Guild Wars 2

The AoE caps ruins WvW. A small team can’t win against a zerg with that cap. A zerg can easily kill a small team but with AoE cap a small team will not do much at all against a zerg of 15+.

ArenaNet don’t know how to balance it out. If you remove AoE caps there will be less zerging.

Cap might also be there to prevent lag so there is that.

Fafnir.5124:

Cap might also be there to prevent lag so there is that.

This is mostly true. With the way the game is designed and multiple variables updated at near real-time, the AoE cap is there to put less stress on the client and server.

For example, if your Elementalist is channeling a Meteor Shower on a group of enemy players, and they gain Might from a nearby ally, that damage is near-instantly modified with the newly gained Power from Might. In one instance, that’s not bad; multiply that and it becomes a strain on bandwidth and processing power.

Most games only calculate the damage modifier at the start of the cast, but Guild Wars 2 calculates it in near real-time. In that light, the AoE cap makes sense. Unfortunately, from a meta gameplay standpoint, it favors large groups and hinders smaller ones. The only way this could be changed is if the code is streamlined and improved, which is far more difficult than the average gamer understands.

if there is no cap, then you’d be wiped by anything… How would you feel about uncapped earthshaker? or an uncapped engineer bomb? or an uncapped enemy guardian spamming stability? or an ele using uncapped geyser?

If you remove the AOE limit, you MUST remove the buff limit to make up for it, or else one will completely overpower the other in seconds. Removing the AOE limit will also force arenanet to quadruple the efficiency of healing skills and healing power scaling. Not to mention, if you remove the limit, all AOE DPS would have to be reduced by 60% or more to even make it remotely fair in “small scale vs big scale” fights.

This topic again?

Seriously… This been around for so long, along with downed state, that I don’t know why people still cry about it.

WvW have far bigger problems to deal with…

Zoid.2568:

The AoE caps ruins WvW. A small team can’t win against a zerg with that cap. A zerg can easily kill a small team but with AoE cap a small team will not do much at all against a zerg of 15+.

ArenaNet don’t know how to balance it out. If you remove AoE caps there will be less zerging.

Ohai! By my count, this is the 50th thread on this very topic! Well… I can’t really count, so I’ll assume.

Anyways, the AOE cap limit is due to server CPU calculation limits. Each “hit” requires a separate calculation to determine damage versus the target in question. With unlimited AOE caps, the sheer amount of calculations required for a zerg vs zerg combat would melt the chipsets. Best case scenario, you would have uber lag with 1 FPS.

On a side note, if you have skilled players, a group of 15 can wipe out a zerg. Maguuma has done that in the past, before our leaders quit to play a different game. So if you can’t take out a zerg that’s attacking you, you should try and recruit better players.

They could get around the cap by simply amplifying the AoE damage to the 5 targets it hits.

10 targets = 25% damage
15 targets = 50% damage
20 targets = 75% damage
25 targets = 100% damage
30 targets = 125% damage

and so on.. max of 50 targets capped at 200% increased damage. Yes the 5 unlucky people it hits will probably drop pretty quick, then when dead, another 5 targets get destroyed.

Realistically, this shouldn’t be that bad; it’s not often more than 20 people wander into an AoE circle at once unless they PVD’ing.

They at least need a substitute for uncapped AoE. Such as an AoE cluster bomb skill.

Cluster Bomb. Activation Time 1 sec. Recharge 40 sec. Set off a cluster bomb at target area. Damage scales according to number of opponents in AoE circle.

If 5 people in circle it amounts to not much damage. If 50 people in circle, massive damage.

Johje Holan.4607:

They at least need a substitute for uncapped AoE.

You mean like this? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arrow_cart

Thrashbarg.9820:

Johje Holan.4607:

They at least need a substitute for uncapped AoE.

You mean like this? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arrow_cart

No because that damage doesn’t scale. It hits 5 people as hard as fifty. And its basically spamable.

Edit. Changed 50 to fifty because spam filter changes "as"space"50" to kitten.

It’s funny to see people blaming the CPU calculation-limit for the AoE cap, when nowadays any I7 can perform mora than 6 billion process per second. I won’t even talk about server cpu.

We can discuss the network traffic (which is also a poor excuse), but, please, don’t blame the CPU. It’s just nonsense. It’s not the 90’s anymore.

EDITed to erase a mention to another game. Don’t wanna give the mods a excuse to lock the thread.

Think about it. If you think you can take out a zerg without the AoE cap, don’t you think a zerg can easily wipe you without AoE cap? that’s the reason it was removed in the first place, to give small teams like you a chance to fight with the zergs. You are underestimating the power of a large group without AoE cap. Have you WvW’d since the beginning?

The AoE skills are balanced around 5 targets at the moment. If you would want to increase the gap you would need to decrease the damage. A lot of the AoEs hit like a truck and theres a lot of pulsing ones.

AOE cap is the same in WvW as downed state; it’s handholding at its worst by anet.

The last thing they want is 5 good players standing any chance vs 20 windowlickers.

They will place as many artificial mechanics and hard counters in place to ensure this as possible.

Anyone that says a group of 5 would suffer due to such a change no idea. The 20man attacking us would hit the same but we could stand a chance if they all stop healing, don’t use reflects, all stand together with maybe some afk and have a chance to win.

yanniell.1236:

It’s funny to see people blaming the CPU calculation-limit for the AoE cap, when nowadays any I7 can perform mora than 6 billion process per second. I won’t even talk about server cpu.

We can discuss the network traffic (which is also a poor excuse), but, please, don’t blame the CPU. It’s just nonsense. It’s not the 90’s anymore.

EDITed to erase a mention to another game. Don’t wanna give the mods a excuse to lock the thread.

Because the server side CPU does more to process the game than just calculating AOE DPS?

The explanation was coming from the Devs themselves. I don’t know how they coded the game, but if there isn’t room for unlimited AOE, then all the complaining in the world won’t change that. Heck, it’s the same reason why they nerfed PvE items like Fire Ele Powders and Ogre Whistles and such.

Yeah, but it’s not just one cpu in one server. They have a cluster of servers, with the best cpu’s available today (at least we hope so). Trust me, removing the AoE cap, adding more than 5 players to be calculated within that red circle won’t make the cluster goes bananas, even if you count all the 51 servers. And if needed, they can always add more cpu power to their cluster.

I would settle for a AoE cap of 20ish anyway.

Johje Holan.4607:

Thrashbarg.9820:

Johje Holan.4607:

They at least need a substitute for uncapped AoE.

You mean like this? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arrow_cart

No because that damage doesn’t scale. It hits 5 people as hard kitten. And its basically spamable.

ACs actually hit 50 people… Its on the tooltip. L2read.

yanniell.1236:

Yeah, but it’s not just one cpu in one server. They have a cluster of servers, with the best cpu’s available today (at least we hope so). Trust me, removing the AoE cap, adding more than 5 players to be calculated within that red circle won’t make the cluster goes bananas, even if you count all the 51 servers. And if needed, they can always add more cpu power to their cluster.

I would settle for a AoE cap of 20ish anyway.

You say all this while knowing how well the game is currently optimized?

yanniell.1236:

Yeah, but it’s not just one cpu in one server. They have a cluster of servers, with the best cpu’s available today (at least we hope so). Trust me, removing the AoE cap, adding more than 5 players to be calculated within that red circle won’t make the cluster goes bananas, even if you count all the 51 servers. And if needed, they can always add more cpu power to their cluster.

I would settle for a AoE cap of 20ish anyway.

You do not have enough knowledge of the game engine/calculations or the distributed nature of their servers to make that claim.

As someone who works as a developer on distributed systems, not every calculation can be easily done on multiple cpus shared across multiple machines.

DeadlySynz.3471:

They could get around the cap by simply amplifying the AoE damage to the 5 targets it hits.

10 targets = 25% damage
15 targets = 50% damage
20 targets = 75% damage
25 targets = 100% damage
30 targets = 125% damage

and so on.. max of 50 targets capped at 200% increased damage. Yes the 5 unlucky people it hits will probably drop pretty quick, then when dead, another 5 targets get destroyed.

Realistically, this shouldn’t be that bad; it’s not often more than 20 people wander into an AoE circle at once unless they PVD’ing.

Thats a poor idea. 5 cap aoe is better because its more realistic. It would be stupid if one warrior could hundred blades 80 people and down them in 2 years.

ESO tried unlimited AoE. Apparently it didn’t work because it was patched quickly post-launch to a 6 target cap.

Capped aoe and downed benefit skilled groups far more than they benefit larger groups.

This thread shows some real proble of official forum.
So many misinformations.

The cap exists due to technical limitations of servers, expecially WWW.
It was already stated many times by developers.

There is no balance reason behind them.

Give outmanned buff unlimited AoE

Jeknar.6184:

Johje Holan.4607:

Thrashbarg.9820:

Johje Holan.4607:

They at least need a substitute for uncapped AoE.

You mean like this? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arrow_cart

No because that damage doesn’t scale. It hits 5 people as hard kitten. And its basically spamable.

ACs actually hit 50 people… Its on the tooltip. L2read.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scale

Scale: a succession or progression of steps or degrees

AC’s do not scale in their damage. They hit one person with the same amount of damage as they hit 50.

L2comprehend

Edit. Granted Anets filter changed “It hits 5 people as hard as fifty” to “as hard as kitten”.

Johje Holan.4607:

Jeknar.6184:

Johje Holan.4607:

Thrashbarg.9820:

Johje Holan.4607:

They at least need a substitute for uncapped AoE.

You mean like this? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arrow_cart

No because that damage doesn’t scale. It hits 5 people as hard kitten. And its basically spamable.

ACs actually hit 50 people… Its on the tooltip. L2read.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scale

Scale: a succession or progression of steps or degrees

AC’s do not scale in their damage. They hit one person with the same amount of damage as they hit 50.

L2comprehend

Edit. Granted Anets filter changed “It hits 5 people as hard as fifty” to “as hard as kitten”. But if you read my original post it should be clear.

Get a traited player on a superior AC.

Aeolus.3615:

Johje Holan.4607:

Jeknar.6184:

Johje Holan.4607:

Thrashbarg.9820:

Johje Holan.4607:

They at least need a substitute for uncapped AoE.

You mean like this? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arrow_cart

No because that damage doesn’t scale. It hits 5 people as hard kitten. And its basically spamable.

ACs actually hit 50 people… Its on the tooltip. L2read.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scale

Scale: a succession or progression of steps or degrees

AC’s do not scale in their damage. They hit one person with the same amount of damage as they hit 50.

L2comprehend

Edit. Granted Anets filter changed “It hits 5 people as hard as fifty” to “as hard as kitten”. But if you read my original post it should be clear.

Get a traited player on a superior AC.

If I understand correctly, the original topic was about eliminating the AoE cap because it hampers small teams vs. zergs. The reason is that a zerg of 50 can all blob up on top of each other and only 5 of them will take damage from an AoE. Combine that with the healing in that blob and basically they can stand in AoE and not even feel it.

AC’s in their current state do not combat that issue – they do not give the same result than an unlimited AoE cap and therefore they are not a substitute for an uncapped AoE. The reason is that AC hit everyone for the same amount of damage whether there are 5 or 20 or 50 people standing in the red circle. And a zerg can build more AC’s than a 5-person team or 20-person team and still have more people to actually fight.

Now the real issue is not necessarily the size of the zerg, but that they can all blob up and stand in the same place AND be safer than if they were to spread out. This goes contrary to logic, experience and common sense. And the reason they can do this is because of the 5-person cap on AoE.

Given that Anet cannot remove the 5-person cap from AoE for technical reasons, we need a substitute.

My suggestion would be a new Utility Skill that can be equipped by anyone. The skill would be a Blob Bomb. And it would scale in damage according to the number of people in the vacinity of its detonation. Just as an example:

Blob Bomb. Cast time 1 sec. Recharge 40 sec. Fire a Blob Bomb at target area. Damage scales with the number of enemies in the target area.

The damage would scale so that it would be usless against one person and scale up so that if 70 people are all stacked on top of each other they would take massive damage. (Anet would need to figure out the exact amout of scaling).

This would be a substitute for unlimited AoE. It would allow smaller teams to more effectively combat larger ones. It would introduce risk – reward into blobbing. If the 50 person team chooses to blob up, they can – but thats a risk they are taking.

It would also create incentive for people to spread out. It would add more elements of tactical play. And I think it would make the fights more fun.

I’d reroll a guardian and spam 1 on staff all day.. Maybe pop stability for my entire zerg once in a while.

Games like Darkfall, Planetside have fully real-time, aimed melee and projectiles, and they support many more players fighting in one area, and they don’t cap AOE in any way either. DAOC came out in 2005 and it also supported way more players in a single area before lagging and supported completely uncapped AOE.

I think most people would accept that the gameplay has really suffered for having such a low AOE cap as it has made zergballing the only effective way to play WVW, and together with other questionable game design choices like downed state, has dictated that zerg size is more important than player skill . Which really sucks. Hard.

So clearly something went wrong in the design and/or the implementation. I would really struggle to believe that they originally designed the game to have an AOE cap — it’s a bandaid to save on network bandwidth and/or server cycles.

Either way, badly implemented server is badly implemented.

Coldtart.4785:

<sarcasm>Capped aoe and downed benefit skilled groups far more than they benefit larger groups.</sarcasm>

Fixed that for ya!

Caps are there for technical reasons I believe. Idk why but ANet crafted a terribly inefficient netcode for their MMO.

But if it’s blobbing you’re wondering about, Guardians and Warrior Warhorns are just as much to blame for that as the cap.

The AoE cap has always been one of those things that I am conflicted on, mostly because I can think of extremes where things can get pretty messy.

To start with, the boon cap being in place is… really useful. As an engineer in WvW, I get hit by retaliation really hard. Now, without the boon cap, a single guardian could give an entire zerg retaliation. If I hit, say, 30 guys with 5 grenades, that comes to 150 ticks in an instant… I’m dead. So is everyone else who attacks this group. Get 30 people together with retal, and they’ll be unstoppable.

Second one is stealth. One of the reasons why veil is so useful is because it can bypass the limit, but it gives a very short amount of stealth. Imagine if you could give stealth to the entire zerg with just a few blasts… suddenly there is no “countering” a zerg because you’ll never see them coming.

Third one is haste. Time warp. That is all.

As for attacks, the most dangerous things are the stuff that don’t have big red rings, but just work as an AoE. For example, without a target limit, Life Transfer and Tainted Shackles would be unstoppable, since the combination of life force generation plus 600 radius damage means that a couple of zerker necros could wipe an entire zerg with just two attacks. If you think hammer trains are bad, remember that you can get out of the way of a hammer trains.

So, there has to be stipulations. You go with an arbitrary boon limit, or a heal limit, or a “special attack” limit where attacks have to be balanced around having limits hard baked into the attack. This is when complaints come in, where you have some classes complaining that they are nerfed too much, other classes saying they don’t get enough, and every person demanding to have the abilities of other classes.

If anything, I wouldn’t mind a trial period where the limit on offensive attacks is removed only, but it might be fun, but I still remain cautious about the whole thing.

Lack of friendly fire …if you can magically miss your friends accept that you can only hit a few.

Personally prefer friendly fire before higher caps .

Middzz.1490:

Lack of friendly fire …if you can magically miss your friends accept that you can only hit a few.

Personally prefer friendly fire before higher caps .

Friendly fire would be interesting. But I think people are too pansy and afraid of getting griefed or trolled.

Well I have been playing since the beginning in WvW, I have noticed all changes and I also noticed that ANet almost forced to do the changes known to many as “annoying”.
But that is just the problem if you are facing problems with lags,spikes etc.
When ANet gets control of the skill lag and spikes and rubber banding, then they can start thinking of all these things.
Ofcourse in an ideal situation they uncap skills so for example a warrior with hundred blades will attack an entire zerg and do damage to them all, like this was in GW1.

But let’s be realistic and stop whining because a 5-man group can’t win a 20-man group in the current situation.
This is all due to technical reasons.

At least what I am telling is what I am thinking.
Dont kitten on me and this post.
But my guts are telling me all these changes from beginning WvW untill now are just because technical issues.

And yes in my ideal GW2 WvW situation we get rid of borderlands and make 1 big WvW battle map where we all can play massive against each other without the cap on skills. So yes if I am defending a t3 tower with 4 of my guildies I expect to defend it against 30 players. The only way we can defend now is to supply trap the enemy and have enough siege in there so they won’t try PvD, and hold them untill the commander comes and whipe them… That in my eyes is no fun play at all, but I am still playing because I rely on technically not possible reason

gennyt.3428:

Coldtart.4785:

<sarcasm>Capped aoe and downed benefit skilled groups far more than they benefit larger groups.</sarcasm>

Fixed that for ya!

You would rather all large fights be random instant kills where the chance that someone on your team dies is proportional to the ratio of players your enemy has to the number of players you have?

You put an extra word in your complaint that isn’t necessary… should have read

“AoE ruins WvW”

I would bet two dozen donuts that if the devs had it to do all over again AoE usage would be chopped in half or more. The fact this game has so much AoE contributes to the massive amount of skill lag and unbalances entire professions so much so they put the cap in to alleviate the problem. AoE also has the distinction of being a relatively skill-less attack system. A monkey can work most heavy AoE classes.