Guild Wars 2

I really like the idea of applying penalties to large gatherings (zergs), I’ve stopped playing WvW b/c of the zergfest, it’s fun for a bit, but quickly loses it’s flair. The solution seems simple enough. Apply debuffs to zergs…. call it “Army Sickness” or whatever. When in a large gathering you move/perform at a reduced speed.

This is what wvw needs to deal with zeros and to help emirate them, there are many others fixes to add to wvw for the wider scope but one very simple chance is this, as mention by myself, add a active radius based debuff, how does this work I hear you ask, simple. For e dry 25 players within a 700 range or radius each player will then get a static debuff applied which will do the following:
1. Decrease movement speed by 55%(imagine a large group of player/people in real life marching or jogging together, your only as fast as the font guy is allowing, p.s. it’s not a marathon, it’s gw, lol)
2. A huge range blocked decrease. What this means is no asuran shooting ridiculous necro and mez spells through a huge norm and no human being able to fire over a charr just because he’s got his weapons stowed and walking on all fours. Very unsafe, is it not)

3. Added other tweaks Like more exp for other wvw dialy objective tasks like defending, sieging, and even just draining supplies of a sieged up tower(like some kind of tactics)
These debuffs will spread out fighting vastly across the lands instead of being stuck in some mindless Zerg which is being showed of what it is with this illuminating and enlightening buff, players get a chance to split off or spread out or choose to die a slowly mindless 1 and oh yeah,6(heal skill) spamming deAth to a lone arrow cart user getting some free loot.

Thanks anet, thank me later.

Yours truely, li. LOOL

Players shouldn’t be penalized for large grouping that’s just stupid this thread is full of half baked ideas from pugs and its rediculous I hope anet never listens to this minority. The game type is wvw the name even insinuates large scale fights

Trying to nerf or penalize Zergs directly (via a debuff) is not the option as it would be difficult to implement/regulate.
I think that what 3W need is a major incentive not to zerg and this can be done with a reward modulation/readjustment of the existing system.

Let me explain :

• same reward for capping a camp in solo or in zerg
  Why capping a camp alone (or with a small team) is not more rewarding than capping it with a full zerg ?

I don’t want to earn more WXP/karma, I find it high enough, especially since the last patch, I want the zerg to gain less, even not at all.

This would need a slight revamp of the reward system : each event has a sum of points (WXP/karma/gold) that can be distributed.

• If I solo-cap => reward pts/1 for me.
• If I am with 2 mates : reward pts/3 for each of us.
• But I am with a zerg (which is very unlikely btw) comprising N facerollers : then reward pts/N for each of us.*

Pretty straightforward, no ?
In fact, it is just a readjustment of the already implemented system : Gold/Silver/Bronze reward which is tremendously charitable.

• same reward for kills in 1v1 or 40v1 : I do 800 with leeching AOE or do 99,9% dmg => Same reward !

For kill WXP, it is a little more complicated, as I understand that support-orientated players are not able to dish out heafty dmg while still participating…..
But still, why is it possible to gain WXP with a single auto-shot on a DS player ?

I think that a cap of 20-30% of dmg should be required to obtain a reward. And yeah, that will make full-well necro cry like babies, beastmaster ranger too, but I don’t care.
In fact, Anet already reduced the dmg cap to “tag” a ennemy, this was a step in the zerg direction….

TL;DR version :

A system like that is based on skill/risk ranking : doing something solo/with few mates is harder and riskier than doing the same with 20 players: higher skill, higher risk = higher reward.

Such a change would not obliterate zergs, but at least, it would deprive them of their goal : farm points as fast as possible, with minimum risks and minimum skill.

My 2 c€nts.

snowaugar.1823:

Players shouldn’t be penalized for large grouping that’s just stupid this thread is full of half baked ideas from pugs and its rediculous I hope anet never listens to this minority. The game type is wvw the name even insinuates large scale fights

You sound pretty angry at it man! Chill pill! Plenty of answers are elaborate, sensible and without insults.

The proposal of high-risk=bigger rewards is not at all half-baked. It’s simple, makes sense and fairer to any group size; plus doesn’t stop you going in a 50+ group if you still desire to do so.

Rewards proportional to what you contribute.

ahn.9271:

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.

Terrible idea. Late nighters deserve wexp too, 10/0 = 0 exp for them when they pvdoor.

Causic.3798:

ahn.9271:

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.

Terrible idea. Late nighters deserve wexp too, 10/0 = 0 exp for them when they pvdoor.

Agreed. Because I live in Australia I don’t get rewarded because Im from Australia and not the United states. Or then again, since Americans are PvDooring and night capping whilst I am sleeping and at work, they should get no rewards and I should get all of the rewards because they are night capping. Oh wait, the world might actually be round and night isn’t the same time everywhere. I thought this was just a storytale.

Well, ANet isn’t going to elminate zergs. To do so would change the entire nature of the this portion of the game to suit the few that want to turn it into a pvp game.

Some people play their class very well. Some are not as accomplished. Numbers in a group evens that out. A zerg, if you will.

What I see here is a bunch of leets trying to get ANet to change the game in thier favor so they can roll any poor newb or lesser skilled individual that happens to step into WvW. If ANet actually did what some of you are asking…we could just change the name of the game to TERA2.

Raf.1078:

What I see here is a bunch of leets trying to get ANet to change the game in thier favor so they can roll any poor newb or lesser skilled individual that happens to step into WvW. If ANet actually did what some of you are asking…we could just change the name of the game to TERA2.

Don’t jump so quick to conclusions.

Some people (like me) just want more DIVERSITY (wasn’t a selling point to “play it as you like”?), and encourage so – not a system where the meta is only zerging – which is where currently is – any other way its actually penalising.

It’s not about elitism, just I feel I get more of the game if I can contribute more to a fight by running in smaller numbers – I don’t like solo, I don’t like zergs; but respect if people like to do so.

Having a system that rewards according to input (read posts in this thread about high risk bigger rewards) all ways of playing are rewarded the same – doesn’t penalise any play style – if you build a business using 100 associates, the 100 get 1% of the share in profits – just makes sense.

What raf said even though I love tera

I actually like the idea of a penalty for a massive amount of players going up against an outmanned server. The outmanned buff doesn’t help much aside from your armor not breaking so you can go all out in battle and not care as much about dying, but at the same time that means the buff isn’t really doing it’s job as intended. If you’re only fielding 10-20 on a map and your opponents are running 50+ a piece, not only will they pick on you for being the weakness showing on the map, they’re going to mow you over regardless of the buff. Giving them a cool down disadvantage or some other form of punishment is an interesting resolution and not at all “playing favorites”. It’s balancing out the servers even more and may even make the new ranking system work out better for some of the skirmishes.

And yes, I am saying that if it were my server dominating with a large amount of players on a map, we’d take the penalty. It would give a new challenge to overcome and work with.

This issue is more of a large group’s vs small group in WvW. My advice would be: Deal with it! WvW revolves around Servers vs Servers vs Server which involve groups of many sizes which all have a major impact in the current meta (and not 5 man vs 5 man or 10 vs 10, etc). Learn the role you like to do in WvW and play smart. If you want to roam around and kill people on a 1v1 or 1v2 level, WvW is a fine place for that but don’t complain when a group of 5 come out of nowhere and kill you during your fights. Small group havoc squads (5-15 players) are fun to do too but you have to be careful about the larger groups and their positions or you are going to be dead just like the roamer in my first example.

Is real war fair and balanced? Did the American colonist cry to the British for being stronger than them during that time? Didn’t Genghis Khan send his armies (zergs) to conquer most of Asia and almost Western Europe before he died? Wonder if Napoleon wrote a forum post to God or Mother Nature after the Russians and their winter crashed him. War is not fair and wanting to eliminate the zerg which has been the most basic war tactic since the dawning of time is just absolutely childish. In the real world, war is not fair and when one side has an advantage, it is up to the other side to figure out ways to dealing with it. IMHO, this is an absolute childish thread and counterproductive. What people in this thread want that has not been addressed are smaller scale WvW maps. Rather than asking for new WvW maps that are smaller in scale, these thread posters would have the current WvW structure be tailored for small groups and roaming which is not fair to many dedicated WvWers and WvW guilds that have sent countless hours training and preparing to fight these large battles that make WvW a fun place for us.

If captured points gave their XP/WXP at the end of each tick, the same as the points given to the servers, perhaps there will be more incentives to capture and keep strategic points, thus forcing commanders to split forces (like, you know, real warfare).

And it would open new strategies and opportunities…

WvW is designed to accommodate players that would not normally participate in PvP. For instance, the high player limit means that a new player can get involved without immediately feeling pressured to contribute. In addition, objectives are available for a variety of group sizes, so players don’t need to be members of dedicated guilds in order to be productive…..

taken strait off the gw2 wiki page for wvw notice how it says FOR PLAYERS WHO DON’T NORMALLY PARTICIPATE IN PVP? don’t like zerg go havoc or roam but please don’t tell anyone not to zerg because there are guilds that can field 30+ members and it would be wrong to tell them they cant play together because you don’t like it

I for one love wvw because i can zerg if i want, havoc if i cant find a zerg or roam solo if im feeling like a loner that day so please don’t change it by forcing anyone to do something just because some people don’t like it…Some of us hate tradition pvp and think wvw is a awesome the way it is because it offers you the ability to do what you want when you want even if some people cant see it

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.

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.

Oh for goodness sake please stop trying to add PVE to WvW. And stop whining about balancing the population. You say you want more strategy, then get on TS, organise yourselves and you can easily wipe numbers double of yours. There is far less strategy involved in your idea of NPCs on each side. They are completely brainless. For example, if a theif stealths, NPCs just walk away. A human would never do that. You should care for the fights and not the scoreboard. At the begining of our matchup(FA/TC/SoS), we(SoS) was completely disorganised and we were getting steamrolled. TC and FA were both outmanned on our borderlands, and we were still on the defensive, at one point we were only holding 1 tower and 1 camp. Later that day itself we got oganised, adapted, and we are really enjoying our matchup even though we outmanned a lot of the time.

Just a short vid on some of our Small Group Tactics … how we bust zergs when we’re outgunned.

Sometimes, it just takes some forethought into gameplay….

Leave the zerg’s alone, we like our badges…. and squirrrrrrlllllsss.

Best way to eliminate zergs? Karka nests that randomly spawn throughout the map, except you can’t see them. Too many people running over or around the nests disturbs them, they all pop out in mass and start leveling anything in site. Don’t like it? Don’g zerg then lol.

Sarcastic yes.. lol; however this would be quite amusing to watch a giant zerg suddenly get decimated by a bunch of po’d karka lol.

People seam to forget that there r guild groups that can be in the 30-40 range that r very coordinated.

Valik Shin.9027:

People seam to forget that there r guild groups that can be in the 30-40 range that r very coordinated.

Then the suggestion would be to join one and quit complaining, make one yourself or learn how to avoid them…

Keep ur head on a swivel lad.

Exosferatu.2961:

A group / guild of few people can eliminate any zerg with the tactical use of synergies: water-fields (regeneration & area of effect healing using “Blast Finishers”), fire-fields (might boon stacking: max 25), chaos armor / fire aura & other auras (“Conditions” for your enemies) and more. Ambush (w/ Crowd control skills first then Spike-damage) a zerg with few people using Veil or Portal Bombs. And don’t forget tactical siege weapon placement.

If you can use synergies properly, you can get more gold in WvW than you earn in Cursed Shore. . .

Aside from the odd video here or there, I have never seen a few people wreck a zerg. The closest I’ve seen was one of our guild groups of 15 slice through a 30-40 person zerg, and that is relatively rare too as it requires good timing.

In my opinion a zerg debuff is a great way to discourage massive groups. “You are in a large group, you do 33% less damage due to player density, and you get less 33% XP/karma/gold.” It’s relatively realistic as from a battle management perspective. 40 people shouldn’t be able to tag one player and get a couple dozen items from them. If I had dozens of green and gold items hanging on my body, I sure as hell wouldn’t be running around WvW with them.

TacoJoe.6083:

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.

While I personally run small hit groups, which is what I prefer, I’d agree with everything you said ’till the end. Ppl with this mentality is what broke many servers. You should have some server loyalty..

AydenStar.4216:

This issue is more of a large group’s vs small group in WvW. My advice would be: Deal with it! WvW revolves around Servers vs Servers vs Server which involve groups of many sizes which all have a major impact in the current meta (and not 5 man vs 5 man or 10 vs 10, etc). Learn the role you like to do in WvW and play smart. If you want to roam around and kill people on a 1v1 or 1v2 level, WvW is a fine place for that but don’t complain when a group of 5 come out of nowhere and kill you during your fights. Small group havoc squads (5-15 players) are fun to do too but you have to be careful about the larger groups and their positions or you are going to be dead just like the roamer in my first example.

Is real war fair and balanced? Did the American colonist cry to the British for being stronger than them during that time? Didn’t Genghis Khan send his armies (zergs) to conquer most of Asia and almost Western Europe before he died? Wonder if Napoleon wrote a forum post to God or Mother Nature after the Russians and their winter crashed him. War is not fair and wanting to eliminate the zerg which has been the most basic war tactic since the dawning of time is just absolutely childish. In the real world, war is not fair and when one side has an advantage, it is up to the other side to figure out ways to dealing with it. IMHO, this is an absolute childish thread and counterproductive. What people in this thread want that has not been addressed are smaller scale WvW maps. Rather than asking for new WvW maps that are smaller in scale, these thread posters would have the current WvW structure be tailored for small groups and roaming which is not fair to many dedicated WvWers and WvW guilds that have sent countless hours training and preparing to fight these large battles that make WvW a fun place for us.

How fun because devon on behalf of anet have just announced their going to discourage zergs. Please don’t use real world example like that, never would you see an army even if it is outnumbered act like such a rabble and blob under a commankitten on their minmaps(sarcasm included) goodday sir lol.

(Nowadays term zerg is used in mmo games to describe force consisted of large group of lower level players (often with only basic equipment) who use numbers rather then strategy to defeat the enemy, therefore requiring no skill. This tactics is commonly known as)

Liu.4751:

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!!.

I like running in zergs.
I also like running solo or in a small 5-8 man groups.

I equally like them both. Which helps me because while my server sleeps off, those who are left awake spend the time either keeping up the defenses, giving hell to the opposing night zerg, and just annoying them like crazy, knowing full well a handful of guys can’t beat back a zerg.

But when our server wakes up, we get riled up and join then. There’s that satisfaction that you helped out and tried to take care of things while they’re away and sleeping. Heck it even brings smiles when some grateful commander acknowledges and thanks those few who stayed awake and did their best holding out.

And it’s silly when you say stuff like “nobody enjoys this they’re just lying to themselves” when we have a bunch of people here arguing for the zerg’s sake. A zerg is akin to a server unity, whether you look at it negatively. There’s a common goal, and people banded up to reach that goal. It’s the only place you get to see a server standing up together, both zergs and small strike teams alike.

So be careful with those tweaks you suggest (half of which I see is destructive to WvW fights, except the idea of hiding the outmanned buff as I agree with it and that it makes sense anyway), you might end up disappointing a lot more people than you seem to claim.

“Nobody enjoys this…” Quit speaking out for everyone.

Exosferatu.2961:

A group / guild of few people can eliminate any zerg with the tactical use of synergies

Until they run into a guild group that is a zerg itself.
I tend to run around in a 15 man group, we can wipe double or 2 and a half times our numbers of pugs without too much difficulty. If they’re particularly bad we’ll wipe more, if they’re particularly good we’ll wipe less. I expect pugs to gather 30+ to try and counter our guild group, it’d be silly not to without the organisation a guild group has.

Its becoming increasingly common though to run into 35+ man guilds who use water fields, fire fields, veils and all that jazz. Wiping double your number of organised, competent players just isn’t going to happen unless they make repeated, particularly stupid mistakes.
The only solution i’ve seen suggested to that is get more people … yeah great.
Whats to stop them increasing their numbers exactly?
Im not interested in getting in an arms race that just leads to being back in a big, dumb, mindless zerg with no skills other than 1 activating.

If you can put out a 35+ man guild group then you can put out two 15/20 man guild groups. Pugs wont have to gather a 70 man train to try and counter you, which is the real problem zergs (the ones that cause slideshow fights and nothing except auto attack working etc). I dont really believe pugs willingly create them size groups – they do it as an attempt to compete.

Personally i’d give a boon duration debuff to groups of 30+. Its not going to hurt pug zergs all that much, it will hurt zerg guilds though. Once the group hits 50+ can basically remove boons, hopefully will put people off running in them size groups or if they continue doing so, they’ll make themselves an easy target

Hai Dius!

Caid.4932:

Personally i’d give a boon duration debuff to groups of 30+. Its not going to hurt pug zergs all that much, it will hurt zerg guilds though. Once the group hits 50+ can basically remove boons, hopefully will put people off running in them size groups or if they continue doing so, they’ll make themselves an easy target

I’m not sure penalising the battle part is right. If you take a analogy I used few post up, a company of 100 (1% of share on profit) will be less risk and will have the expertise of 100 – they not going to cut one arm off just because they competing against B (company ruled by 1 person). That’s a why a share of profit (WXP, Karma, loot) is more fair way of catering to all players and ENTICE some to try something different (take more risks, run in smaller teams) or just go for the safety and small returns of huge numbers.

More and more I’m seeing people going off the zergs, staying in towers and camps. Building random stuff. capping doyalks and trying to cap solo while trying to get exp.

Xenn.3809:

Hai Dius!

Caid.4932:

Personally i’d give a boon duration debuff to groups of 30+. Its not going to hurt pug zergs all that much, it will hurt zerg guilds though. Once the group hits 50+ can basically remove boons, hopefully will put people off running in them size groups or if they continue doing so, they’ll make themselves an easy target

I’m not sure penalising the battle part is right. If you take a analogy I used few post up, a company of 100 (1% of share on profit) will be less risk and will have the expertise of 100 – they not going to cut one arm off just because they competing against B (company ruled by 1 person). That’s a why a share of profit (WXP, Karma, loot) is more fair way of catering to all players and ENTICE some to try something different (take more risks, run in smaller teams) or just go for the safety and small returns of huge numbers.

Yours wouldn’t be a particularly desirable system either, though. We know large groups are the most effective playstyle, that’s why they’re used so much. If it were just mindless idiots (as a lot of people seem to think), that would be one thing. But the large, organised guilds in the top tiers consciously choose to run mostly in large numbers rather than splitting up into lots of small groups. I’m reasonably sure they wouldn’t all do this if it were a less effective style of gameplay. So, if you have a reward system for wxp, karma and loot based on the number of people around, you’re basically forcing everyone to make a choice between a) being most useful to their server, and b) getting personal rewards for themselves. I honestly don’t know which way guilds would go with that; but nonetheless, it would merely incentivise playing WvW badly.

Any penalty system, whether to rewards or stats, is going to be untenable, though. There are some things, like taking a T3, WP’d keep (esp hills), with defenders and siege inside, that absolutely require you to use a large group of players. Capping keeps and resetting upgrades has to be one of the most important priorities in the game, yet some people in this thread would have the players who actually do something useful like that be ridiculously penalised for it. Whereas they’d be quite happy for a lone roamer who caps a sentry or camp, and doesn’t even hold it for the tick, get massive rewards/benefits.

^^^ 100 times this.
And 15 charrs.

The Goat.1940:

Liu.4751:

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.

idk maybe get more friends so you don’t have to QQ about every group being too big and scary! ZOMG Anet change the game I don’t have enough friends so I need you to babysit my game play… (infraction inc…)

You don’t have 50 friends who WvW, you have 50 people who like to mindlessly karma train maps and don’t like having to be self sufficient so large numbers means the work is done for them. Higher tiers and zerg v zerg warfare is the path of least resistance. Everything is done for you.

Some people like their actions to be meaningful and the current meta, particularly in the higher tiers, is atrocious when it comes to strategy and skill. So much so that the dev guy in charge of WvW balanced wrote a post about wanting to pull WvW away from the zerg meta (there is a reason it’s called a zerg). I just watched a zerg in tier 2 melt a tier 3 keep door in a matter of seconds with no siege. That’s not skill nor is it a healthy meta. It is a ringing endorsement of numbers beats everything though.

A tier 3 keep should be worth more than a tier 1 keep. Capturing a defended keep has plenty of additional reward in the form of loot and WvW experience.

I’d personally like to see a change where the ‘world bonuses’ are either eliminated or restricted purely to WvW maps. It’s pretty much a case of the rich get richer and the poor stay poor in whole worlds depending on player populations and sadly it’s pretty much completely from other people’s efforts making it happen.

Kind of hard to see the justification in players being rewarded for someone else’s work or getting deprived of such opportunities because their world can’t regularly dominate an entire map all day week after week.

Eliminating it altogether might even put an end to the zerg problem as there’s MUCH less incentive to mindlessly smash and capture everything in sight for persisting bonuses outside of WvW.

I know, radical idea, rewarding players in accordance to their own efforts and rewarding different styles of play independently of one another. But given ArenaNet’s history of implementing this style of idea (gw factions) probably never going to see a day when the PvP/WvW players aren’t affecting PvE play for the worse somehow.

HAI TDA!!!

Olvendred.3027:

Xenn.3809:

Hai Dius!

Caid.4932:

Personally i’d give a boon duration debuff to groups of 30+. Its not going to hurt pug zergs all that much, it will hurt zerg guilds though. Once the group hits 50+ can basically remove boons, hopefully will put people off running in them size groups or if they continue doing so, they’ll make themselves an easy target

I’m not sure penalising the battle part is right. If you take a analogy I used few post up, a company of 100 (1% of share on profit) will be less risk and will have the expertise of 100 – they not going to cut one arm off just because they competing against B (company ruled by 1 person). That’s a why a share of profit (WXP, Karma, loot) is more fair way of catering to all players and ENTICE some to try something different (take more risks, run in smaller teams) or just go for the safety and small returns of huge numbers.

Yours wouldn’t be a particularly desirable system either, though. We know large groups are the most effective playstyle, that’s why they’re used so much. If it were just mindless idiots (as a lot of people seem to think), that would be one thing. But the large, organised guilds in the top tiers consciously choose to run mostly in large numbers rather than splitting up into lots of small groups. I’m reasonably sure they wouldn’t all do this if it were a less effective style of gameplay. So, if you have a reward system for wxp, karma and loot based on the number of people around, you’re basically forcing everyone to make a choice between a) being most useful to their server, and b) getting personal rewards for themselves. I honestly don’t know which way guilds would go with that; but nonetheless, it would merely incentivise playing WvW badly.

Any penalty system, whether to rewards or stats, is going to be untenable, though. There are some things, like taking a T3, WP’d keep (esp hills), with defenders and siege inside, that absolutely require you to use a large group of players. Capping keeps and resetting upgrades has to be one of the most important priorities in the game, yet some people in this thread would have the players who actually do something useful like that be ridiculously penalised for it. Whereas they’d be quite happy for a lone roamer who caps a sentry or camp, and doesn’t even hold it for the tick, get massive rewards/benefits.

My main issue with zergs is that they make the game unplayable, no skills firing off etc.
I think they need to be forcefully removed from the game as they make the game unenjoyable to play. With the size of maps and aoe cap and other technical issues theres very little other means of changing the fact that they’re always going to be more effective than a smaller group.

Personally i dont think it’d effect keep battles all that much. Maybe you’d have supply issues but if you have more groups instead of big groups then supply runs can take over.
Realistically if they have enough ac’s in there your not going to ram the gate whether you have 10 or 100 and your basically goign to have to pull back and cata or treb (maybe clear counter trebs first). Once you go down that route they can either keep building counter trebs till they run out of supply or rush out and fight you and the standard issues that zergs cause take over.
The reason why keep battles tend to result in an 80v80 mess atm is because ‘get more numbers’ is the default, ultimate strategy in this game. Theres just never a situation when its not the right answer.

Anyway you can punish the big group or reward the small group to get there but it basically leads to the same thing. (small group will have an advantage one way or the other)

Olvendred.3027:

Yours wouldn’t be a particularly desirable system either, though. We know large groups are the most effective playstyle, that’s why they’re used so much. If it were just mindless idiots (as a lot of people seem to think), that would be one thing. But the large, organised guilds in the top tiers consciously choose to run mostly in large numbers rather than splitting up into lots of small groups. I’m reasonably sure they wouldn’t all do this if it were a less effective style of gameplay. So, if you have a reward system for wxp, karma and loot based on the number of people around, you’re basically forcing everyone to make a choice between a) being most useful to their server, and b) getting personal rewards for themselves. I honestly don’t know which way guilds would go with that; but nonetheless, it would merely incentivise playing WvW badly.

Any penalty system, whether to rewards or stats, is going to be untenable, though. There are some things, like taking a T3, WP’d keep (esp hills), with defenders and siege inside, that absolutely require you to use a large group of players. Capping keeps and resetting upgrades has to be one of the most important priorities in the game, yet some people in this thread would have the players who actually do something useful like that be ridiculously penalised for it. Whereas they’d be quite happy for a lone roamer who caps a sentry or camp, and doesn’t even hold it for the tick, get massive rewards/benefits.

Some good points there, but not something that can not be overcome to promote a more diversified manner to play the game. Indeed, taking a T3 keep like Hills requires effort and a fare share of people to take it – but then you could argue that a T3 will have a bigger reward waiting inside, therefore the rewards wil be bigger, even if shared within lots of ppl (doubt a single player will cap a T3 alone, if so, well done to him!).

As for a roamer that takes sentry/camps just for the benefits, well, more needs to be done of defending rewards, but I was mainly thinking of the big parts of the cake – the towers and keeps – where a zerg just melts doors without even siege due to sheer numbers, all get tons of reward and move on. This are the players I would like to entice to try new ways – split up, coordinate and reap more rewards (personal and server wide).

Also, I don’t like WP in T3 – makes zergs move too fast around map. But that’s maybe another topic.

Want to know how to kill almost 5x ur numbers… coordination and seige I’ve used 8 to wipe 30 using 2 ward guards 2 staff ele 2 ballista an ac (pre buff). A ranger and a grenade engi

snowaugar.1823:

Want to know how to kill almost 5x ur numbers… coordination and seige I’ve used 8 to wipe 30 using 2 ward guards 2 staff ele 2 ballista an ac (pre buff). A ranger and a grenade engi

Theres nothing preventing a 30 man group from being coordinated or using siege. Small groups dont have a monopoly on this stuff.

Caid.4932:

snowaugar.1823:

Want to know how to kill almost 5x ur numbers… coordination and seige I’ve used 8 to wipe 30 using 2 ward guards 2 staff ele 2 ballista an ac (pre buff). A ranger and a grenade engi

Theres nothing preventing a 30 man group from being coordinated or using siege. Small groups dont have a monopoly on this stuff.

I agree .. my point was to prove it isn’t unballanced and well coordinated small groups can wipe 5 times their numbers if done properly I normally run in a 35-40 man organized guild group.. but sometimes I’ll small man

snowaugar.1823:

Want to know how to kill almost 5x ur numbers… coordination and seige I’ve used 8 to wipe 30 using 2 ward guards 2 staff ele 2 ballista an ac (pre buff). A ranger and a grenade engi

This is not how to kill bigger numbers – a co-ordinated small group will always kill a headless chicken mob. It’s about how to diversify play, and don’t only have a rule set that promotes one and only way to do things best.

With small maps (nothing can be done there) waypoints and other mechanics (AoE caps, but don’t want to start to discusse uniquely that point) the only way to defeat a larger organised group is.. to throw more numbers, and as Caid pointed out, where this stops? If every single player was at same skill level and organisation capabilities, just numbers make the difference, since its too easy for a big group to respond anywhere in the map, and isn’t any incentive to do it another way.

Xenn.3809:

snowaugar.1823:

Want to know how to kill almost 5x ur numbers… coordination and seige I’ve used 8 to wipe 30 using 2 ward guards 2 staff ele 2 ballista an ac (pre buff). A ranger and a grenade engi

This is not how to kill bigger numbers – a co-ordinated small group will always kill a headless chicken mob. It’s about how to diversify play, and don’t only have a rule set that promotes one and only way to do things best.

With small maps (nothing can be done there) waypoints and other mechanics (AoE caps, but don’t want to start to discusse uniquely that point) the only way to defeat a larger organised group is.. to throw more numbers, and as Caid pointed out, where this stops? If every single player was at same skill level and organisation capabilities, just numbers make the difference, since its too easy for a big group to respond anywhere in the map, and isn’t any incentive to do it another way.

WvW doesn’t promote one way of playing I see endless roamers and havocs look at my match up thread a large portion of it is small man/ roamers talking (t6) atm

snowaugar.1823:

WvW doesn’t promote one way of playing I see endless roamers and havocs look at my match up thread a large portion of it is small man/ roamers talking (t6) atm

You can re-interpret anything I say if you wish, but seems to me just trying to avoid the question posed in my posts.

Of course some of match-ups threads are about small man (the WvW forum visitor doesn’t necesarily represent the whole WvW pop), but its because those players enjoy doing so (we both seem to agree there); not because its necessarily the best way. And my problem is that, the current meta of bigger and bigger groups.

I only see this as a problem in higher tiers lower ones enjoyment > winning and the meta seems balanced between the 3 group types

WvW is and should be about epic battles and not about player vs player.

And running in organized groups needs a lot more organisation, overview and atleast the same skill but often very different builds which would be even bad in smaller scales.

Though running around mostly hitting autoattack for success may be true for stacked Guard-/Warri-groups but that´s a matter of balancing classes (for example through a bigger AoE-cap) and to some extend siege.

And scaling rewards is a dangerous field as it might be an incentive against grouping together. Imagine tells incoming: “No, we don´t want you to run with us and in that green circle, stay out!” Also it won´t help pug-commanders who often already have a hard time to bundle the pug-players on a map.

ANet can work on outmanned buff, siege, Aoe-cap, merge low-population servers, maybe tune rewards a little – but they should be very careful, hurting “zergs” could hurt the core of WvW – which is epic battles.

And the number of players on a map is capped anyways and the zerg can´t be everywhere, so there´s always room for mobile smaller groups somewhere.

1st thought of dividing rewards could have issues:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Future-of-WvW-Blog-post/2162718
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Eliminating-Zergs-and-imbalances/2165120
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Eliminating-Zergs-and-imbalances/2164485

They are very good points to consider (though only show flaws in the idea design, not solutions) – and finding solutions I think is what a debate should lead to.

Maybe they are other ways to look at it.

A map that’s more difficult to navigate, with more choke points, no WP in keeps would make just numbers less useful – I find that with current layout a zerg can respond anywhere in less than 2min, thanks to easy travel from WPs. Map size has already been indicated can’t change – but not how intricate is, or at least haven’t seen anything about it.

As a crude example, if citadel had only N exit (or at least force to go to gate, not jump down), and Spawns Vale/Water as the easier faster route maybe (one can hope) the meta will change slightly, thinning out forces to be able to cover map. Not using the magic WPs as main way to travel around map.

That way, zerg if you wish, but you going to be with huge disadvantage strategically (if winning actually meant kitten at all), and more choke points/terrain obstacles could help to ambush them.

Anyway, cya in lakes, great fun to have there, regardless of how you see the numbers game.

Raeyne.5086:

Or… Friendly fire damage.

This would be huuuuuuuge!
Still not possible, every AOE would be more or less impossible
If you are 3v3 or 50v50 wpuld not make a difference, you cant AOE anymore.

Maybe if you say, Friendly Fire gives 5% of AOE damage also to your party. Than it would scale pretty fast, so that everything over 20 would become suicide. Or just again, no AoE. Dont think this works, but nice idea

Xenn.3809:

A map that’s more difficult to navigate, with more choke points, no WP in keeps would make just numbers less useful – I find that with current layout a zerg can respond anywhere in less than 2min, thanks to easy travel from WPs. Map size has already been indicated can’t change – but not how intricate is, or at least haven’t seen anything about it.

This might actually work and lead to more smaller squads for defending and being mobile. But I would suggest to increase the cost for building a waypoint. So that waypoints become a very scarce and important part of the keep, that will increase mobility for the whole server by a lot. Making it upgradeable after keeping the keep for at least 24h or something and putting marker on the keep for enemies to know that this keep is able to transport hordes in seconds.
Maybe even change waypoints to asura portals to make more realistic and not clickable, also being able toport while the keep is under attack toamphasize the importance and the bound cost. Making the base waypoint the only one available with a new asura gate. After walking in you can choose where to travel.

Here is what I’m reading in this thread:

My group of leet hyper skilled players cannot compete against a zerg of lesser skilled players. Therefore, ANet must tilt the game towards our type of playstyle because….

Well, this is where you guys are losing it. Cause I’ve yet to read single decent reason for tuning the game to small group play over large group play. More people zerg than play small groups.

The zerg is tkittenense of wvw. Zergs can carry more suppy for siege…can drain supply camps to deny the enemy and speed build siege on the spot for the conquest of keeps & towers.

Not to say that there isn’t a place for small group play…but not at the expense of other forms of play.

Simply adding more depth to the WvW system would solve a lot of the zerging problems.

For example, redesign the map so it’s Y shaped and each lane represents a different server. Make it so structures have 2 states… contested and controlled. Contested means the enemy is in there and the lord is down but it isn’t theirs yet. Controlled means the lord is up and belongs to the enemy. In order for you to controll an enemy structure outside of your lane, none of the structures in your lane can be contested.

This alone forces zergs to break up and defend their home turf. It allows defenders a chance to circumvent the zerg by attacking something else. If the zerg leaves what they’re attacking to reclaim their stuff as a large unit, the defenders can rebuild.

Raf.1078:

Here is what I’m reading in this thread:

My group of leet hyper skilled players cannot compete against a zerg of lesser skilled players. Therefore, ANet must tilt the game towards our type of playstyle because….

Well, this is where you guys are losing it. Cause I’ve yet to read single decent reason for tuning the game to small group play over large group play. More people zerg than play small groups.

The zerg is tkittenense of wvw. Zergs can carry more suppy for siege…can drain supply camps to deny the enemy and speed build siege on the spot for the conquest of keeps & towers.

Not to say that there isn’t a place for small group play…but not at the expense of other forms of play.

BINGO! Like I said in my post, these players should request a WvW maps on a smaller scale based on small team skill but instead they want to change game mechanics so they can run around solo or in their 5 man tpvp groups and own players/groups 4 to 10 times there size. This will only promote cookie cutter specs and classes more and only encourage trolling.

Does it seem that a lot of the ideas here manage to both punish people in guilds with a lot of people and punish people who like to have the ability to join a large group as they can or want without being forced to join a guild at the same time?

Exactly who benefits from changing WvWvW? If I were in a large guild, I’d hate having to not be able to do things together or being penalized for doing things together. As a player that likes to be able to join large groups as I can or want, I’d hate having to join teams or guilds just to be able to play in smaller groups or having to play solo to get decent rewards.

If you like playing in small groups or soloing things, there are plenty of places on the maps where there aren’t zergs at any given time, just keep moving and avoid the zergs.

If the five of you can’t hold the tower against fifty, well, enjoy your Alamo achievement. Which actually would be a nice line achievements – gain credit towards them when you hold an X or Y or Z vs. superior numbers for a period of time before failing…

MisterEction.9382:

Does it seem that a lot of the ideas here manage to both punish people in guilds with a lot of people and punish people who like to have the ability to join a large group as they can or want without being forced to join a guild at the same time?

Exactly who benefits from changing WvWvW? If I were in a large guild, I’d hate having to not be able to do things together or being penalized for doing things together. As a player that likes to be able to join large groups as I can or want, I’d hate having to join teams or guilds just to be able to play in smaller groups or having to play solo to get decent rewards.

If you like playing in small groups or soloing things, there are plenty of places on the maps where there aren’t zergs at any given time, just keep moving and avoid the zergs.

If the five of you can’t hold the tower against fifty, well, enjoy your Alamo achievement. Which actually would be a nice line achievements – gain credit towards them when you hold an X or Y or Z vs. superior numbers for a period of time before failing…

My main concern for punishing people for grouping is the one player that comes into the area and puts the group over the threashold and we are all penalized even though they did nothing but come to the structure we are attacking.

Opens up opportunity to griefing. That single note bell ringer will also be able to hamper the group attacking a keep since all they have to do is put us over the limit. The new player will get chewed out because they didn’t know about the penalty since it is their first time in WvW, will not have a very good impression.

Penalizing for grouping up is a stupid bad idea.

If people want to encourage small grouping, that is fine. Just don’t encourage by penalizing players for coming together in a large group.

Raf.1078:

Here is what I’m reading in this thread:

My group of leet hyper skilled players cannot compete against a zerg of lesser skilled players. Therefore, ANet must tilt the game towards our type of playstyle because….

Well, this is where you guys are losing it. Cause I’ve yet to read single decent reason for tuning the game to small group play over large group play. More people zerg than play small groups.

The zerg is tkittenense of wvw. Zergs can carry more suppy for siege…can drain supply camps to deny the enemy and speed build siege on the spot for the conquest of keeps & towers.

Not to say that there isn’t a place for small group play…but not at the expense of other forms of play.

I agree. it boggles my mind that people in this thread actually wants to discourage large scale group battles in a MMORPG. What do people want? If more than 20 people are in a certain radius of each other they randomly start to drop dead?

SPVP seems to be what ANET had in mind for small groups. WvWvW IMO was designed for three massive armies to go toe to toe with each other.

Estus.1726:

Raf.1078:

Here is what I’m reading in this thread:

My group of leet hyper skilled players cannot compete against a zerg of lesser skilled players. Therefore, ANet must tilt the game towards our type of playstyle because….

Well, this is where you guys are losing it. Cause I’ve yet to read single decent reason for tuning the game to small group play over large group play. More people zerg than play small groups.

The zerg is tkittenense of wvw. Zergs can carry more suppy for siege…can drain supply camps to deny the enemy and speed build siege on the spot for the conquest of keeps & towers.

Not to say that there isn’t a place for small group play…but not at the expense of other forms of play.

I agree. it boggles my mind that people in this thread actually wants to discourage large scale group battles in a MMORPG. What do people want? If more than 20 people are in a certain radius of each other they randomly start to drop dead?

SPVP seems to be what ANET had in mind for small groups. WvWvW IMO was designed for three massive armies to go toe to toe with each other.

People aren’t complaining about 20 man groups, they’re complaining about 70 man groups that the game can’t handle in fights and lead to lousy gameplay with 1 attack.