Guild Wars 2

In wvw before this “squad” thing people could only have 15 people in party and this kept groups smaller and allowed more skill oriented fights in wvw. My question is : Is this Squad UI thing hurting wvw by encouraging blobbing. (Now groups run way way bigger and the fights don’t seeem to have skill in them as much, but maybe i’m wrong or not seeing it the right way)

yea

Used to be a war all over the map, now only where commanders are.

Hard to say, but imagine it did help a little. Server links and increase of total population is why wvw is now blob wars.

One thing about squads I would like to see is the ability to hide tag from public in wvw.. So that you still have a squad leader and people in the squad can see the tag, but people outside the squad cant see it.

Its been like that ever since the commander tag first appeared. Having a squad just makes the group running with the tag more ‘efficient’. If you want to get rid of this, you might suggest to get rid of the commander tag instead.

No, there were always blobs however making squads smaller can only help and it has been suggested in the past that squads be smaller numbers.

No.

15 characters………

Squads or not, blobbers will blob anyway.

Blobbing has and will always happen in WvW. The squad tool allows guilds to more easily coordinate. The problem is that it is too convenient to blob-to-win. As long as blobs are the easy way to win there will be blobs.

Way back when, you would see guild groups ~20-ish all over maps. Sadly this has lessened as certain tools have made it harder for zergbusting guilds to, ya know, bust zergs.

The karma blob IS the essence of WvW.

Without it, WvW lacks a back bone. It feels empty and boring. Then once you have the karma blob you can start to build all the other parts around it like : defending, roaming, scouting, zerg busting and etc.

I don’t understand all those talks that want to get rid of the karma blob. There is no WvW without it. If you find a way to get rid of it, WvW will simply disappear.

When people break off into smaller groups and use other advantages to supplement their numbers then people complain about them using siege or walls. There’s different sized groups out there and I notice that normally if I have some evading utilities the blob doesn’t care enough to chase for long and I can look for something else to fight.

Kinda. I do like the aspect of finding a smaller group that is connected to the main tag as I like the smaller scale/roamer scene. The main tag at least knows x small group is taking y tower.

I just wish I could block the squad invites, it’s constant when I just want to roam and be left alone.

Yeah, squads which encourage blobs hurt wvw for sure. It’s beyond me why they are in wvw blobbing away. Do they think blobbing on 4 huge maps, designed for hundreds of players to fight on, is the correct playstyle? It’s not like the devs wanted an epic war zone or anything with massive player battles…

^ this pretty much. Rather than hurt wvw i think this is how the gamemode is supposed to be played. Epic fights between large numbers of players. “Blobbing” is more often than not the excuse of having lost to higher numbers.

Wow ….. quite a few people complained that they did not like the other map because you couldn’t blob and have massive fights ……. Now we have people complaining about blobs?

PyrateSilly.4710:

Wow ….. quite a few people complained that they did not like the other map because you couldn’t blob and have massive fights ……. Now we have people complaining about blobs?

Blobs in realm vs realm vs realm is so sad.

Not everyone should be forced to join a guild, even then most guilds may run 25+ using squads to organize stuff better.

/popcorn.

There are real issues at stake but this one is funny.

Psychology 101: If players see a number x/50, they will assume that anything under 50/50 is not a full squad. Hence the goal is to reach 50/50.

@OP Yes & No. Squads allow people to organize and structure group play. They are fine that way, the issue is the mindless drones that just jump into wvw and mindlessly follow a tag. Which has been there way before squads.

To some of the people going on that ktrains/omni blobs are good for wvw:

WvW is about fighting players for objectives. Large group fighting is intended and bound to happen. Which is the essence of wvw.

What a lot of people seem to confuse is large blobs/fights with ktrains. Ktrains have almost nothing to with wvw or pvp for that matter. They are about playing PVE/PVD/PVW as efficiently as possible. How can you even suggest that that is healthy or the essence of wvw.

Ktrains imho will be the death of wvw. Why?

• Because they force anet to balance the loot across the board of wvw, generally making it not rewarding in all other aspects.
• Ktrains pretty much don’t fight, they just passively go from objective to objective and only fight if forced to or have a clear number advantage.
• When a Ktrain dies it looses all it’s steam. Many players just up and leave because their free meal ticket is over.
• They are uninteresting to fight, there is no skill involved from both sides just mass amounts of spam. I cannot for the life of me ever remember a time I was in a pug blob and said, wow I/we got outplayed.
• They are oppressive. There is little you can do when outnumbered and the only two counters everyone complains about ( bunker down with siege, & counter train).
• When people decide its time to counter blob, it takes everyone out of things that are actual skilled/cordinated play, this such as scouting, roaming/havok, and supply management all go out the window because ktrain!

All the above that ktrains do, in wvw make it binary & one dimensional. Which is uninteresting and makes people quit. It hurts the rest of the game mode in so many ways. People know this, and it’s why EoTM is considered a joke of wvw because it’s all it is.

I don’t understand, you only have 5 in a party before. People can still follow your tag regardless of the squad UI.

The only difference is squad UI allow the commander to easily arrange the party, so even guilds want to use the squad UI at the risk of having pugs following them. Though they could run tagless by leaving and rejoining the squad just to remove the squad leader thing.

Squad UI or not, there is no difference now and before. People can choose to follow your tag or not, otherwise, just run tagless.

morrolan.9608:

No, there were always blobs however making squads smaller can only help and it has been suggested in the past that squads be smaller numbers.

No. Squads have VERY little to do with blobbing..
What anet needs to do is give an edge to smaller groups against blobs in terms of fighting strength.

Blobs should have the upper hand in terms of PPT, a blob will be able to flip objectives faster and deploy more siege.
Smaller SKILLED groups should have the upper hand in terms of fighting vs a blob.
This way there is a down and an up side to each.

Most casual wvw’ers wants to have a bit of fun and reward. Blobing will always happen due to Ktrain. Ktrain blobs are good coz they are a good source of bags for a real well organized smaller blob.

Players blobbed just as much before the Squad UI.

ANet built a game mode that rewards capturing objectives and added a giant “go here” arrow to collect said rewards. Players see very little reward from leaving a tag. Players see very few rewards upgrading or defending.

If anyone wonders why blobbing is so prevalent, this is why in my opinion. Even worse the rewards for capturing an easy objective are the same for a difficult one. IMO this is why PvD has been prevalent for so long as well.

We had regularly scheduled EBG karma trains in 2012 tier 8. The goal was to assemble while the opponents were offline, or avoid them if they chased.

The date on this song is Jan 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vIoGp3R7ZI

Welcome to GW2 WvW.

</thread>

No blobs were there before. You can go back thru older forum posts and you will see over time there have been requests for options to combat the blob or zerg option.

This is actually one of the reasons that the desert borderland was made with more spread out structures to try and encourage people to spread out versus run in a zerg/blob.

The other upcoming change that might impact this is the 5 minute PPT tick. If you think about with the 5 minute timer it will benefit servers that are spreading out more that can take more objectives in a shorter time then servers that run in one mass. Will be fun to see how this plays out.

In short, no squad UI was a good change that could use additional changes but is going on the right direction, but zerging/blobing was around well before it.

Except for the part where WvW, as a game mode, is specifically designed to encourage and reward “blobs” by rewarding based on personal participation rather than map-wide victory conditions.

WvW was always designed around blob fights. Just because some blobs appear more skilled than others doesn’t change that. If people cared about controlling blobs they wouldn’t have complained so hard about the desert BLs, which were almost completely anti-blob maps.

Squads improved the game in more ways than you can imagine. There were always omni blobs long before squads were made available. Only difference now is guilds are so thin these days, you have less guild vs guild fights. Many guilds are struggling to field even 15 of their tags.

Also in the current meta, numbers > skill/gear/builds, so when one side out-zerg the other, everybody mass up and follow in order to compete. You just end up with blob vs blob fights because it’s the only way you have a chance at winning in the current meta. This meta is whack, it encourages blobbing.

As already stated, SQUAD ui is just that. An interface that makes organization (of something that existed already) a bit easier.

I think blobbing has been around since 1958: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdUsyXQ8Wrs

Party limit was 5 before and not 15. And no, Squads are a very good thing.