Guild Wars 2

What would be the point of “Fixing” this?

Because in WvWvW it is Siege Warfare, IE: large Groups, storm the castle, that kind of thing. So it’s the theme of WvWvW to be a large group of people to hit an objective, if you wanted small fights, there is sPvP.

I don’t mind Zerg v Zerg when it’s not at numbers that grind my abilities to 15 second lag. Love seeing 20 bags on the floor after a good clearing.

I would like to see some built in features to help minimize numbers to around 30 per Zerg. Like a commander UI that has a maximize of 30 players in the raid ui.

Also the game encourages fighting doors over people. How about making some alternative entry to castles via controlling certain non walled off areas.

Also make SMC worth 50 points per tick and it takes 1 hour to get walls up once you break in. The opposition could slow this process down by 1 hour by killing a NPC in control of putting up the walls bottm floor and the legendary guard/indicator is on the top floor and controlling his area changes ownership and he is on the top floor of SMC.

Also the way-pointing could be different. Add more waypoints and add a wp point system. The less points you earn per tick the more wp points you get. if a WP is contested you need to use WP points but can actually move to that location if you have wp points. give the side with less people an advantage and encouraging more fights.
The WP would be in open field areas not behind walls to encourage fighting, giving the WP a 10 second invulnerable buff.

Got so many different ideas to create more variety and less Pvdoor and more pvp which would also encourage spreading out.

I think problem is capacity of servers and big lag. Capacity is calculated for beginning of game but now 80% of players are gone.
I have one question to arenanet what are you mean with “min require” for harduer? WvW can’t play with this “min require”!

Ungood.3054:

What would be the point of “Fixing” this?

Because in WvWvW it is Siege Warfare, IE: large Groups, storm the castle, that kind of thing. So it’s the theme of WvWvW to be a large group of people to hit an objective, if you wanted small fights, there is sPvP.

I wonder the same thing. WvW was suppose to be the large scale pvp experience, and then people are looking for ways to demotivate large scale fighting. Then what was the point again?

There are two separate issues to respond to here. Zergs are bad because (1) they result in boring gameplay and (2) the game engine doesn’t deal with them that well.

A related issue is that it is most efficient for zergs to clump up due to boon stacking, easy reviving and the 5 person AE target limit. Open field battles are generally more fun since they people don’t clump as much so their is the more maneuvering and less lag.

If you showed your friend the open field battles, he might say, “that looks cool”. If you showed him a group clumping up or a huge zerg overruning a smaller one in seconds, he would likely ask, “Dude, why do you play this game?”

I would like to reduce the TTK for zergs but keep it intact for smaller groups. Wishful thinking, I know.

But bear in mind, I’m on a tier 2 server. Tier 8 server has different issues. The devs have a lot to balance, PvE, SPvP, WvW (roamers, small groups, zergs, different servers).

Personally, if somebody created a WvW game with equal number of players on each side and a more efficient game engine (less graphics – WoW graphics would be fine), one would ask the question if there is any point in playing WvW aside from the relationships you built up.

Zergs are unfortunately a necessary entity. If everyone was in 5-10 man groups taking objectives nothing would ever get flipped. The reason is because while your defending a castle or even supply points when its 5v5 one team will have the advantage of the NPC’s making there #‘s larger. To an extent, bigger #’s win. When a fight gets scaled to 20 vs 30 the smaller side has potential to win, but its obvious if you were to just run all in and clash the bigger number wins. Taking points though would just be to hard to have Only small groups. Defending > attacking always. Nothing would get flipped without at least one large force coming and kicking your door in.

Here’s my experience on Tier 1 and 2.

Get into TS so you can hear the commanders actual commands.
Run with the large, co-ordinated force.
Watch as the game ascends to a higher level where it’s no longer about your individual skill and effort, and instead you become a part of a much larger whole, able to pull of feats that will blow your mind only thanks to what is summed up as, or dumbed down to, “The Zerg”.

From the outside, from a roamer, or small group perspective zerging looks ridiculous. It’s only once you fully invest in zerg vs zerg that you come to appreciate what the hell is going on. Commander vs Commander, Guild vs Guild, Discipline, moving as one collective force, trying to outplay an opposing monster who, if a mistake is made, will roll right over you and yours.

There’s nothing here to fix. This is the height of warfare. Beautiful, beautiful warfare.

I don’t have a problem with zergs in open-field play. If they want to do that, then they’re welcome to have a boring time chasing around several smaller teams capping camps. IMO the problem is that a zerg of 50-60 can come up to a T3 tower/keep that your group of 5-10 has been defending for hours, melt the doors down in a matter of seconds, down the lord, and cap the place, all in under 2 minutes, certainly before any reinforcements can reach you.
A T2/3 tower/keep really shouldn’t be able to change hands so quickly, they should require at least a good quarter of an hour of seige-work.

So I guess to fix that you’d put a cap on the amount of damage a gate can take per-second. If a group of 50 couldn’t cap a tower any faster than a group of 20, it’d make a massive difference.

Fallen.2158:

Zergs are unfortunately a necessary entity. If everyone was in 5-10 man groups taking objectives nothing would ever get flipped. The reason is because while your defending a castle or even supply points when its 5v5 one team will have the advantage of the NPC’s making there #‘s larger. To an extent, bigger #’s win. When a fight gets scaled to 20 vs 30 the smaller side has potential to win, but its obvious if you were to just run all in and clash the bigger number wins. Taking points though would just be to hard to have Only small groups. Defending > attacking always. Nothing would get flipped without at least one large force coming and kicking your door in.

Our roaming group of 4-5 takes Supply Camps with 5+ defenders guarding it on a very regular basis. The NPCs aren’t a major factor to a strong havoc squad.

Zergs are fine.

What needs to be fixed is spreading the wvw population out to all servers. Who knows how to make incentives for people to move to smaller servers though.

1) Un-cap aoe/boons
– Forces zergs to be aware of their surroundings
– Would balance the damage output of small man vs large man fights
* In a pitched battle between a five man and a 20 man, each player of the 20 man can produce damage against 100% of the 5 man. However the 5 man can only produce damage against 25% of the 20 man.
– With aoe from zergs being such a larger threat to enemy zergs fights would be more about maneuvering/tactics rather than sheer numbers.

2) Increase the size of the WvW maps.
– With more distance between defense points fights in open field between zergs would be more dynamic.
– Siege weapons placed in defense points (towers/keeps) should not be able to hit other defense points. This would make sieges more dynamic as well

3) Culling
– Work in progress.

Dynnen.6405:

1) Un-cap aoe/boons
– Forces zergs to be aware of their surroundings
– Would balance the damage output of small man vs large man fights
* In a pitched battle between a five man and a 20 man, each player of the 20 man can produce damage against 100% of the 5 man. However the 5 man can only produce damage against 25% of the 20 man.
– With aoe from zergs being such a larger threat to enemy zergs fights would be more about maneuvering/tactics rather than sheer numbers.

2) Increase the size of the WvW maps.
– With more distance between defense points fights in open field between zergs would be more dynamic.
– Siege weapons placed in defense points (towers/keeps) should not be able to hit other defense points. This would make sieges more dynamic as well

3) Culling
– Work in progress.

Uncapping AoE damage would be of HUGE benefit to small roaming groups. It’d teach alot of zerglings a very valuable lesson about situational awareness.

Bigger problem is that zergs are too small. I wanna see over 1k player zergs.

zerging will never stop in this game due to the wvw " ranking" system, its basically a zerg glorification system. might as well just rank the servers by population its the same thing.

its really odd tbh, this is the only mmo i have played where ppl find it skillful to zerg and are praised for doing it. even the guild vs guild fights are zerg on zerg.

You will never remove a zerg, it’s player mentality not the game. People want to be safe, and safety comes from numbers. You can up AoE caps etc, other changes all you want, but people will still stick together.

If you make it so the zerg is ineffective for score, it won’t matter, they don’t do it for score (although allowing you to carry far more supply between you and nuke a tower in 3minutes not 30 is a factor – just not the reason people do it).

Ross Biddle.2367:

From the outside, from a roamer, or small group perspective zerging looks ridiculous.

That’s because it IS ridiculous. 40-50 people spamming their skills on cooldown isn’t remotely difficult OR skillful. The tactics of moving people around the map and sieging objectives tactically…there’s a level of skill involved in that. But the act of being a zergling amongst a zerg requires very little in the way of actual skillful gameplay. In fact, in my opinion, it degrades individual skill.

“Fixing” it is a bad idea. A lot of people actually enjoy large scale combat.

Now for the rest of you who do not enjoy it, there should be smaller maps with more small team objectives.

style.6173:

“Fixing” it is a bad idea. A lot of people actually enjoy large scale combat.

Now for the rest of you who do not enjoy it, there should be large maps with more small team objectives.

Fixed, and I agree.

There’s nothing to fix gameplay wise. However, changes to culling (said they will fix), bloody skill lag, larger map would be great.

simple: add a new map without objectives or teams and then add arenas to major cities so people can duel each other.

imagine it! a map where team size is limited to 5 in a party. no objectives, no zergs, just pvp.

vespers.1759:

simple: add a new map without objectives or teams and then add arenas to major cities so people can duel each other.

imagine it! a map where team size is limited to 5 in a party. no objectives, no zergs, just pvp.

This is actually good idea. Players could organize own tournaments and so on.

problem its not the zergs but culling or mass stealth, wxwxw it ’s always big numbers on battles, and trust me i never saw larger zergs than on early abyss AION fortress sieges with more than 500 players near 1 fortress

Zerging as a tactic is fine, the problem in GW2 is the design is weighted too much in favour of this one tactic because of things like small map size, silly 5 person AOE limit, objectives that can be melted by a zerg, etc., it would be nice if they could reduce (or compensate) for these unnecessary advantages in favour of this one tactic to make the game a bit more interesting and varied.

As for comparisions to real warfare, last time I checked this invloved units of many sizes, not two blobs running into each other, or that if 10 people were engulfed in a fiery inferno, then 5 would not miraculously walk out unharmed by it, or that you can not magically run straight through people (yes collision detection is good, though that invloves using your brain a bit more), or that sieging a castle takes days/weeks/months, and so on…

they really should have had a warzone system like other mmo’s have had, and let it contribute to the server score. 3 way 10v10v10 Tdm/KotH maps imo.

Zerging is a part of siege.
Problem is the power zergs have.
Its at the moment the only tactic (have a bigger zerg).
You dont need good commanders or good groups(/guilds) you just need to have the biggest zerg.

So dont remove zerging just make it less powerfull.
At the moment one large zerg can control and dominate a whole zone.
If you change the game that one zerg cant control a whole zone. And make it easier for smaller groups(20-30) to fight or stall a zerg then the zerg become less powerfull.
And splitting up in 3-5 smaller groups instead of one would be an other tactic that has as good as a chance as one zerg to win that week.(make skill/teamwork be more valueable)

BTW i have seen people saying removing the AOE cap will fix zerging?? But i dont see how it would fix it? Tactical groups(20-30) run very close together.. so when aoe hits them only 5 of them got hit. (mostly its a different 5 all the time)
Removing the 5 cap will mean everyone will get hit.
A tactical group running close together will give eachother lots of boons. Where people buff eachother all the time. The usualy zerg players only play for themself and the few people that doesnt and actualy try to buff others will without the cap give to a zerg also boons.. and because of numbers the few people that do give boons will be equeal to a smaller group.
So again why remove the cap?

There are many guild groups(20-30people) that have proven to be able to kill zergs of 50-60 people with the cap… Cap is good..
The problem is the very large zerg(+80) power and 0 tactics to deal with it..
Even good guild groups cant stop them because of the lag/culling/rezzing problems.

So a system to make zergs less powerfull:
If you get killed(not downed) you cant be rezzed if there are more then 10 allies close (dead or alive within a range of 1500). You need to release or wait till people leave.
This will slow downthe zerg and make it less powerfull (choise to run back to spawnpoint to pick up the released players or the released people getting picked off by groups intercepting people going to zerg)
Also points for kills (if good balanced to objective) is a good thing so people doing less PVDooring.

Combo fields. Make combo fields nullify once 2 or 3 overlap eachother. This will make people spread out and be more deliberate with their combo fields and have to pick and choose how they use them instead of just throwing down a million and only being deliberate with them to stack might and then maybe heal mid fight.

You will see actual groups form and move away to use combo fields. Buff projectiles and whirls as well and you will see those actually be used to a greater effect.

To make zergs stop, you would have to have everyone with a body that does not allow you to stand on top of another person.

Zergs are so effective because we can clump up into one spot and move around as a tight ball. If you could not clump up, things would have to be done much differently.

Not.

/thread

TheFug.5278:

Combo fields. Make combo fields nullify once 2 or 3 overlap eachother. This will make people spread out and be more deliberate with their combo fields and have to pick and choose how they use them instead of just throwing down a million and only being deliberate with them to stack might and then maybe heal mid fight.

You will see actual groups form and move away to use combo fields. Buff projectiles and whirls as well and you will see those actually be used to a greater effect.

Combo fields already work in some what that manner. The field on the bottom of the stack is the functional field so if someone tossed down a fire field then another water field right away, the fire field is what gets applied and the water field gets ignored until the fire field goes away.

Everything seems to be designed to favor 1-2 large forces roaming the map. I think we are stuck with this because changes like making the map bigger or extra speed (somehow) or whatever, will just make a large number of players upset.

Get rid of culling, portal bombing, and invisibility.
Give me a strait up fight not being warped on constantly.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

TheFug.5278:

Combo fields. Make combo fields nullify once 2 or 3 overlap eachother. This will make people spread out and be more deliberate with their combo fields and have to pick and choose how they use them instead of just throwing down a million and only being deliberate with them to stack might and then maybe heal mid fight.

You will see actual groups form and move away to use combo fields. Buff projectiles and whirls as well and you will see those actually be used to a greater effect.

Combo fields already work in some what that manner. The field on the bottom of the stack is the functional field so if someone tossed down a fire field then another water field right away, the fire field is what gets applied and the water field gets ignored until the fire field goes away.

Yes, but that top field still works. So 40 people stacking fields on the front line, even if 3/4 of them overlap you still have 10 different fields to choose from for your random spins / projectiles.

It needs to make it so that standing in the middle of the fight doesn’t proc 1000 combo fields for no reason, they need to be deliberate. also I guarantee that the less combo’ing that goes on, all of that skill lag we have been seing will go away.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Here’s my experience on Tier 1 and 2.

Get into TS so you can hear the commanders actual commands.
Run with the large, co-ordinated force.
Watch as the game ascends to a higher level where it’s no longer about your individual skill and effort, and instead you become a part of a much larger whole, able to pull of feats that will blow your mind only thanks to what is summed up as, or dumbed down to, “The Zerg”.

From the outside, from a roamer, or small group perspective zerging looks ridiculous. It’s only once you fully invest in zerg vs zerg that you come to appreciate what the hell is going on. Commander vs Commander, Guild vs Guild, Discipline, moving as one collective force, trying to outplay an opposing monster who, if a mistake is made, will roll right over you and yours.

There’s nothing here to fix. This is the height of warfare. Beautiful, beautiful warfare.

Stack up into one huge turttle, deploy portal entre, send suicidal mesmer into enemy zerg to drop portal exit, buff up, use portal, mash keyboard blindly, see who won. Beautiful beautiful warfare.

Transfer to a lower tier. Just like queues, zerg vs zerg is a problem that is created by players. When everyone chooses to stack on the same handful of servers (some more than others) it’s inevitable that the maps become crowded and the only way to compete with your opposition is to bring a zerg as big or bigger than theirs. In lower tier servers (with less players in general) there is still a vigorous competition (scores are largely determined by coverage rather than skill or absence of competition) but the number of people spread across the four maps is smaller.

There are still zergs, they are just smaller and more managable zergs (and certainly less frequent – there are zergs to capture sentries in tier one), and they can’t be everywhere at once. In the lower tiers there is a lot more of an opportunity for organised groups and guilds to capture or defend objectives and have solid lag free clashes with opposing forces without having to worry about sheer numbers stampeding over them.

Just because WvW can have 100+ people on every map doesn’t mean having that many people offers the best experience. Players got obsessed chasing the “glory” of tier one wins (or wins in general) and they all transferred to the same handful of servers hoping to create the greatest number advantage (or at least compete with another server’s numbers advantage). Very few people I know in WvW loved the giant zerg clashes more than anything else (three way fights for Stonemist are the opposite of fun, you’d be better off logging out and watching a movie instead of watching your skill bar freeze) and culling and stealth exploiting get worse with zerg combat. Join a lower tier server and you will notice your guild is able to capture objectives and have very enjoyable and competitive fights with opposing players and guilds without having to worry about zerg balls of culling, lag, instant death and AoE spam.

Honestly, most of the people complaining about a zerg vs zerg meta are creating the problem by stacking on the same handful of servers. This isn’t as big an issue in the lower tiers.

I have no problem with Zergs, I just wish I could see them and could counter them.

So, to ‘fix’ zergs;
* Remove culling (coming soon if it works)
* Remove the AoE cap and make AoE damage ‘drop off’ *

By ‘drop off’ I’m talking about AoE that does 100% of it’s damage at the centre and gradually drops to 0% of it’s damage at the edges of the AoE circle. This would make it viable to nuke large stacking groups, but still require some AoE skills for best placement.

WvW is either zergs or large guilds running around in a tight testicle formation spamming their autos.

The AoE change would allow for a sensible counter to this.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Here’s my experience on Tier 1 and 2.

Get into TS so you can hear the commanders actual commands.
Run with the large, co-ordinated force.
Watch as the game ascends to a higher level where it’s no longer about your individual skill and effort, and instead you become a part of a much larger whole, able to pull of feats that will blow your mind only thanks to what is summed up as, or dumbed down to, “The Zerg”.

From the outside, from a roamer, or small group perspective zerging looks ridiculous. It’s only once you fully invest in zerg vs zerg that you come to appreciate what the hell is going on. Commander vs Commander, Guild vs Guild, Discipline, moving as one collective force, trying to outplay an opposing monster who, if a mistake is made, will roll right over you and yours.

There’s nothing here to fix. This is the height of warfare. Beautiful, beautiful warfare.

Except while one army is playing the other one is sleeping.

It should have already fixed itself the intelligent thing to do when your enemy is isolating its forces its to split up and branch out to the other maps. It was the reason BG was able to defeat KN though now they have forgot this and were pulled into zerg vs zerg from the chest beating on the forums (It is like a fantastic boxer getting taunted into a slug fest sigh). There are also Things like com tags that promote the zerg gameplay because there is lack of communication just the icon I liked it allot more durring the first few months of the game when reason ruled the day instead of 100g.

The fix is simple:

1. Take aspects of wvw and minimize it.

2. Create three sides, Kurzick, Luxon and insert faction name here

3. Limit each side to 15 players each.

4. Call it Alliance Battle

5. Success

Ungood.3054:

What would be the point of “Fixing” this?

Because in WvWvW it is Siege Warfare, IE: large Groups, storm the castle, that kind of thing. So it’s the theme of WvWvW to be a large group of people to hit an objective, if you wanted small fights, there is sPvP.

I came into this thread to say the same thing. You can’t expect to square off one 5 man group against they other it doesn’t work that way.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Here’s my experience on Tier 1 and 2.

Get into TS so you can hear the commanders actual commands.
Run with the large, co-ordinated force.
Watch as the game ascends to a higher level where it’s no longer about your individual skill and effort, and instead you become a part of a much larger whole, able to pull of feats that will blow your mind only thanks to what is summed up as, or dumbed down to, “The Zerg”.

From the outside, from a roamer, or small group perspective zerging looks ridiculous. It’s only once you fully invest in zerg vs zerg that you come to appreciate what the hell is going on. Commander vs Commander, Guild vs Guild, Discipline, moving as one collective force, trying to outplay an opposing monster who, if a mistake is made, will roll right over you and yours.

There’s nothing here to fix. This is the height of warfare. Beautiful, beautiful warfare.

I always thought zergs were, by definition, uncoordinated. The group just following the commander icon, not in ts, not following orders, just sort of blindly following a blue icon, trailing behind so they trickle in 3-4 people at a time, and doing generally whatever the hell they want, running over most opposing groups with nothing but sheer numbers.

But it seems like the definition of zerg has mutated into either:
a. any group bigger than my group
b. any group of more than 1 player who kills me
c. any group big enough to capture anything besides a sentry point

depending on the situation. So I guess there are now “coordinated zergs”? Still seems like an oxymoron to me, but meh.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Here’s my experience on Tier 1 and 2.

Get into TS so you can hear the commanders actual commands.
Run with the large, co-ordinated force.
Watch as the game ascends to a higher level where it’s no longer about your individual skill and effort, and instead you become a part of a much larger whole, able to pull of feats that will blow your mind only thanks to what is summed up as, or dumbed down to, “The Zerg”.

From the outside, from a roamer, or small group perspective zerging looks ridiculous. It’s only once you fully invest in zerg vs zerg that you come to appreciate what the hell is going on. Commander vs Commander, Guild vs Guild, Discipline, moving as one collective force, trying to outplay an opposing monster who, if a mistake is made, will roll right over you and yours.

There’s nothing here to fix. This is the height of warfare. Beautiful, beautiful warfare.

Who wants to be put in a situation where their individual skill doesn’t matter? (Aside from those who are not proficient players. In which case, I could see someone wanting a situation where they can be carried and it doesn’t matter whether or not they are any good.)

I don’t think it has to do with coordination. Zerg term gets thrown around too much.

I think it just has to do with wanting to sometimes fight 10v10. Its great to have big fights, that is why we WvW but sometimes it is nice to see that you are ‘having an effect on a battles outcome’, which is tough to notice ikitten0v50v50, especially with lag and culling issues.

And there is also the strategic issues. Now, some do strategically roam with 5 to get camps and kill dolyaks. I think many don’t because they don’t like running into the big 20+ “zerg”, which happens fairly often. This happens because the maps are small and so it isn’t as tough or costly as it needs to be for a 20+ man mob to hunt down some 5 man groiup that is trying to be commando ‘behind enemy lines’. Just not enough area to run off into and avoid the large “zergs” that would normally go on more direct routes.

In DAoC you had speed over the big forces and this gets suggested a lot. It would do the trick but since it isn’t in at launch, not sure it would be taken well by those who enjoy the game on its ‘more even playing field’, whatever that means. Well, it means whatever perspective it is coming from. I just like a game to be fun and mixed types of battles in WvW is fun for me.

There is a very simple solution, if you do not want to be ikittenerg, dont follow a commander easy as that. if ANET did not wants huge groups of people running around with each other then the commander icon would have never came out. so deal with it ^^

“Ikittenerg” sorry auto correct.

Stepping away from the zerg means being killed by someone in stealth, and then being stomped by someone in stealth.

That’s the bottom line for me. If I step away from the zerg, I’m just a free kill.

Ezeriel.9574:

Stepping away from the zerg means being killed by someone in stealth, and then being stomped by someone in stealth.

That’s the bottom line for me. If I step away from the zerg, I’m just a free kill.

That is a valid point. The risk verse reward for many class/builds makes solo or small grp (1-3) not a good option. But we do lack even grps of 10 roaming around, unless it is off-hours (since then 10 can be a force, but during prime time 10 is not enough).

I suggest you remove these noob-friendly features:

-aoe cap.
-revieving while in fight
-downed state
-no waypoint timers, should be 10 secs per person.

and maybe then WvW becomes something more than Zerg Wars 2.

BrockMcCleery.9562:

Ezeriel.9574:

Stepping away from the zerg means being killed by someone in stealth, and then being stomped by someone in stealth.

That’s the bottom line for me. If I step away from the zerg, I’m just a free kill.

That is a valid point. The risk verse reward for many class/builds makes solo or small grp (1-3) not a good option. But we do lack even grps of 10 roaming around, unless it is off-hours (since then 10 can be a force, but during prime time 10 is not enough).

Groups of 10 to 15 happen quite often in T1, at least I’ve seen JQ using them to hit camps and dolyaks. This was during reset and the week.

Watched them doing that on a couple maps since I took tower guarding duty.

Small groups have become more useful since orange swords got raised. Not enough players have adapted to it yet to take advantage of the new limit.

Before, 5 people would have set off those swords and there wasn’t the kind of scouting in keeps/towers that is needed now. See orange swords, zerg goes there because it may or may not have been a rather large force of players causing those swords before. Players are still in a different mindset.

I really don’t care to force people to spread out in smaller teams. If they want to run in a huge group, more power to them. I think it is crap that people are trying to change the game just because they don’t like large dealing with large groups. I like the huge 3 way battles in garrison and SM. May be some skill lag but it still is a fun time. Just need to fix the skill lag.

Really, there isn’t a problem with zergs. Other may disagree but that is their opinion and I don’t care, I’m having fun with zergs.

There will always be two camps in WvW, one that thinks a zerg is some mindless mash of players, and another who enjoys strats involving zergs.

Small group play will always and has always had a large role in WvW. Smalls squads can quickly take camps, slow or halt supply lines, and take a tower/keep when permitting.

Zergs, despite what some will proclaim, have their own element of tactical mastery involved. Aside from zerging towers and keeps, ZvZ open field fights hardly revolve around spamming skills on CD. Proper troop movement, flanking and use of multiple class abilities play a huge role in who is the victor of such engagements.

Each has its place in WvW and can if coordinated, put a great deal of factors in your control on the overall battlefield. To discount over the other leaves your server at a handicap.

The only real problem with zerg battles is that they usually come down to Zerg A wiping Zerg B (usually within half a min or less), or AOE ranged standoff at a choke, or Zerg B scattering and running from Zerg A.

Fixing culling will be a huge step in preventing quick wipes. But I would also like to see some anti-AOE abilities, abilities that would simply clear all AOE’s from an area instantly and force more single target on single target action.