Guild Wars 2

Hey, we are just playing the game ANet wants us to play. If they make zerging and karma-training the most rewarding thing to do, then that’s what we’ll do. Taking the path of least resistance has always been human nature and the game designers really should have expected that. With WXP they just added another incentive to play “effective”, not “smart”.

Uh no. Many people respect karma trains and PVDooring because it benefits them. They get karma, they get gold, they get XP. They could care less about your skill.

The zerg trains are ridiculous now (including our server).

Lag is everywhere.

Erm,
It’s been a few hours.

Calm down, it’ll subside. People just want a headstart.

Isaac.6041:

Uh no. Many people respect karma trains and PVDooring because it benefits them. They get karma, they get gold, they get XP. They could care less about your skill.

Nice, and they’re going to take that karma, gold and XP and do what? More karma-training? That’s so fun!!!!!!! TELL ME MORE ABOUT HOW YOU RUN AROUND WITH 80 OTHER PEOPLE TAKING UNDEFENDED KEEPS!

I am not sure how ANet didn’t expect this to happen. As soon as they announced WvW ranks were coming all I could think of was back in Vanilla WoW when Blizzard first gave PvP some love. As soon as the patch hit open-world PvP turned into a back forth zerg battle between Tarren Mill and Southshore in Hillsbrad Foothills.

Baelnorn.5710:

Hey, we are just playing the game ANet wants us to play. If they make zerging and karma-training the most rewarding thing to do, then that’s what we’ll do. Taking the path of least resistance has always been human nature and the game designers really should have expected that. With WXP they just added another incentive to play “effective”, not “smart”.

Yes, and I suppose you have fun doing so? I suppose this is what’ll make you keep playing this game for the years to come? That’s almost pathetic… just because ANet messed up doesn’t mean we, as a community, should destroy ourselves by making WXP > fun..

EnRohbi.2187:

Erm,
It’s been a few hours.

Calm down, it’ll subside. People just want a headstart.

Pretty much this, I think it’s dumb but there will always people that poopsock all new content right away so they can get back to being bored/doing whatever they were doing before.

poopsock made it past the filters!

Anyone with half a brain could have seen this coming and dozens publicly predicted it. The amazing thing is that ANet has said a few times lately that their objective is to “reduce the zerginess” of WvW.

It’s hilarious when devs don’t even understand their own game.

The problem isn’t WXP. The problem is the underlying mechanics of the game. (No healers, no trinity, downed state, 5-man limit to AoE etc.).

That is what creates the zerg. The rewards (like WXP) just amplify the underlying problem.

Solution? ESO.

That contributes to the zerg, but you can still neuter it. Fix WvW’s scoreboard. Stop rewarding people to doing the most boring aspects of WvW – flipping towers/camps and killing yaks and sentries. In almost every match thread you’ll see someone say “stop worrying about the score, it’s just a reflection population”. The problem with this is, score is the only objective way for us to define success in a match, unfortunately. This doesn’t motivate everyone, but I think it’s safe to say it motivates A LOT of people.

Reduce the reliance on these existing items to score and add player kills as a way to score points. Reduce the value of the point by some formula related to the number of players that “tagged” the enemy before death. You want more points so you win the match? Roll in smaller groups. You could maybe stretch this theory into tower/camp flips too.

Server X has mad #‘s, but we’re better. They took 40 guys to take our keep. We used 10 and took theirs. Who should be rewarded more? kitten that your server will suffer because you won the coverage game? Transfer to a lower pop server. OMG what did I do?!

As I said in another thread, Anet needs to hire a game theorist badly. Their incentives are completely out of whack with some of the most enjoyable components of the game. The result of the current points system leads to a desire for nonstop coverage which eventually generates burnout.

Edit to add – Hire me Anet. I took game theory for a quarter in college.

Ummm told you so? Look at my post history I have been saying this was going to happen for awhile.

I’d say this video is fitting given the situation.

I like the rank concept, but it’s really a royal mess out there. Not only is WvW suddenly PACKED with players that have no idea how it works, no one is listening to commanders or scouts. It’s a mindless mob zerging SM while the rest of our positions are neglected, not upgraded, left undefended, etc. Not only that, but the uptick in players who want ranks has created a lag-fest of massive proportions. It’s a victory to get even one skill off. If you successfully land a single hit you feel like a hero. I gripped a lot pre-patch about the low-player count, but suddenly I miss the smaller, coordinated WvW vets who were there simply for the love of the game. Now it’s a total skritt rampage out there. Maybe it’ll calm down. Hopefully it will.

Entropy.4732:

Maybe it’ll calm down. Hopefully it will.

I’m quite confident that it will.

Liquid.9672:

Entropy.4732:

Maybe it’ll calm down. Hopefully it will.

I’m quite confident that it will.

Yeah people will burn out someday.

Convenant.7092:

Commanders, guild leaders, influential people, and individuals.

Stop this karma-train madness. WXP isn’t a big deal. Nobody cares about your rank. What they DO respect however, is your skill. Not that that should even matter, since you shouldn’t play for what others think of you. Your rank is not an extension to your private area.

Play WvW for fun.
Play WvW to fight.

Devs messed up their system. Doesn’t mean you have to abide by it. You can make a difference. Come fight with those who play this game for fun. No more Daily Wars 2. Dungeon Wars 2. Fractal Wars 2. And now keep-trading Wars 2. Let’s play GW2 how we intended to play it: pvp.

Leave grinding for work.

Enough said.

Convenant – Totally agree with you. Much respect to you and [AoN] from [HKHS] on Mags. I loved fighting beside you guys and I enjoy fighting against you guys. Keep it up. We hope to see [AoN] and Dragonbrand soon enough. Salutes

way to make wvw even zergier … anets hope of making wvw better is destroying it.

Well T1, SOR BL was JQ full force vs SOR full force, then BG vs SOR, and yeah kept going for a few hours. Though I don’t know what it is now, all I can say is I love Anet for getting rid of the bad culling. It’s so so nice to see the enemies on the field.

Now if the Queue system would get fixed…

Thrumdi.9216:

The problem isn’t WXP. The problem is the underlying mechanics of the game. (No healers, no trinity, downed state, 5-man limit to AoE etc.).

That is what creates the zerg. The rewards (like WXP) just amplify the underlying problem.

Solution? ESO.

I think its called ‘TESO’ and ‘wow classic’ not ‘ESO’ and ‘Vanilla wow’ Silly post-expansion players

jk jk

Anywho, about the only thing that is contributing to more zergs that you mentioned is the 5-man aoe limit. The trinity/healer would only prolong fights (trust me, just watch ADQQSTY videos) and downed state only supports zergs if the other players dont capitalize on it. Downed players make an impromptu killzone, downed enemies are great!
However, I knew this WXP was going to cause a kittenload of karma training off the start, but eventually people will realize that killing is a good way to get WXP too. If they really wanted to make people defend they would have made some sort of small missions in each defense point that gave you WXP the longer you held it. Like ‘feed the guards out front of hills keep’ that way you couldn’t afk and get the WXP. Then they could also give more WXP for taking a keep that was more heavily fortified and next to none that wasn’t upgraded at all.

Man, I’m a kitten genius.

All they had to do is take a lesson from DAoC and split the WXP between attackers. Zergs would be a lot smaller, and small group wvw would be incredible. Then again, it seems like most of the GW2 player base prefers to zerg, so perhaps Anet is just doing what the bulk of the WvW player base wants. Sucks being the minority. :/

they want zergs. but I could have told you that fix culling will break the game. There is a reason why there are culling. you want to be able to play now turn wvw char to lowest qual and char limit to at least med.

Boulderbolg.3460:

All they had to do is take a lesson from DAoC and split the WXP between attackers. Zergs would be a lot smaller, and small group wvw would be incredible. Then again, it seems like most of the GW2 player base prefers to zerg, so perhaps Anet is just doing what the bulk of the WvW player base wants. Sucks being the minority. :/

My guild has been away for a little while waiting for this so-called WvW patch. You just answered the question I was going to ask. Not really interested in logging in now.

Agree with you 100%.

Well, people wanted a way to distinguish “skilled” players from the common rabble, so here you are. Don’t say you all didn’t ask for it.

Dynnen.6405:

Thrumdi.9216:

The problem isn’t WXP. The problem is the underlying mechanics of the game. (No healers, no trinity, downed state, 5-man limit to AoE etc.).

That is what creates the zerg. The rewards (like WXP) just amplify the underlying problem.

Solution? ESO.

I think its called ‘TESO’ and ‘wow classic’ not ‘ESO’ and ‘Vanilla wow’ Silly post-expansion players

jk jk

Anywho, about the only thing that is contributing to more zergs that you mentioned is the 5-man aoe limit. The trinity/healer would only prolong fights (trust me, just watch ADQQSTY videos) and downed state only supports zergs if the other players dont capitalize on it. Downed players make an impromptu killzone, downed enemies are great!
However, I knew this WXP was going to cause a kittenload of karma training off the start, but eventually people will realize that killing is a good way to get WXP too. If they really wanted to make people defend they would have made some sort of small missions in each defense point that gave you WXP the longer you held it. Like ‘feed the guards out front of hills keep’ that way you couldn’t afk and get the WXP. Then they could also give more WXP for taking a keep that was more heavily fortified and next to none that wasn’t upgraded at all.

Man, I’m a kitten genius.

Actually, internally at ZOS they call it ESO.

Link.

If anyone has a server this poop isn’t happening tell me, on SF people want enemies to take back keeps so they don’t destroy the siege, just absurd. SF has always been mostly offense, massive zergs with no brains. Now it’s enough for me I’m switching server.

not fair, karma train it’s the only thing i can do when db has all his main force on the map flipping every kitten thing on the maps, =(

oh well, like anything new, it’s going to be for 2 weeks then all should be normal again…

Helspyre.7082:

Boulderbolg.3460:

All they had to do is take a lesson from DAoC and split the WXP between attackers. Zergs would be a lot smaller, and small group wvw would be incredible. Then again, it seems like most of the GW2 player base prefers to zerg, so perhaps Anet is just doing what the bulk of the WvW player base wants. Sucks being the minority. :/

My guild has been away for a little while waiting for this so-called WvW patch. You just answered the question I was going to ask. Not really interested in logging in now.

Agree with you 100%.

Yeah, the only diminishing return or anything like that is how frequently a player has died. so if someone zergs and dies over and over, they won’t be worth much. I’ve hit a downed player once or twice and received +2 WXP, and another downed player and received +40 WXP. You might be able to find more players who die less as a small roaming guild, but I don’t know if that will make up for the fewer kills. The leader boards might also be a joke…

Thrumdi.9216:

Dynnen.6405:

Thrumdi.9216:

The problem isn’t WXP. The problem is the underlying mechanics of the game. (No healers, no trinity, downed state, 5-man limit to AoE etc.).

That is what creates the zerg. The rewards (like WXP) just amplify the underlying problem.

Solution? ESO.

I think its called ‘TESO’ and ‘wow classic’ not ‘ESO’ and ‘Vanilla wow’ Silly post-expansion players

jk jk

Anywho, about the only thing that is contributing to more zergs that you mentioned is the 5-man aoe limit. The trinity/healer would only prolong fights (trust me, just watch ADQQSTY videos) and downed state only supports zergs if the other players dont capitalize on it. Downed players make an impromptu killzone, downed enemies are great!
However, I knew this WXP was going to cause a kittenload of karma training off the start, but eventually people will realize that killing is a good way to get WXP too. If they really wanted to make people defend they would have made some sort of small missions in each defense point that gave you WXP the longer you held it. Like ‘feed the guards out front of hills keep’ that way you couldn’t afk and get the WXP. Then they could also give more WXP for taking a keep that was more heavily fortified and next to none that wasn’t upgraded at all.

Man, I’m a kitten genius.

Actually, internally at ZOS they call it ESO.

Link.

Elder Scrolls Online
@TESOnline

also go ahead and google TESO

Seems like they can’t really agree, however the devs I’ve watched in interviews have said TESO…well most of them.

I see this thread as Elitist’s complaining WVW should be about their kills and their skills. They should be special, right? If you want to PvP, then go PvP. That is for individuals to fight on a small scale. WvW is about army’s, territory, and the community. That is why it’s called “World vs World”.

For the path of least resistance and obtaining wealth, that’s interesting. Because if you think about it, we’re not even being very smart about it either. Because if we were smart, we’d line up naked and kill/rez cycle each other non stop. We’d also be peacefully porting in all the JP’s 24/7. Heck, we should just bash all the gates down so we can to all the POI’s and VP’s too. If we were smart and thought outside the box, we’d do this. Instead, someone tells to fight each other and we do. Even if cooperating would get us greater rewards in the end….

I think it is only zergier due to a patch day influx. If you don’t want a zerg, go to a BL that you don’t have many people active in – I’m sure you’ll be able to rally a nice small-sized group.

As for:

poopsock made it past the filters!

This. ^^

@DeWolfe.2174: Not at all. The point is that again ArenaNet rewards playing “effective” more than playing “smart”.

With the character-bound non-monetizable WXP they would have had the perfect opportunity to reward playing in a way which actually helps your server with the objectives instead of mindless zerging. Did they do it? Nope.

Still the guy running with the zerg gains a better reward than the guy escorting/speeding up dolyaks.

Still the guy running with the zerg gains a better reward than the guy scouting/checking in on contested objectives held by your server.

Still the guy running with the zerg gains a better reward than the guy getting into/staying behind to defend an objective against the enemy.

Still the guy running with the zerg gains a better reward than the guy staying behind and trebbing SMC from Durios for 45 minutes.

WTF?!

Why didn’t they add 1 WXP for each 10k damage you do with siege to structures?
Why didn’t they add 10 WXP for getting close/into a contested tower/keep?
Why didn’t they add 10 WXP for getting close to a series of objectives held by the enemy (once per 10 minutes)?
Why didn’t they add 10 WXP for escorting a dolly?

(Since for some weird reason I can’t edit my post right now…)

Why didn’t they add 1 WXP for each silver you spend on upgrading an objective?
Why didn’t they add 1 WXP for each 10k HP you restore to structures with repairing?

Baelnorn.5710:

@DeWolfe.2174: Not at all. The point is that again ArenaNet rewards playing “effective” more than playing “smart”.

With the character-bound non-monetizable WXP they would have had the perfect opportunity to reward playing in a way which actually helps your server with the objectives instead of mindless zerging. Did they do it? Nope.

Still the guy running with the zerg gains a better reward than the guy escorting/speeding up dolyaks.

Still the guy running with the zerg gains a better reward than the guy scouting/checking in on contested objectives held by your server.

Still the guy running with the zerg gains a better reward than the guy getting into/staying behind to defend an objective against the enemy.

Still the guy running with the zerg gains a better reward than the guy staying behind and trebbing SMC from Durios for 45 minutes.

WTF?!

Why didn’t they add 1 WXP for each 10k damage you do with siege to structures?
Why didn’t they add 10 WXP for getting close/into a contested tower/keep?
Why didn’t they add 10 WXP for getting close to a series of objectives held by the enemy (once per 10 minutes)?
Why didn’t they add 10 WXP for escorting a dolly?

Let’s not forget that players are unrewarded for ordering upgrades and punished for doing so by the exorbitant upgrade fees.

there should be more WXP for killing player and less WXP for capping structure…..

Anet needs to put a daily cap on capturing structure wxp like 5keeps/10towers. also wxp for defense should be double the attack. wxp/money should be enabled for escort doliak quests.

Today DB was running around with 100 people and basically jumped maps after full capping everything easy. Once we had enough people on we set up defense at tower because the zerg’s path is predictable. Lots of badges to be farmed this way. Just go to a good defendable tower/keep and make a stand and have some fun.

Thrumdi.9216:

The problem isn’t WXP. The problem is the underlying mechanics of the game. (No healers, no trinity, downed state, 5-man limit to AoE etc.).

That is what creates the zerg. The rewards (like WXP) just amplify the underlying problem.

Solution? ESO.

I fully agree that the mechanics of the game are what support the current zerg play but I don’t think healers/trinity, downed state, or AOE limit contribute to it much. An increase in AOE limit will just make zerg vs zerg fights that much faster as the side with more AOE’s will win. It is a double edged sword, it might allow a small group to take out bigger groups but it also allows much bigger zergs to take out big zergs.

I see a few big issues that are supporting the zerg lifestyle. First there is no friendly collision detection, this is a huge negative that could easily keep people from running ikittenerg. The lack of character models blocking LOS, add this and watch as people spread out so their damage isn’t blocked. The keeps, towers, and even camps are way too easy to capture. It should take the better part of a day trebbing a wall to knock it down, but currently set up 3-4 trebs and you’re in within 15mins. The whole supply system allows people to just stop in, pick up supply, and leave without caring if it gets capped because they will just recap it when they need supply again. Make supply trickle in but allow players to pick it up(each player can carry 1 supply) at camps and deliver it to keeps/tower. The effect will be 3 fold, siege will be harder to build so it will need to be defended while being built, camps will need to be defended in order to continue getting a trickle of supply, and people will need to constantly run supply. That splits the zergs into defending siege, defending camp(s), and running supply.

In order to make zergs break apart you need to give them multiple objectives(best case) or negatives(worst case). GW2 just doesn’t do either and thus we have zergs running around.

As for ESO, that’s honestly not going to be a whole lot better. They already have a giant design hurdle in their alliance system. One alliance is going to be far more popular due to their races and they will be able to field more people at all hours of the day. We will see though, but I wouldn’t place all my hopes on it being a whole lot better than GW2.

Convenant.7092:

Stop this karma-train madness.
…
Play WvW for fun.
Play WvW to fight.

…Come fight with those who play this game for fun.

While there are some good posts in this thread about how ANet might encourage different playstyles, it’s still rather pretentious to assume that so many other people are not already playing “for fun”, or that they must view taking keeps with as much disdain as you do.

Things like points, levels, and new abilities are fun for a lot of people, especially when they’re new. I’m all for skillful play and keeping grinding to a minimum, but how about if you give other players a little more credit and assume that they can judge for themselves when they’re having fun and when they’re not?

Cry more please. This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to wvw and fools still try and make it look bad. Anet have done a terrific job with this patch, wvw needed more participation and now it has it.

Yeah sure if you want to pay per month for a kitten single player port then by all means ESO is for you. It has the dodgiest server system I have ever seen in a mmo and once the novelty of the elder scrolls lore wears off its going to crash and burn.
Guild wars 2 will always be here free of charge.

+1 to OP
I take my hat off to DB and SOS who have zerged all day since patch. Yaks too kept a zerg going but had no Alliance chat today so it was much harder to co-ordinate anything.

We never managed to complete 1 upgrade it was zerg take next zerg take next zerg retake. In 7 months have never seen this no tactics no skill just head to head. Sure I got badges etc and saved money on upgrades actually made a small profit. But no sense of satisfaction whatsoever no planning just guessing where to jump where the opposing teams had left. Sorry Mags if you come up next week no small groups so practice your zerging now and forget fight club wont happen if this keeps up.

Like a previous poster still no reward for trebbing for an hour if you cant run into a circle for 15 secs you get zilch
No reward for building repairing or anything tactical just zerg kill die zerg kill die will get very boring quickly.

An image says more than a thousand words: http://i.imgur.com/rZS3u8x.png

Baelnorn.5710:

An image says more than a thousand words: http://i.imgur.com/rZS3u8x.png

I think building and repairing do give wxp, or maybe I got credit for a kill/cap/whatever as I happened to be utilizing supply.

Its been less than 24 hours since the patch, and people are still excited about it. Just give it some time, man. People roll around and grind mindlessly when new PvE content comes out, what do you expect to happen when WvW gets new shinnies?

Baelnorn.5710:

An image says more than a thousand words: http://i.imgur.com/rZS3u8x.png

Nice pic. However running supply into walls and gates and building siege do reward wexp directly and indirectly.

I got 2k wxp from just one battle that we wiped a 70 man zerg.

SmokeyNYY.7841:

I got 2k wxp from just one battle that we wiped a 70 man zerg.

70 man zerg, LOL must have been a low population server;)

You get four times as much WXP for killing the Veteran Warg or Harpy than killing a Dolyak.

Am I the only one who thinks this is silly?

Little early to call WXP a zerg issue just yet.

Last night we saw a huge influx of people into our borderlands…this will calm down and the fair weathers will disappear like they usually do.

Give it some time before you bash down the system… :P