend, not only for the sake of keeping it from you enemy but you must also defend in order to take more.

Sure, but only under three conditions:

1. Remove EBG SMC as a map-completion objective. Hell, remove the whole of World vs World as a map-completion objective. People who want it are forced to run around pointlessly to get random PoIs, doing absolutely nothing for the war effort and taking up a player slot on the limited WvW map. The idea of putting WvW as map completion was bad from the start – but under what you’re proposing, SMC will basically never be taken after the first capture on the weekly reset, making it plain impossible to map those points. Having a world badge requirement for a legendary is ok, making people run on maps without helping their world is NOT ok.

2. Rewards must be improved for defending a keep and tower. Not as high-tier as actually capturing one, but it must be far better than what it is now. Put a couple empyreal fragments and dragonite ore randomly in an event chest box together with a chance for rares+ people can get from the sidebar once a defense is complete. This reward should scale by amount of enemy players in an area, so 60 vs 60 tower defenders should get 50-75% of the reward one would get by capturing it. It needs to be lower so people don’t camp towers all day, but not so abysmally low that people don’t bother to defend. Scale this reward down if the defense event is failed but still participated in. Sidebar is important, because the reward must still be attainable even if the player dies in the process of fighting.

3. Scale rewards by world score. Worlds with lower score should give players more personal rewards for defense and conquest, worlds with higher score should have less. This not only encourages people to hop to less populated worlds, but also encourages people who are already losing to fight on instead of simply giving up.

Nage.1520:

Phy.2913:

Nage.1520:

Phy.2913:

Nage.1520:

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

Rift has a holy trinity. Rift has zergs.

Rift also has real raid content and endgame.

Which is completely irrelevant to what is being said here. Someone said the reason zerging exists in this game is that there is no trinity. Rift has a trinity and zergs, so the premise is wrong.

And yeah, Rift has real raids. They were very (snore) challenging). You learned them, you geared up, and you moved onto the next raid like every other crappy raiding game.

If you like raids, you can play Rift. I hear it’s free to play now. Some of us are here because we don’t enjoy raiding and think raiding is boring and annoying. It certainly didn’t feel challenging to me.

Zergs in Rift, or any other game, happen on easy content. Zergs fail when content requires strategy, and then they come to the forums and cry because it’s too hard.

Ergo it’s not the trinity or lack of trinity that forms zergs. However, there are things in Guild Wars 2 where zerging doesn’t really work (such as the three headed wurm and the marionette). Hell even zerging Teq doesn’t work if the right people aren’t on guns.

Ergo, zergs fail when strategy is required. GW2 lacks open world mobs/bosses/areas that require strategy. Strategy that could easily be added with the introduction of a real threat mechanic, which would mean tanks, which then means healers. Instead, we have complicated encounters set on strict dps timers.

I actually think Anet is working hard to get rid of these problems. I think one of the things they did was made it so in PVP everyone gets same points regardless of their role.

Because Anet doesn’t want to make more hard core encounters…Tequatl came oxxx god it’s tooo hard…Worm came oxxx GoD it’s again toooo hard….And now that boss has been nerfed to the ground.It’s like Anet doesn’t like to add things for the hard core player base.
Good that atleast TA Aether Path is still not nerfed.

Zergs are a direct result of “everyone gets rewarded/loot.”

Remove unlimited shared loot, and zergs will disappear really quickly when 95% of the zerglings don’t get anything for zerging.

Limited shared loot is fine. For example, a total of up to 5 players being rewarded for an event/mob that was designed for 1 player. Total of up to 10 players being rewarded for event/mob that was designed for 5 players to tackle, etc. A reasonable spread of of players being rewarded. However, it should not be unlimited players being rewarded for an event/mob that was designed for 1 player.

First time facing the shatterer last night. It was ruined by the lack of challenge and mindless zerging. Also the great amount of lag that comes with it. I was very disappoint.

It’d be way more awesome to fight with just a couple of people.

Actually how awesome would it be if we could get our own instanced zones that we could invite people to if we wanted. Just you and a few friends or guild mates try and take on a world boss. Maybe not the whole zone but just the area where you encounter the boss. Like how there are out of bounds areas for story missions and such. I think it could make great end game content if it was really difficult. Give it a better reward system. OH yeah and it could utilize agony from fractals! Giving Agony resistance more meaning!

Another thing. These bloody insta-kill moves are bullkitten. I’d accept the mechanic if it was one of those don’t stand in the red circle too long things but these things are just instant. Probably some form of zerg control which makes it worse. Does not promote skill play. It does not make it feel challenging at all.

I like the battle system in this game but it feels like it’s being under utilized.

Argh I feel like we are all ants swarming some larger bug! Sick of the cluster kitten of particle effects! Exclamation mark!

Because Anet hasn’t really made any content in PVE that requires mechanics. If you make an open world event that is difficult and can scale up to 150 people, and requires people to do more than zerging, it probably won’t get done. Thats like wurm pre-patch. Its quite sad. Also, I think Anet really underestimated the skill of their players. They still seem to be under the impression the game is run by casuals who can only level up 2 times a week.

The best way to fix the zerging problem IMO is make fights have multiple completion levels. You can be a braindead zerghead about it and autoattack your way through, but you will only get through the first stage of the event and will fail. The highest completion level is achieved by much more complicated mechanics. Anet did do this recently with the citizens of LA event. It was quite a good idea. They also did it with the wurm. Escape from LA was probably the best meta-event theyve added because it successfully incentivized people to split up.

I hate to say it…

But zerging/herding will happen literally no matter what content is added and good lord, no, do not add the “more people = less loot” tactic. That leads to some brutally nasty and toxic environments. Look at That World MMO From A Company That Shall Not Be Named – only one person gets the big loot in the dungeons and that often leads to the other players berating whomever won the “need or greed” roll. Do you want to be the person who runs over to help a small group only to be verbally assaulted because you cost them a loot bag?

One of the problems with zergs and anything similar would be, for example, the champ wolfmaster in wayfarer which is a level 1-15 zone intended for starting players or new low level characters. This champ often is killed very shortly after he spawns each time so currently it would be difficult for someone to get to enjoy fighting him. I solod him on my thief a while back, got lucky nobody was there to kill him fast but it was fun.

In FOTM there are certain areas where team work is required and it’s not just a simple auto attack 1 spam and move on. I think Anet should add some of these world bosses to smaller scaled instances or just find a way to instance them for maybe 15-20 people rather than have 100-150 people afk’ing, auto attacking, dying and not using the WP. Tequatl should be such an easy world boss even after the revamp yet it fails far too often because people afk, people die and lay there like something brain dead and do not use the WP.

While these people are laying there dead and not using the WP, they are not doing damage, they are not contributing to the fight and when people attempt to revive those that are down and not dead they will all too often accidently start reviving dead people meaning whoever is reviving these dead people on accident are not doing any damage to Teq. These things make such an easy fight fail far too often.

I don’t think there is much that can be done with the dragon and very large world bosses because if Anet made alternate versions inside of instances it would still be the same thing mostly. A big dragon is not going to move that much or do that much. The bulk of its offense will be from AOE or Mobs so even then the section of people on DPS would likely be standing still mostly aside from dodging anything needed.

FOTM is an example though that if Anet tries they can make enemies on the level of world boss type enemies completely doable with just 5 people. Maybe Anet could just make alternate versions of world bosses in an instanced environment where it requires maybe 15-20 players, that way people can enjoy a world boss with who they want to and increase the chances of it not failing thus have more fun. Anet could leave the world bosses also in the open world for those lazy people that would rather sit and let their character auto attack, loot, wp to the next world boss and repeat while providing alternatives for those that want to enjoy the game more.

Phy.2913:

Nage.1520:

Phy.2913:

Nage.1520:

Phy.2913:

Nage.1520:

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

Rift has a holy trinity. Rift has zergs.

Rift also has real raid content and endgame.

Which is completely irrelevant to what is being said here. Someone said the reason zerging exists in this game is that there is no trinity. Rift has a trinity and zergs, so the premise is wrong.

And yeah, Rift has real raids. They were very (snore) challenging). You learned them, you geared up, and you moved onto the next raid like every other crappy raiding game.

If you like raids, you can play Rift. I hear it’s free to play now. Some of us are here because we don’t enjoy raiding and think raiding is boring and annoying. It certainly didn’t feel challenging to me.

Zergs in Rift, or any other game, happen on easy content. Zergs fail when content requires strategy, and then they come to the forums and cry because it’s too hard.

Ergo it’s not the trinity or lack of trinity that forms zergs. However, there are things in Guild Wars 2 where zerging doesn’t really work (such as the three headed wurm and the marionette). Hell even zerging Teq doesn’t work if the right people aren’t on guns.

Ergo, zergs fail when strategy is required. GW2 lacks open world mobs/bosses/areas that require strategy. Strategy that could easily be added with the introduction of a real threat mechanic, which would mean tanks, which then means healers. Instead, we have complicated encounters set on strict dps timers.

What it would mean is most people would avoid that content. That’s what it would mean. The dungeons run most often by most people are the fastest. It’s nice that some people are uber l33t and want to have really hard and challenging content that requires an organized group. There is some of that stuff in the game. The percentage of people that does those things, historically in most MMOs, is very small.

So the option for any developer is to make super hard stuff for a small percentage of people who want it, or make stuff for the majority.

In case you haven’t noticed it, MMOs are getting more and more simplified all the time. There has to be a reason for that.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t welcome more challenging content, but I can certainly understand why there isn’t more of it. TA Aetherblade path is my favorite dungeon in the game. But very few people run it.

It’s simply a by-product.

In this game you don’t go for specific items but you grind gold to buy your items. This is related to them wanting to sell gems.
See: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-rethink-the-whole-reward-system/first#post3953185
and:  https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/A-focus-on-micro-transactions/first

So if you don’t need to go do specific content or to a specific place to get the item you need but you need gold (or another currency) then the way to get it is by getting as much (pretty good) loot as possible so you can sell that for gold. Then zerging is one of the more likely ways to get that.

Phy.2913:

Nage.1520:

Lankybrit.4598:

Zergs are simply a by-product of:

No Holy Trinity.

Simple as that.

Rift has a holy trinity. Rift has zergs.

Rift also has real raid content and endgame.

Why can’t Arena Net balance out open world zerging with “elite hardcore” instances?

Aoe max targets.

Do you not know what MMO stands for? That’s your answer. So much complaint
about such little issues. Relax and enjoy the game! If there are things you don’t care for, don’t play.

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.

marvelous. Let´s forget all the flaws in there which I will ascribe to some teenage misunderstanding of history, biology and sociology for a moment – and my unwillingness to even consider some forum tough guy could beat up even one, let alone a group of street thugs: In a setting where zerging/mass combat is possible, of cause even strong types would benefit and use it to their advantage, one hero + 1000 scrubs > one hero.

Teon.5168:

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.

Yeah, in RIFT we also had big zergs on World Events, and that game has a trinity.

The only real anti-zerg mechanism would be what EQ2 had : locked-encounters.
That meant as sound as you pull a mob nobody else can fight against that mob that is not in your group.
However with the time people complained that its too restrictive because you can’t help others when you see they are in danger, and later we got an option to disable locked encounters.
Next was, that a formerly very hard boss that gave a flying carpet mount, was suddenly zerged by more than 1 group

I did Jormag the other day for the first time since feature pack. It was ridiculous, I had to turn my settings on best performance dispite having an i5-3570, 8gb ram and GTX670 which can run Battlefield 4 on max no problem. I couldn’t see a thing because of the amount of names, 3/4’s of the players weren’t even displaying because I had to turn the settings down and because Jormag scales up to the number of players, he was a lot harder than usual despite having 10x more people pounding him, I can only assume that half of them had never done it before.

Compared to the time when 10-15 of us took him down with 20 seconds to go it was a bit rubbish to be honest.

Devata.6589:

It’s simply a by-product.

In this game you don’t go for specific items but you grind gold to buy your items. This is related to them wanting to sell gems.
See: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-rethink-the-whole-reward-system/first#post3953185
and:  https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/A-focus-on-micro-transactions/first

So if you don’t need to go do specific content or to a specific place to get the item you need but you need gold (or another currency) then the way to get it is by getting as much (pretty good) loot as possible so you can sell that for gold. Then zerging is one of the more likely ways to get that.

This

TheDaiBish.9735:

Fixed for you

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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.

Whilst I can see where you’re coming from with this idea, what we most certainly don’t need is more events that make players hostile towards other players.

To take the Shatterer example, consider the prerequisite event where you have to collect siege weapons. I frequently see players abused on the new Megaserver system when more than one or two people go to do this event. Why? Because it quickly scales up to require a much larger number of siege weapons, and players want the event to go quickly.

Your idea would foster exactly the same kind of negative mindset. Players would abuse other players for showing up and making the fight harder. Griefers would show up purposely to make the fight harder, same as they do now at Lyssa.

Turgut.4397:

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 will now reveal a terrible truth to you. It has always been so. Even in the most hardcore games you can think of, in the end majority of players will try to look for the easiest way to accomplish their goals. The only reason you don’t see endgame raids in other games being zerged by swarms of autoattacking drones is because those games don’t give that option.

Galen.9042:

Whilst I can see where you’re coming from with this idea, what we most certainly don’t need is more events that make players hostile towards other players.

To take the Shatterer example, consider the prerequisite event where you have to collect siege weapons. I frequently see players abused on the new Megaserver system when more than one or two people go to do this event. Why? Because it quickly scales up to require a much larger number of siege weapons, and players want the event to go quickly.

Your idea would foster exactly the same kind of negative mindset. Players would abuse other players for showing up and making the fight harder. Griefers would show up purposely to make the fight harder, same as they do now at Lyssa.

1) I’d say that’s an issue with the player mentality,, and not the game design. Personally I don’t think game design should suffer because of the people who want easy rewards.

In the case this did ever get implemented, what do you think would happen to them people shouting abuse? They’d simply move on to other areas, leaving those who actually want to play the encounters.

2) I’m not talking about making the event harder as more people come along. I’m talking about making the event equally difficult for any number of players. So the difficulty for 100 players will be equal to the difficulty for 10 players. The thing is, if the mechanics scaled, they could cut down on how the health scales, since the mechanics, the actual parts of the game design with game-play value, would serve as the component to keep the encounter from getting too easy.

In this case, the only thing that makes it harder than it should be are the players.

Astralporing.1957:

Turgut.4397:

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 will now reveal a terrible truth to you. It has always been so. Even in the most hardcore games you can think of, in the end majority of players will try to look for the easiest way to accomplish their goals. The only reason you don’t see endgame raids in other games being zerged by swarms of autoattacking drones is because those games don’t give that option.

Perhaps I worded it wrong. I didn’t mean human nature as a whole, just the nature of games today which reward laziness. The current generation of games are so easy, it’s not worth spending ridiculous amounts of up to £50-60 per new copy, only to burn through it in a couple of hours. Games used to really test people back in the day, now it’s moved onto catering for the ultra-casual and lazy.

This game offers easy reward for minimum effort. World bosses, champ trains, and pre-nerf CoF p1 spam. Sometimes the game influences no effort rather than the players themselves.

Because MMOs were totally meant for solo play. True facts brah. >_<

Astralporing.1957:

Turgut.4397:

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 will now reveal a terrible truth to you. It has always been so. Even in the most hardcore games you can think of, in the end majority of players will try to look for the easiest way to accomplish their goals. The only reason you don’t see endgame raids in other games being zerged by swarms of autoattacking drones is because those games don’t give that option.

That’s not completely true. People want hard fun content and get rewarded for it. But if there is an easy way out to get the reward people will likely pick he easy way out. In general I don’t get a special mini from a special boss, I just buy it for gold (that’s the case for most mini’s) so I am not rewarded for the skills of killing that boss.

But that’s pretty much what I said before. If gold is so important zerging is one of the by-products. Put specific items behind specific content and people will do that specific content if they like that item. Another person who likes another item does other content. They collect all the stuff they like and so they keep playing different types of content for a long time. In that way zerging becomes less.

“As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

GW 2 Manifesto

Hm, everyone doing the same thing… check. Bosses that spawn or go away on a schedule regardless of player or NPC action… check. So much for a living world.

R.I.P. Guild Wars 2 Manifesto.

SirMoogie.9263:

“As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

GW 2 Manifesto

Hm, everyone doing the same thing… check. Bosses that spawn or go away on a schedule regardless of player or NPC action… check. So much for a living world.

R.I.P. Guild Wars 2 Manifesto.

Funny enough in many mmo’s that not so much the case. One person is busy to get that special skin, (and for that he needs to be in some god-forgotten place, so when you would walk by you see this one guy doing his thing) another one is trying to get a mount, another one it trying to get a mini .

Another one is levelling, another one is doing his crafts so he is gathering materials.

That brings us then back to GW2 and the gold / currency focus.

The guy that wants that special skin does not need to go to that god-forgotten place, he just needs gold. Same for the guy that wants a mini or a dye or a weapon or a skin or armour and even for crafting gold is the best way to go. That leaves a few things like levelling, PvP and WvW. When levelling you indeed tend to do the same event multiple times making them feel completely useless and not having any effect. At least the traditional quest where one time only per char so it feels like you indeed completed it and so achievement something. Every time you walk buy an NPC you helped he thanks you for your help.

A:

Casuals.

Sirendor.1394:

A:

Casuals.

It has nothing to do with casuals. What would casual players like to do? They also like to go for items, my standard examples of mini’s would fit here as well. Where a hardcore gamer might want to kill a hard boss at first or want to get the best armour or want to kill as many players as possible a casual gamer is more interested in the PvE part. He wants to get that mini or the Legendary skin. Content might still be hard as long as he does not first have to grind a long time to get the needed armour. A casual player might also not play daily so not temporary available stuff. Yes some might not want to do the hard stuff and some might but then he just does the stuff that’s not to hard. However many casual gamers don’t mind it to be hard. It are still PC-gamers who go and sit behind a PC to play the game. Not a console gaming who lays on the sofa and just want to relax.

So no, it’s not because of casual players and really, this game is very casual gamer unfriendly.

SirMoogie.9263:

“As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

GW 2 Manifesto

Hm, everyone doing the same thing… check. Bosses that spawn or go away on a schedule regardless of player or NPC action… check. So much for a living world.

R.I.P. Guild Wars 2 Manifesto.

I sure feel like a hero when I somehow manage to tag the poor creature before 6 (or a hundred) other loot hungry scavengers tear it apart.

Question I want to ask is there any way a large group players 50+ doing any thing, open world PvE, WvW and not be considered a Zerg? Or will they always be considered a Zerg?
Remember those movies with large scale battles, looks kinda cool sometimes, isn’t that just a big Zerg fight?

Whenever the crowd makes it impossible to use coherent tactics due to chaos, we may call it a zerg. WvW clashes are mostly series of lags, skill delays and random outcomes.

Devata.6589:

That’s not completely true. People want hard fun content and get rewarded for it. But if there is an easy way out to get the reward people will likely pick he easy way out. In general I don’t get a special mini from a special boss, I just buy it for gold (that’s the case for most mini’s) so I am not rewarded for the skills of killing that boss.

No… they really don’t. They want easy and rewarding. You can go through any MMO, and find the same phenomenon; the more challenging the content is, the fewer people will play it. Endgame raids will on average host about 5% of your player base.

Challenge is a terrible motivator for the MMO market as a whole. They will always seek the path of least resistance, and nothing you do outside of forcing them to take on tougher challenge to get what they want will change that.

But nowadays, trying to force them down a challenging path, with the number of MMOs out there nowadays… they’ll just quit and go somewhere else that gives them an easy road. Arena.net has to cater to this crowd; they have no other choice.

BobbyT.7192:

Question I want to ask is there any way a large group players 50+ doing any thing, open world PvE, WvW and not be considered a Zerg? Or will they always be considered a Zerg?
Remember those movies with large scale battles, looks kinda cool sometimes, isn’t that just a big Zerg fight?

Yeah when people talk about zerging they meanly talk about huge group of people doing something together. And that can be fun. Problem many people have is that is the answer for everything and often there are no good alternatives.

Big battles can be fun but so is tactic. People don’t like it that zerging wins from tactics. Lets take WvW as an example. I can upgrade a keep and have all walls at 100% and places siege weapons inside. but if there are only a few people inside and a big zerg is coming by it will only slow them a little down.

Zerg VS zerg could also be fun but that is now just a blob of people. Collision detection for players would be a solution for that (but then you need flying mounts).

Turgut.4397:

Games used to really test people back in the day, now it’s moved onto catering for the ultra-casual and lazy.

Ah, you see, maybe it’s because games are not a sport, but an entertainment. As such, i don’t want them to test me. I want them to entertain me for long enough that i can consider what i paid for them a money well spent. A hard, but short game is way less interesting for me than an easy one with a good and long story, or one where i can disengage my mind and just have some fun for an hour or two after work. Especially after work, when i am already tired and would really hate for the game to tire me even more.

Short answer: Because that’s what ANet wants to.
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/4032636 from 24:00 to 25:00 makes it clear.

I can’t see the point, however, on having the combat system designed and balanced for small scale PvP if their features are not going to properly work for the main focus of the game.
The game could have worked without sPvP; it could even have worked without Dungeons… The game wouldn’t be for me, that’s for sure, but at least it would deliver a much better game experience to the playerbase it’s aimed at.

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.

Uh…life, finds away.

Also 5 person AoE effect

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?

+1.

It’s a lot better than the alternative where only your group gets credit for a kill. Wanna go back to sitting in a boss queue? Stand and watch 5 groups before yours kill a boss and then go when it’s your turn only to have a stealthy character come in and steal the first tag? How about that thing where you are fighting a mob next to a node and someone just starts harvesting the node they know perfectly well you were going to get while you are in a fight?

I will take GW2’s design all day, every day over that stuff. People complain for months that the game is dead and now that there are people everywhere, other people want it to be a ghost town. ArenaNet can’t win.