Guild Wars 2

Hey,

I think, WvWvW, needs to be made a ton more strategic and else zergs(sigh) will dominate, forever. I mean have zergs(man i despise that label it’s from sc2) and also to stop unbalanced with zergs on Na and EU server from different timezones just overwhelming the over players.

My first one would be get rid of outman buff, of course it’s fun but it’s useless more or less, I’m not sure of the ratio it comes on but it just makes the pushing team with the … large army)zerg) ush more and the loosing time just now their outmanned and don’t stand a hell alot of chance winning a capture or a defence.

Now my ideas are quite new, Bring in army soldiers, yeah, NPCs what can fight along players and follow make them vets or even better some kind of champions this would stop a large unbalanced zerg from rushing and these npc commanders… would only follow into open battle. Bases are elft to player teams and the already exsitant NPC vets.

Secondly, that would hope quell large zergs..“sigh” steam rolling other teams who haven’t woke up yet. We need to quell zergs completely. how do we do this. We dont want to quell players. You put in a buff what in a sense debuffs players, just do it. Like some kind of uncertainty buff like they are unsure their lands are safe this would immediately quell zergs. Now what about for the other side make the buff scale more based on your amout of players to a point that the zergs will just die because it be a back and forth of debuffing of their attributes until they die and players realize that there’s no point in forming the kittenm thing. Now zergs are fun but more smaller ones, tactical ones.

Also you could add a uniqueWvWvW party system, very basic but do parties based on your keep so players can form up, like a 10 man basic UI party for example, and ten of us could have it, then rolling onto a second, this would quell alot of lag and bad fps. By having a zerg having to run around to charge the invaders

I mean I love wvw, and have played hours and hours in the hundreds off it and you get into zerg fights and you kind of have fun and you don’t remember that maybe something should change about it all. But here it is. More strategy, less mass 1 skill spams and more NPCs and less ambients creatures and red NPCs if you want to help quell the taxation on servers for the NPC commanders in open combat.

Thanks for listen, I will response to your criticisms and praise.

I disagree with any kind of suggestion that penalizes players just because there is x number in a certain area.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

I disagree with any kind of suggestion that penalizes players just because there is x number in a certain area.

I don’t. have any points why instead of just an disagreement.

I think a better solution would be to simply give bonuses for balanced combat and penalties for unbalanced. If a fight is 5/5 or 10/10 or 100/100, everyone involved gets X world xp. If the fight is 50/10, the side with 50 gets less world xp. The more severe the difference in numbers, the more severe the penalty/bonus.

Now – I don’t think this should be map-wide. It should be an area. So, if 100 people rush a tower that is only defended by 5 people, they get the tower; but they all get lower world XP. If, however, 10 or so break off the zerg to go cap the tower (instead of bringing the whole group), everyone gets full credit. Commanders would have the choice then to either break up their zerg a bit and send parties in different directions so that xp stays equal or continue with the zerg and handicap players’ leveling.

This would, in most cases, encourage more of a skirmish mentality that would benefit WvW in many ways (lag being one of them).

The details would have to be worked out, of course. But I think this is probably the best way to give players a choice. What do you want more? The map fast and easy or the map and the xp that goes with it?

Concerning the OP… i certainly do not support more AI in WvW. There are too many NPCs on the map already.

Liu.4751:

My first one would be get rid of outman buff, of course it’s fun but it’s useless more or less, I’m not sure of the ratio it comes on but it just makes the pushing team with the … large army)zerg) ush more and the loosing time just now their outmanned and don’t stand a hell alot of chance winning a capture or a defence.

Nope, just make the Outmanned Buff invisible to opposing servers. This has been suggested AT LEAST 1,000 on these forums, so far no progress on this as far as we know.

Liu.4751:

Now my ideas are quite new, Bring in army soldiers, yeah, NPCs what can fight along players and follow make them vets or even better some kind of champions this would stop a large unbalanced zerg from rushing and these npc commanders… would only follow into open battle. Bases are elft to player teams and the already exsitant NPC vets.

YES!!! I would wake up @ 3am and happily follow the zerg from map to map for hours if I knew that there would be an army of Veterans and Champions to farm for easy wxp & badges!

why do people continue to believe WvW is meant to be balanced? If you don’t have the numbers to compete with a larger group then don’t engage them. There are more ppl in large groups than small groups … so what that just means a majority of people like to run in large groups. really I like to run with my guild sometimes we can field 30 ppl sometimes we field 5 to 10. There are some guilds that field 50+ they are organized and in some sort of voice com. don’t QQ just because we want to play with our friends in large organized groups. I personally think if you don’t want to encounter large groups then go sPvP or PvE or…. log out.

ahn., Yeah that would work. If you split up the exp. How about get rid of loot. For battles more than 30 man? and differently get rid of loot for any outnumbered zerg battle. and add MORE loot and exp for defending of stuff and capping with lower number ins quads along with increased party capacity for parties to form. anet could amke wvw great but it’ not doing so.

The Goat.1940:

why do people continue to believe WvW is meant to be balanced? If you don’t have the numbers to compete with a larger group then don’t engage them. There are more ppl in large groups than small groups … so what that just means a majority of people like to run in large groups. really I like to run with my guild sometimes we can field 30 ppl sometimes we field 5 to 10. There are some guilds that field 50+ they are organized and in some sort of voice com. don’t QQ just because we want to play with our friends in large organized groups. I personally think if you don’t want to encounter large groups then go sPvP or PvE or…. log out.

That is a terrible idea and thought. Come back with better.

Liu – increased party size is brilliant. “Stack on me” would work much better with a party of 12 or so.

More XP for defending would be good, too. That would actually remove the constant headache of “what do you mean they didn’t siege up bay?!? They just capped it and ran off?!”

I just think those ideas have more potential to make WvW more strategic and beneficial to players IF they choose to go for the XP, rather than just zerg cap and run all day.

Lets face it it takes no skill to hit 1 and 2 maybe 345 in a 30-+ 40+ 50+ zerg. Scale down exp and loot (sorry farmers) when in a huge zerg and it discourages the mindless bashing, ad even to point where anymore than 20 is jsut worthless trategicly and for exp/loot rewards. This game isn’t designed to have. Do it, copy ahn here. God bless.

The goat. Your doing it again.. ??

How about an ‘overcrowded’ buff which increases cool down times if a massive number of people are in the same spot? Haven’t thought that through much, just off the top of my head.

Or… Friendly fire damage.

The Goat.1940:

why do people continue to believe WvW is meant to be balanced? If you don’t have the numbers to compete with a larger group then don’t engage them. There are more ppl in large groups than small groups … so what that just means a majority of people like to run in large groups. really I like to run with my guild sometimes we can field 30 ppl sometimes we field 5 to 10. There are some guilds that field 50+ they are organized and in some sort of voice com. don’t QQ just because we want to play with our friends in large organized groups. I personally think if you don’t want to encounter large groups then go sPvP or PvE or…. log out.

Sorry, but i 100% guarantee “zerging” is the ONLY form of pvp you have ever achieved success in. Once you can win fights without a zerg, actual solid pvper’s never go back to zerging. In fact the number relied upon to win fights decreases as skill increases. Otherwise, you wouldnt stick with your 20+. It’s like the FORD commercial “WRAP YOUR BRAIN AROUND THAT!”

The Goat.1940:

There are more ppl in large groups than small groups … so what that just means a majority of people like to run in large groups.

I somewhat disagree with this comment. If, for example, the AoE cap was removed, I guarantee you would see less zergs and more small groups. People like to run around in large groups because it is an easier way to take objectives. The more people, the quicker camp/tower/keep flips are. People like to run around in large groups because they are inexperienced PvPers. The more people around you, the less chance of you dying, the easier it is to kill foes. All you have to do is spam #1 and watch the loot bags drop. WvW is designed for the casual player, not the competitive PvPer. Unfortunately since s/tPvP has been in a state of disarray, many PvPers either quit or are playing in WvW. Hopefully with the new changes that ANet is making to s/tPvP it will give the competitive players what they are looking for, and make GW2 an e-sport which it was originally designed to be.

Jscull.2514:

The Goat.1940:

why do people continue to believe WvW is meant to be balanced? If you don’t have the numbers to compete with a larger group then don’t engage them. There are more ppl in large groups than small groups … so what that just means a majority of people like to run in large groups. really I like to run with my guild sometimes we can field 30 ppl sometimes we field 5 to 10. There are some guilds that field 50+ they are organized and in some sort of voice com. don’t QQ just because we want to play with our friends in large organized groups. I personally think if you don’t want to encounter large groups then go sPvP or PvE or…. log out.

Sorry, but i 100% guarantee “zerging” is the ONLY form of pvp you have ever achieved success in. Once you can win fights without a zerg, actual solid pvper’s never go back to zerging. In fact the number relied upon to win fights decreases as skill increases. Otherwise, you wouldnt stick with your 20+. It’s like the FORD commercial “WRAP YOUR BRAIN AROUND THAT!”

WvW is meant for large scale fights, bottom line once you get that it’s obvious the large group isn’t going anywhere. (I did very well in 2v2 3v3 arenas as well as Rated BGs) I was also very successful in large scale & small scale world pvp. There is a place for small scale pvp it’s called sPvP try it out! I personally don’t like sPvP in gw2 I’d love to see some arenas though. It’s much more difficult to run a large organized group than a smaller one, much more communication is required. I’m sure that’s why you want smaller groups, easy mode for you… right?

I thought about this the other day.. kind of the same ideas as the OP.. to even things out:

A) Have an NPC back in the base that you can buy say veterans/champs/legendary NPC’s that fight along side you, drop siege etc.. As much as I like this idea and think it’d be unique, it could be heavily abused.

B) Remove the AoE cap. Anet said they can’t do it due to skill lag and what not.. which doesn’t really make sense because they allow arrow carts to hit as many targets as in the area. Removing the AoE cap would in fact break up zergs or at least spread them out. We all know what a cluster of AC’s in a small area can do.. If players are given the same ability, you’ll be hard pressed to find any zerg charging anywhere in a blob.

C) I mentioned this one before but it was more of a joke as it’s extreme, but it’d in fact break up zergs as well. Hit groups of players (10 or greater) with a stacking debuff (similar to agony) that takes a % of hp out every 3 seconds. For example 15 people = 10% hp loss, 25 people = 20% hp loss, 50 people = 45% hp loss. Unpopular I know, but watch how fast zergs bust up.

D) Attach it to points. Groups of say 20 or more will get no world xp, no loot, and forfeit their PPT (for that area). This happens only outside bases and garrison. On the flip side, targets taken with less people offer more world xp, more loot, and bonuses to PPT.

Personally I think removing the AoE cap would eliminate zergs completely.. but with this, the elephant in the room is skill lag, they have to address that first.

Stop with the zerg hate! A lot of us actually play WvW to fight in large scale combat. It is simple:

If you want to fight NPCs, do dungeons or PvE
If you want small scale PvP, do sPvP or tPvP
If you want large scale fights, do WvW.

There is something for everyone already.

Raeyne.5086:

Or… Friendly fire damage.

Anyone who did any research at all or played beta for even an hour knew that friendly fire wouldn’t be part of GW2 anywhere before they bought it. Darkfall already has this covered, so if you want to turn to your guildie and suddenly bash him down (and steal all his stuff!) that game already exists.

The Goat.1940:

WvW is meant for large scale fights, bottom line once you get that it’s obvious the large group isn’t going anywhere.

I know tons of people hate zerging, and believe that it has essentially caused the slow death of WvW and so on, but there is lot of right in this statement. If you go back and look at all the ad materials for GW2, especially anything related to WvWvW, they all promised “Epic, large-scale 50v50v50 battles in Stonemist Castle!” and things like that, and those ads were what had a lot of people excited about GW2 before release! Skill lag has been a big thing that has made people hate zergs, and when culling was an issue, that was another problem. But GW2 is a game that is meant to be accessible to newcomers and first-time gamers alike, so for pvp purposes, the game is essentially on easy-mode all the time compared to many hardore, pvp-only or pvp-focused games. Those games don’t have nearly the number of people playing them that GW2 has, either.

But yeah, the big issue seems to be that most servers have at least 1 or more guilds that can either run a 50+ zerg, or can at least “rally” enough people for it. However, guilds that run in these kind of numbers are becoming increasingly rare (there were tons of guilds last year that ran 20-30+ in WvW nightly that simply don’t exist in the game today.) So people are constantly looking for something to do with their 5-10 man group of regular guildies, or sometimes even solo. The obvious answer is flipping camps and/or killing yaks, or even trying to ninja a tower. The problem here is that lots of people step into WvW for the purpose of fighting other players, not to take small objectives away from a group of NPC’s (there’s a whole, huge PvE world already set up for that.) And while some groups relish the chance to wipe 2-3 times their numbers in a zerg-busting effort (this works, but rarely, and almost never against a truly organized force), most groups are looking for a relatively even fight, 5-10 vs 5-10, and are often disappointed, since these fights are rare and difficult to find on many servers unless you set them up ahead of time somehow.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an easy solution to this problem that would make everyone happy.

On s/tPvP: A lot of people who are in favor of zergs, or promote them as the way WvW was meant to be run, will simply say “Go play sPvP, idiot!” I just want to say that repeating that over and over is not helpful at all. It’s like if someone said “I’ve only got 6 people, but I’d like to set up and a small 6 on 6 game of soccer. Anyone want to play us?” and the very next guy to post says “Only 6 people? Go play basketball, you idiot!” They are very different games, and it’s sad that you would be forced to play a different game simply because of the number of people in your guild.

Goat the large scale fighting blob isn’t going anywhere because on every server those 20+ mans aren’t EVER developing personal player vs player skill. 3v3s are easy buddy. WOW didn’t have this right either… Arenas are stupid because they are limited battles… 30-40% of the people that bought gw2 originally spent the 50 bucks for the TRI -FACTION OPEN WORLD pvp….. Not to just play a new Zerg vs Zerg game like WAR which failed due to the same form of player vs player…

You’ll never see it, but I would LOVE to see of that 30-40% how many have left the game. Bet you it’s astronomical.

there is a solution, ask Anet to provide GvG sPvP (5, 10, 15 and 20 player) it dsnt have to involve WvW. I come of a little more harsh in text, sry for that. I like the way WvW is now and I don’t want the “squeaky” wheel to get greased, so I post in these kinds of threads. I do agree skill lag needs some fixing not the large group. There is a diff between large group and Zerg… code dsnt know it but we do.

jscull the point is I have played smaller scale, not just huge zergball, I don’t even consider 25-30 people a huge group large yes but c’mon 3 raid groups of 40 ; )

The Goat.1940:

there is a solution, ask Anet to provide GvG sPvP (5, 10, 15 and 20 player) it dsnt have to involve WvW. I come of a little more harsh in text, sry for that. I like the way WvW is now and I don’t want the “squeaky” wheel to get greased, so I post in these kinds of threads. I do agree skill lag needs some fixing not the large group. There is a diff between large group and Zerg… code dsnt know it but we do.

I would like to see a percentage of how many things people ask for are actually implemented into the game. I’m guessing it’s pretty low.

I’ve played on both sides of this conversation. I’ve been on the side that crushed the map, and been on the out-manned side getting crushed. The idea to add penalties to WvW just because one server’s population is more interested in WvWing than another is just plain silly. First of all, that would just discourage people from playing (which no company will ever do). Secondly, this type of penalty just says one server is more important than another. Kinda like a referee playing favorites in a sports match.

The fair thing to do is what Anet already implemented, which is to add a buff to the out-manned server. But there’s a fine line on the type of buff someone can get, or else the other server will see the game as “playing favorites” for the opponents. This buff doesn’t give any attack or defense bonus, but puts into play a bonus to prevent costly repair bills, since you know they’re gonna get rolled over. The bonus XP is nice too. It’s rewarding the players for sticking around when the odds are against them.

The things in this thread that make sense is hiding the out-manned icon to opponents, and maybe expanding the roll of Breakout for more NPC help. Servers tend to take advantage of a map when they see that the opponent doesn’t have the numbers to defend. And since NPCs are squishy (not to include Siegerazer), having some extra to help a server with low pop can help to add some fun for both sides. More things to kill for the mega server, and a tiny bit of help for the out-manned group.

Jscull.2514:

Goat the large scale fighting blob isn’t going anywhere because on every server those 20+ mans aren’t EVER developing personal player vs player skill. 3v3s are easy buddy. WOW didn’t have this right either… Arenas are stupid because they are limited battles… 30-40% of the people that bought gw2 originally spent the 50 bucks for the TRI -FACTION OPEN WORLD pvp….. Not to just play a new Zerg vs Zerg game like WAR which failed due to the same form of player vs player…

You’ll never see it, but I would LOVE to see of that 30-40% how many have left the game. Bet you it’s astronomical.

Welcome to the internet where you can invent percentages , claim there true (from personal knowledge so accurate ),and never have to give any statistically valid source for the aforesaid .

Any argument that depends on invented percentages ,we players , the majority thinks, etc etc lines is a failure .

Liu.4751:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

I disagree with any kind of suggestion that penalizes players just because there is x number in a certain area.

I don’t. have any points why instead of just an disagreement.

Liu.4751:

Secondly, that would hope quell large zergs..“sigh” steam rolling other teams who haven’t woke up yet. We need to quell zergs completely. how do we do this. We dont want to quell players. You put in a buff what in a sense debuffs players, just do it. Like some kind of uncertainty buff like they are unsure their lands are safe this would immediately quell zergs. Now what about for the other side make the buff scale more based on your amout of players to a point that the zergs will just die because it be a back and forth of debuffing of their attributes until they die and players realize that there’s no point in forming the kittenm thing. Now zergs are fun but more smaller ones, tactical ones.

This is a penalty. I do not agree with any kind of penalty to players just because there are a lot in a area.

Just because you don’t like zergs, doesn’t mean you need to kill them. Some don’t mind running in them in addition to running in small teams.

A) One fix for zerging is to eliminate the 5 person limit AOE cap. The only concern here would be for the bad players who are incapable of avoiding red circles at their feet.

If 3 elementists are able to successfully wipe out a zerg of 30 players at a chokepoint, this would not be an example of unbalance, but rather an example of ineffective mindless playing on behalf of the zerg. But heaven forbid AOE caps are removed, then that means zergs can’t operate in mindless fashion anymore, and players within them can no longer ignore AOE dropping on their heads.

B) Also, another tweak that would help to eliminate bads roaming in huge groups, would be to make it so that capture points (camps, towers, keeps) only issue a fixed value of XP/world XP which get distributed to players in the capture radius. For example, a supply camp could be worth 5000 points (arbitrary number):
1 person captures this camp, they get 5000 points.
5 people capturing this camp get 1000 points each.
20 people capturing this camp get 250 points each.
50 people capturing this camp get 100 points each.

This concept comes down to risk versus reward. 1 player or 5 players are assuming significantly more risk in trying to take a point over the group of 20 or 50. And likewise, the smaller groups should be compensated more for doing so.

I would assume this would be easier to implement over the removal of an AOE cap as well, simply divide the fixed number of issued XP to the number of players in the capture radius. This wouldn’t completely eliminate the zerging, but would certainly diminish the REWARDS of it.

Middzz.1490:

Jscull.2514:

Goat the large scale fighting blob isn’t going anywhere because on every server those 20+ mans aren’t EVER developing personal player vs player skill. 3v3s are easy buddy. WOW didn’t have this right either… Arenas are stupid because they are limited battles… 30-40% of the people that bought gw2 originally spent the 50 bucks for the TRI -FACTION OPEN WORLD pvp….. Not to just play a new Zerg vs Zerg game like WAR which failed due to the same form of player vs player…

You’ll never see it, but I would LOVE to see of that 30-40% how many have left the game. Bet you it’s astronomical.

Welcome to the internet where you can invent percentages , claim there true (from personal knowledge so accurate ),and never have to give any statistically valid source for the aforesaid .

Any argument that depends on invented percentages ,we players , the majority thinks, etc etc lines is a failure .

Buddy, go back through all the threads and see how many ex daocer’s / ex UOer’s / ex any game with open hardcore pvp from at least 4-5 years ago complained about this ez mode starter mmo and see how many are still posting. It’s an estimation. If the numbers affected you that much clearly your in the majority “starter mmo” category.

Sunreva.8714:

A) One fix for zerging is to eliminate the 5 person limit AOE cap. The only concern here would be for the bad players who are incapable of avoiding red circles at their feet.

If 3 elementists are able to successfully wipe out a zerg of 30 players at a chokepoint, this would not be an example of unbalance, but rather an example of ineffective mindless playing on behalf of the zerg. But heaven forbid AOE caps are removed, then that means zergs can’t operate in mindless fashion anymore, and players within them can no longer ignore AOE dropping on their heads.

B) Also, another tweak that would help to eliminate bads roaming in huge groups, would be to make it so that capture points (camps, towers, keeps) only issue a fixed value of XP/world XP which get distributed to players in the capture radius. For example, a supply camp could be worth 5000 points (arbitrary number):
1 person captures this camp, they get 5000 points.
5 people capturing this camp get 1000 points each.
20 people capturing this camp get 250 points each.
50 people capturing this camp get 100 points each.

This concept comes down to risk versus reward. 1 player or 5 players are assuming significantly more risk in trying to take a point over the group of 20 or 50. And likewise, the smaller groups should be compensated more for doing so.

I would assume this would be easier to implement over the removal of an AOE cap as well, simply divide the fixed number of issued XP to the number of players in the capture radius. This wouldn’t completely eliminate the zerging, but would certainly diminish the REWARDS of it.

Done done and done. Call Anet tomorrow and throw your resume. I’ll do the same. Apprently these age old mmo pvp ideas are just that, an age old… Their new to them!

So simple: remove Aoe cap, scale the crap out of points for captures and kills.

Call me crazy, but I personally wouldn’t want to see zergs eliminated. I am not really a zerg player, my brand of WvW commanding favors small groups in tight communication and guerilla tactics, but if you scaled it down to the point where we were seeing groups of 10 attacking towers, sieges would be slow and defense would then become less strategic. One or two people should easily be able to fend off even 15 players indefinitely with basic siege placement knowledge, especially in a fortified tower. 25-50 people protecting siege and supply lines forces much better response by the defenders as well as a more organized and ‘epic’ defense.

Throwing 2 rams down on a door and ninja capping a tower before anyone can show up is good strategy, but I would never want to see WvW reduced to just that. WvW is meant to be big.

Sunreva.8714:

B) Also, another tweak that would help to eliminate bads roaming in huge groups, would be to make it so that capture points (camps, towers, keeps) only issue a fixed value of XP/world XP which get distributed to players in the capture radius. For example, a supply camp could be worth 5000 points (arbitrary number):
1 person captures this camp, they get 5000 points.
5 people capturing this camp get 1000 points each.
20 people capturing this camp get 250 points each.
50 people capturing this camp get 100 points each.

Thieves can solo cap camps, and to some extent, towers will walls down. That said, I’d love to gain a rank for each and every camp I solo!

I’m all for making it more difficult to run large groups. For instance, anet could make the commander icon only visible to his squad, keeping the current squad cap. The system in place with the whole commander icon supports “mindless zerging” allowing for a more casual player to find the action.

Jscull.2514:

Middzz.1490:

Jscull.2514:

Goat the large scale fighting blob isn’t going anywhere because on every server those 20+ mans aren’t EVER developing personal player vs player skill. 3v3s are easy buddy. WOW didn’t have this right either… Arenas are stupid because they are limited battles… 30-40% of the people that bought gw2 originally spent the 50 bucks for the TRI -FACTION OPEN WORLD pvp….. Not to just play a new Zerg vs Zerg game like WAR which failed due to the same form of player vs player…

You’ll never see it, but I would LOVE to see of that 30-40% how many have left the game. Bet you it’s astronomical.

Welcome to the internet where you can invent percentages , claim there true (from personal knowledge so accurate ),and never have to give any statistically valid source for the aforesaid .

Any argument that depends on invented percentages ,we players , the majority thinks, etc etc lines is a failure .

Buddy, go back through all the threads and see how many ex daocer’s / ex UOer’s / ex any game with open hardcore pvp from at least 4-5 years ago complained about this ez mode starter mmo and see how many are still posting. It’s an estimation. If the numbers affected you that much clearly your in the majority “starter mmo” category.

Internet defence 101…
..advise see all the postings without reference listing as in its obvious …again no data .
…imply anyone that disagrees is a)noob
b)fanboi
c)not elite hardcore etc like said poster thus should be ignored.

You used sorry invented numbers that says what ?….could be 90 percent could be 0 percent both are estimates and both like yours meaningless.

If used terms like possibly probably i think its feasible …the rest of what you say may have validity .

But what see are standard troll 101 statements.

Jscull.2514:

Goat the large scale fighting blob isn’t going anywhere because on every server those 20+ mans aren’t EVER developing personal player vs player skill. 3v3s are easy buddy. WOW didn’t have this right either… Arenas are stupid because they are limited battles… 30-40% of the people that bought gw2 originally spent the 50 bucks for the TRI -FACTION OPEN WORLD pvp….. Not to just play a new Zerg vs Zerg game like WAR which failed due to the same form of player vs player…

You’ll never see it, but I would LOVE to see of that 30-40% how many have left the game. Bet you it’s astronomical.

While its difficult to assign a statistical value to this kind of stuff, I can say that I’ve come across many players who are only playing this game for the WvW (I myself being one of them). If another game were to come out tomorrow that offered more a more fluid and “better” pvp experience, open world, open pvp, or full looting, ect, I’d jump ship in a heartbeat, and probably many others would as well.

The biggest problem with GW2 pvp IMO is that it deliberately incorporates mechanics in WvW that are designed to actually promote zerging behavior. That’s something I’ve never seen in a game before, not UO (old days), Asherons Call, Anarchy Online, Darkfall, WoW (old days), Rift, ect. I mean, large groups did exist in some fashion in some of these games, but players quickly learned to avoid relying on it because it could get you slaughtered. The pvp mechanics didn’t seem to be purposely slanted in favor of brainless zerg tactics.

If 3 elementists are able to wipe out a brainless zerg of 30 players in a chokepoint, that is a not an example of unbalance or elementists being OP. Instead, it’s an example that players in the zerg should be aware of their surroundings (don’t stand in the red circles, derp) and need to use better strategy/tactics other than being herded into a chokepoint and slaughtered like sheep. Bad players deserve to get wiped.

Strategy and tactics should always be preferred/stronger over numbers, but this game still uses pvp mechanics that strongly favor the latter, unfortunately.

I’d really like to know where everyone gets this ingrained idea that ‘zergs’ (I really do agree with the OP in hating that term) are invariably mindless.

Olven,

When an 8 year old can be told to press 1 and 2 button a bunch while moving the character forward through whatever Zerg (his own Zerg) is hitting and then spamming the loot button….while the 8 year olds Zerg wins because they simply had more people…. That is the definition of a 20+ year old doing mindless gaming. You can throw all the “tactics” crap our way, the end of the day and 8 year old can still do what 90% of this game’s population does.

the main issue with huge zergs is that they shut down your PC system,
you have horrible skill lag, cant heal, cant dodge, barely can move.

so the people with the better internet connection who live closer to ANET servers and have more money to throw on latest CPUs have the edge.

Anet is trying to change the Zerging mentality by buffing the arrowcart.
(I am ignoring the zoom hack and the ability to shoot through walls, i believe it will be fixed)
this actually leads to the opposite, small group of attackers cannot counter the arrowcart, and thus have to zerg up even more in order to cap objective.
and the defenders must zerg up in order to have the supply to build more arrowcarts, to counter the attackers bigger zerg.

this leads to even worse zergVzerg wars, as most of the first order changes they hurt more than help.
because Zerging is still the way to go!

what should be done is a second order of change, that will make switch in how player think, that in some situation zerging is counter productive.
1) out-manned buff should be changed: killing person with outmanned buff will gain no WXP and no loot.
people with outmanned buff that managed to get a kill, get double WXP And double loot (+20% MF is PATHETIC)

2) ganking 5 to 1 leades to reduced WXP and reduced loot.
3) remove AOE cap, AOE cap induce the “safety in masses” mentality.
“five people will get hit, but i will be safe”.
why remove completely? because increasing the cap to 10 or 15 is again first order of change and will just create bigger zegrs, the “safety in masses” paradigm is still playing, just in bigger masses. removing AOE cap will change the way how people think, because “safety in masses” will not work anymore. (‘no cap’ AOE damage can be toned down in WWW though if the CAP removed)
4) scalable NPC, just like in PVE.
when i am in zerg, I cant even finish the cast time of my spell, the champion already dead… why it should be like that?
up to 10 people on 1 NPC= regular scaling
10-20 people on 1 NPC= additional increased damage, more knock-backs and stronger AOE
20-30 people on 1 NPS= retaliation and protection buff just like on veteran karka.
30+ people on 1 NPS= additional AOE confusion debuff.
this is easy to implement, as the mechanic is already in game, it called “unshakable” and it
adds defiant stacks for every person attacking the mob.
this includes keep champions, Vet sentries and camp guards.
this way the more enemy people are in the keep, the champion is harder to kill.

these changes will definitely change the zerging mentality, and will move the meta to medium groups of 10-20 people trying to cap different objectives instead of moving in one blob. and 5-10 people of defenders/roamers that trying to stop them.

Edit: apologize for bad English

anet nerfed all the possibilities to counter zerg. do not hold you hope high. 5 aoe limit, confusion nerfed etc……

Outmanned should be reworked such that it makes the side with fewer players actually have a better chance of suceeding.

Easiest way to do this, which reuses existing mechanics, would be to downlevel a side that has significantly more people than the others on the map.
This can even be done fairly dynamically, to account for populations coming and going throughout the day.

However, imagine 7 people trying to break out of their spawn point, when they are L80, and they are facing a horde of 50 blockaders… who are all L70.

To allow for some planning, perhaps only make changes on scoring ticks, and have a one tick notice of upcoming changes.

This likely won’t help the zerg mentality, though.

This is a pretty easy problem to solve. Add more incentive to holding objectives simultaneously. That way zergs will be more likely to break up in order to maintain whatever incentive/buff they are receiving for holding stuff.

So for example, if you hold more than 3 towers, you gain some bonus to PPT. If you hold more than 3 camps at the same time, you gain some bonus to PPT.

If you have less numbers build siege at strategic points and destroy em. Yes people siege is meant to kill you and help you outdo bigger number, but no people think this is Spvp where 1 v 1 matters and siege needs to be nerfed at all cost cause they can’t simply dodge roll it or siege bunker spec for it.

Now, on the other hand, NPCs, hum, why would we need that? If you can’t handle bigger numbers with strategy and skill then don’t handle em at all. Is your own fault. This is the same as people complaining about retaliation and the many other details, is as if they wanted a sand castle war where you can simply come running at the enemy gate crush the kitten thing and whack the enemy with a stick, no strategy, dedication or skill. Don’t blame other servers for having a more dedicated WvW community, blame your server for not giving enough of a kitten , for not learning how to counter simple things and for not participating enough.

style.6173:

Stop with the zerg hate! A lot of us actually play WvW to fight in large scale combat. It is simple:

If you want to fight NPCs, do dungeons or PvE
If you want small scale PvP, do sPvP or tPvP
If you want large scale fights, do WvW.

There is something for everyone already.

This^.

I get tired of the minority of individuals that want things changed for their play style. “Zergs are not fun for me, make them stop so I can enjoy WvWvW more.” is an entitled mind set.

Large scale battles are the very basis of WORLD vs WORLD vs WORLD.

If you do not have enough people on your server to keep the enemy map zergs busy while you camp cap, move servers, maps or game modes.

osif.8673:

The Goat.1940:

there is a solution, ask Anet to provide GvG sPvP (5, 10, 15 and 20 player) it dsnt have to involve WvW. I come of a little more harsh in text, sry for that. I like the way WvW is now and I don’t want the “squeaky” wheel to get greased, so I post in these kinds of threads. I do agree skill lag needs some fixing not the large group. There is a diff between large group and Zerg… code dsnt know it but we do.

I would like to see a percentage of how many things people ask for are actually implemented into the game. I’m guessing it’s pretty low.

ANd how long has this game been on the market? A little patience goes a long way.

Biggest problem this game has right now hands down…..ALL OF YOU FOLKS WANT TO USE SIEGE TO KILL PEOPLE RATHER THAN YOUR OWN CHARACTERS!

Because you are all casual, not competitive, and want ez mode. And pressing 1 on an AC can get you kills…and by doing nothing but pressing 1 button. Talk about lazy….

It’s sort of funny that the same noobs who sit on ac spamming #1 complain about how thieves with their stealth are op.

I have no problem with zergs. WvW is as much an excercise of strategic supply as it is combat. Large zergs have more material on hand to speed build siege. Plus I like fighting with 20-30 friends. Its just a good time in voice with everyone bs’ing and laughing.

The main issue in these forums are those who want to take a game based on the taking and holding of property and turn it into their own lil private pvp fields & matches.

Thankfully, the game is large enough to accomodate both playstyles.

Paying gems for a gamemode that should be a default form of PvP is kind of absurd. At least they’re making steps in the right direction.

style.6173:

Stop with the zerg hate! A lot of us actually play WvW to fight in large scale combat. It is simple:

If you want to fight NPCs, do dungeons or PvE
If you want small scale PvP, do sPvP or tPvP
If you want large scale fights, do WvW.

There is something for everyone already.

I agree.

It’s really all about preference and choice. It’s my opinion that the Devs have setup WvWvW to behave exactly like it is. They want HUGE epic fights to happen. And that’s exactly what I personally love about WvWvW now. 15 minute fights for SMC are not uncommon on my server. This only happens when 2 or three large armies clash. I’ll state it again, I love this kind of action.

I’ve been in quite a few MMORPGs over the years. There always seems to be a small group of players that feel the DEVs should change the game to suit their play style.

Insult me, call me names, and rage all you will. The game mechanics are IMO the way the game designers had envisioned and will change very little in the future.

Maybe anet should just make a small playercap version of wvw maps. I personally love these large scale battles and coordinating my zerg to wipe out an enemy zerg. WvW is the first large scale PvP i’ve seen of this kind and I’d hate to see that go away because of some that can’t handle the scale of what it was supposed to be for whatever reason.

You still want a conquest game but you don’t want to get smashed my 50 guys. How about have a map or three where all 3 servers battle for central buffs that can be given to the larger wvw or to pve and with objectives that provide wxp and points toward the server’s rating. These maps would have a 20 player cap for each server and could even be explained by lore like “Balthazar want’s to see which lands field players with stronger individual skill”. We could even put the Orbs on these maps.

Sunreva.8714:

A) One fix for zerging is to eliminate the 5 person limit AOE cap. The only concern here would be for the bad players who are incapable of avoiding red circles at their feet.

If 3 elementists are able to successfully wipe out a zerg of 30 players at a chokepoint, this would not be an example of unbalance, but rather an example of ineffective mindless playing on behalf of the zerg. But heaven forbid AOE caps are removed, then that means zergs can’t operate in mindless fashion anymore, and players within them can no longer ignore AOE dropping on their heads.

B) Also, another tweak that would help to eliminate bads roaming in huge groups, would be to make it so that capture points (camps, towers, keeps) only issue a fixed value of XP/world XP which get distributed to players in the capture radius. For example, a supply camp could be worth 5000 points (arbitrary number):
1 person captures this camp, they get 5000 points.
5 people capturing this camp get 1000 points each.
20 people capturing this camp get 250 points each.
50 people capturing this camp get 100 points each.

This concept comes down to risk versus reward. 1 player or 5 players are assuming significantly more risk in trying to take a point over the group of 20 or 50. And likewise, the smaller groups should be compensated more for doing so.

I would assume this would be easier to implement over the removal of an AOE cap as well, simply divide the fixed number of issued XP to the number of players in the capture radius. This wouldn’t completely eliminate the zerging, but would certainly diminish the REWARDS of it.

+1

Thought exactly the same, thanks for writing it – great minds think alike ;P

Is not about eliminating zerglings, but offering more reward out of it.

Honestly guys I’m not trying to troll. 2 things, first Anet SHOULD HAVE advertised this as Zerg vs Zerg ONLY and not as the newest version of “open world trifaction pvp”. It should have been 100% compared to WAR because it’s the same game run with as many as possible and capture points. NO WHERE does this meta encourage fighting players over taking capturable points.

Second, they also should have advertised this game as a starter mmo for new players. I understand some of you have gamed for years, but truth is once you actually take the time to learn your abilities and class in a game rather than leaning on “epic seige” to win fights the boringness of hiding inside a keep cuz you don’t want to die decreases. Should have been advertised as 100% casual and if you are competitive and are looking for hardcore/elite style fighting don’t bother with this game. At least 20% of their sales would have been nullified thus they didn’t say any of this. But this is how their product has developed.

This is a really easy solution.

If we had another system for more that 5 people to group that isn’t a public zerg…. we’d have more medium size forces on the battlefield.

They need a /private option for the commander system. A way to hide the commander pin AND still retain the functions of a squad. Now guilds and players could do private events or make specialty squads and spread the fighting over the battlefield more.

Perhaps arenanet thinks that doing this would prevent the casual PvE player from being able to group, but that’s wrong. Every single game I’ve played that had this type of large scale PvP there was always some kind of public commander or warband running as well as private squads/warbands.

There is simply no option BUT to zerg until they add more flexible multiple grouping systems.

This is just dum. I’m running around in sad Zerg, nobody seems to be getting any enjoyment, we just got annihilated by their Zerg. It’s just silly now. I see it as a system what needs tweaking, badly. I’m sorry but nobody enjoys this they’re just lying to themselves!!.