Guild Wars 2

How many people would actually like to play sometimes or all the time in smaller groups?

Everything at the moment seems to be geared towards creating massive numbers and “epic battles”. I know a lot of people enjoy this.

I’ve also seen posts however from players who don’t enjoy the rolling zergs, or at least not all the time. Are there enough of these players to make a set of lower population servers viable?

Therein lies the problem. One of my very best friends said this:

“It’s kinda hard to design maps that discourage zerging while still allowing zergs, to spread population evenly while maintaining server pride and reputation, to eliminate nightcapping while making wvw a perpetual conflict. These things are mutually exclusive and there is no dev on the planet who could make them happen.”

This statement was made when everyone was kittening about the desert borderland, but the concept somewhat remains the same.

The linkings, at least it seems to me, was put in to appease the lower pop servers, to retain their server identity while giving them more people to work with.

But it IS, after all “world” versus “world.” And as the upper tier server populations indicate, massive battles are enjoyable.

Also, I know for a fact, it’s not hard to roam at all in the upper tiers. All you need is a little map/situational awareness. Know where your pins are (and that’s usually where zergs are, or are going to go). Watch the flips. It’s really not that hard.

And I know this by coming from one of the lowest tier servers that I left in June of 2013. I literally told people “I’ll never go to Tier 1, it’s just blob after blob after blob.” For one thing, I couldn’t have been more wrong. For another thing, I can’t even imagine being in a low-pop server again.

I don’t know what to say. I do a bit of both and while I do not enjoy zerging much, I adimit I had some real epic battles while doing so.

Overall we don’t want everyone just becoming a mindless blob, but what can we do when having more numbers give you an clear advantage? People who chose to roll in as small groups are taking a risk because they enjoy that play style but I really doubt that WvW would be great with only, let’s say, 5-man parties. Have you ever tried to take a T3 keep while it’s being defended? It’s nigh impossible without a lot of manpower.

Most days i’d rather be driving down the road in a semi, you know just in case I run into something. It’s big, it’s tough, and it will wreck everything along the way…

But some days it’s nice to break out the ducati and blow past the semi’s

So, from the limited responses so far, it would be nice to have both situations available then?

Back when I was in T6 or T7 I could hop into EotM for a bit of mindless zerging if I wanted. Now I want to hop the other way – but can’t find the equivalent quieter option. Hence the question – should there be one? And this can only happen if there’s enough interest (ironically low populations would have to be popular enough to be considered!)

Incidental rant:
@Skynet: I understand the points you make and agree with most.
However I was on one of the linked servers and I can assure you that the idea that linking retains linked server identity is just so much kitten – we have no identity in WvW, we can only earn score for another server, and we get passed on to anyone that Anet wants every two months with no say in the matter – we’ve basically been sold into slavery and told it’s a good thing… (Sorry – it’s not you – this is a sore point; made worse because Anet have made no effort to fulfil their original promise to help us maintain some form of server identity).

It’s the off hours zerging that is the most annoying. Just running from objective to objective with little or no resistance. Completely boring and I have no idea why anyone would do it. All the gold in the game would not be worth it. I think there can be fun if it’s two zergs battling it out, clashing in the open world and not hiding in towers behind countless siege.

That being said, I wouldn’t mind smaller venues, say more then pvp and less then wvw. One stonemist castle in the middle of the map and just the spawn points. Something like that, might be fun to try.

That’s basically obsidian sanctum … although for some reason they made it down the tunnel a ways. A gladiator pit. It could be much more useful if implemented a little more accessible and people had a reason to go in there. people like stats, our current leaderboards are … okay, wish Anet would wave a magic wand and come up with something for smaller teams/matches or support those guild initiatives. The gladiator pit could be or mean something. But as it is… its just an empty uninviting pit that provides little value to player, guild, server, or game.

Hexinx.1872:

That’s basically obsidian sanctum … although for some reason they made it down the tunnel a ways. A gladiator pit. It could be much more useful if implemented a little more accessible and people had a reason to go in there. people like stats, our current leaderboards are … okay, wish Anet would wave a magic wand and come up with something for smaller teams/matches or support those guild initiatives. The gladiator pit could be or mean something. But as it is… its just an empty uninviting pit that provides little value to player, guild, server, or game.

I still play openarena and quake 3 arena. Both are still fun to me after so many years. That arena would be perfect for something of that nature. Add leaderboards and make it easy to join and spontaneous. I don’t play pvp so that might sound similar but I’m thinking of it as an extension of wvw and more casual play.

Couple of thoughts:

I would love a small Roaming Tier, however they would end up making that. But I do agree with others here that it really does take all types of play to make WvW. Focus on one aspect (Roamer, Havoc, Zerg, Scout, Defender, Dueler) and lessen/ignore the others, and the entire mode suffers.

One way to solve it, and that also fits into what Skynet quoted, is to create specific maps for specific play styles. So far we’ve had total of 4 maps, all designed around the roughly same principles. But what if they made entirely different maps, where there will be no advantage at all to zerg ?

I think a UAV system like battlefield series will help.

Allow players to use uav system to scan the whole map in order to scan groups of enemy with a certain group density. For example, it will reveal any group of 10 stacked in a 600 range for 30 sec per use. Solo roamer or small group will not get revealed, it will encourage small group roaming instead of large group more.

I am somewhat confused as I’m mostly a solo/small group roamer in T1 and I don’t think I have any trouble contributing. The demand for this play exists and that demand is being filled in the current game.

Sarrs.4831:

I am somewhat confused as I’m mostly a solo/small group roamer in T1 and I don’t think I have any trouble contributing. The demand for this play exists and that demand is being filled in the current game.

Yes what you said is correct for now.

What i suggested above will give a slight edge for playing in small group, move effective to avoid large group and create havoic. Large group can chase after large group while small group avoid large group.

Organised small groupS can effectively fight against large group even during outnumbered. If the uav can only deployed by your owned camp, this give camp capture and defend more important. Small group or solo roamer can help large group even more.

ANET wants you to buy gems so that you can transfer to the Server of This Month.

To ANET RvR = Blov vs Blob or SoLM (Server of Last Month) vs SoTM (Server of This Month).

ANET has no idea how to make money off of actual RvR mechanics so they sucker the gullible into paying for transfers.

My guild runs small group in T1 NA. You’d be surprised the impact you can make with 3-5 people that know what they’re doing.

The only true way to break up zerg is have requirements to accomplish a goal be far enough away from each other and require a minimum number of players to actively be doing something at those locations.

Then you MAY get commanders breaking of groups to be in many places.

But as long as everything favors putting as much force as you can against a single point it won’t happen.

And if you do add mechanics like those of teq or triple of performing various tasks (beyond current seige)then all the anti pve voices of the wvw community will start getting really load.

Easiest example I could think of is shrines in Desert. Instead of being a capped location change it so all the shrines are active for the owner of the keep. The other servers can deactivate the shrines by killing off the elementals that power it and capping it as normal. However the elementals continue to spawn for the keep owner, so without an enemy presence the elementals will recap and activate the shrine automatically. So to keep the shrines off a commander would need roamed or havoc to keep them surpressed

I have been told that it is not the size that counts but more the way you play it.

Clearly, being big, your pushes will go further gaining some immediate effect however you leave some parts untouched and pushing too far can cut off your backline leaving them without any real care and feeling left out.

If you are too small you find yourself unable to fill all the gaps when attacking something larger than yourself. Although being able to slide inwards and pick off small pieces it will leave alot of unsatisfaction for yourself and for the group you are fighting.

If you have a well formed medium sized one and you know what to do with it then that is probably perfect.