Guild Wars 2

Have ArenaNet leaked any information about zergs in WvWvW?

I know this is all subjective but zerging is a really uninteresting way of taking towers, camps, keeps and such. Zerging seem to be the only appealing tactic to take these towers, and zerging seem to be the only appealing tactic to defend the towers.

What about to make Arrow Carts dangerous for zergs? Making them deal massive damage so people have to move out from it, form smaller groups and attack from different ways, attacking different walls with catapults, trebuchets?

Is there any word about zergs in WvWvW at all?

Zerging has been a legit tactic since humans started warring. You wern’t going to ninja a keep when they were the dominant fortification and I don’t think a small force should be able to ninja a keep in the game. That would also make the game unappealing when we can all just ninja the towers.

Frankly, all towers, keeps, and SM should require a very large force to take.

I do agree that siege should do a lot more damage than they do. They should really just outright kill the players. We can just laugh in the face of siege all while dancing in it.

Your suggestion about siege from different positions. Already happens, just hard to defend against a much larger force comming to take out the siege when you split up to hit from various sides.

Zerging has been a legit tactic since humans started warring.

The zergs we have in gw2 aren’t those epic, massive groups you see in Hollywood movies. They are “zerg blobs” where you have 80+ people on 1 pixel.*

Also, you certainly couldn’t just “zerg” into a castle. In reality sieges took months, even years.

*They can still be lots of fun, ofc…

Perhaps smaller forces should not be able to ninja a tower, but maybe be able to defend against really big zergs, if the only thing the zerg do is stacking up and camping the gate.

The smaller force defending the tower can nuke them with arrow carts until they decide to attack from a different angle, further away where the cart can’t reach? The bigger zerg doesn’t need to split up into smaller groups, but maybe 2 groups or something.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Zerging has been a legit tactic since humans started warring.

The zergs we have in gw2 aren’t epic, massive groups. They are “zerg blobs” where you have 80+ people on 1 pixel.

Also, you certainly couldn’t just “zerg” into a castle. In reality sieges took months, even years.

Well, you are talking about modern warfare in the last 100 years then which is a entirely different type of combat. Combat in this game is fantisy but also based around castle and other warfare that had huge armies to take a fortification of some sort.

From what the origional poster(stupid filter put in kitten instead of p after the o) is saying, they are not happy with large groups of players comming together to take a objective which is a legit tactic. Easy to infer what they are saying since they want siege to hurt more as it is the only way to hit 5+ people. If it was the other, then the post needs to be a bit clear. Zergballs on 1 pixel is becasue of other problems, one being that it is possible for everyone on the map to occupy the same space. Choke points are not very choking when the opposing force is able to run through you since your body has no physical stopping power.

We also can’t erect temporary barricades to slow the other side down.

Not only did sieges take months, any repairs to those walls to make them sturdy enough also took months to even years to repair. They definately were not putting walls up to full health way back then when under siege.

I would also like to tunnel, sap, ladder, other means of getting past a wall but that isn’t in here either.

I agree that fortifications should offer a smaller force a far better chance at defending than what it offers now, but they shouldn’t be given a supid mechanic to that end just becasue a force beating on the outside of the gate happesn to have X# of people together. Too many supid suggestions on penalizing players just becasue they decide to form a larger force to take a objective.

Lots of us predicted that adding awards/recognition/points/ranks/etc based upon individual contribution to kills would encourage zergs, and now that’s pretty much all I see every time I log into WvW. Nobody even bothers to build defenses anymore and we used to do it all the time on my server. It doesn’t matter that the “rewards” are mostly pretty meaningless … they detract from objective-based play and they don’t even represent individual skill since zergs have pretty much zero relationship to player skill.

The laughable thing is that ANet recently stated they were looking for ways to “reduce the zerginess of WvW”, which just shows how poorly they understand their own game.

Well, Anet could start by simply removing this stupid rule that gives a server Bonus Points just for zerging instead of sending out small groups or scouts for the smallest objectives:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Clarification-needed-please/first

One easy fix and good fix (in mine eyes) is to make siege weapons ignore the max 5 players AOE rule.

Like now there is not anyone that are afraid of siege weapons, if you are ikittenerg and see a treb is shooting at “your” zerg you are only hurt for 10% of your hp if you get hit. If you are ikittenerg you are likely to take no dmg.

If they made so siege hurt more ppl or even maby hurt more it whould make zerging more pointless and it would be bether to split up in smaller groups to attack from many sides at once and or starv out the defenders.

Siege weapons (except ballistas) hit 50 people. Ballistas hit up to 10 with a single bolt.

Easy fix here is make siege hit more people in an AoE, arrow carts should be destroying a bunched up zerg. Make siege do more damage the more people are in the AoE? This sort of mechanic would break the so called “turtle” and allow siege to be the real counter to zergs as it is intended, forcing split pushes.

Depends on what kind of “zerg”

People have different definitions of what it requires to be called a “zerg”

Personally, I think it’s great so long as there is no skill lag. 100v100 zergball is no fun. 20v20 is great, 30v30 is better, 40v40 is the best. Anything above that starts to suck with the skill lag and the gameplay itself.

Does no one know what a sup AC is? 4 or 5 and a leg specialist or two and its impossible to do more than trickle in and melt. AC hits like 50 people.

The real problem with defending is its boring if you are not under constant assault (ie your last stronghold on the map).

If you really want to ruin zerg play just take the AOE damage cap off and leave the AOE buff cap on. I don’t think they should though as I like running coordinated assaults with organised large group synergy.

I wouldn’t mind if they made it so you couldn’t occupy the same space as another player esp enemy players. Bodyblocking was an excellent tactic in GW1 that they should totally bring back. Along with GvG, HA, TA, and RA but that is another topic entirely.

Persephone.7436:

If you really want to ruin zerg play just take the AOE damage cap off and leave the AOE buff cap on.

First, running around zerg pressing “5” – same “skill” as running in blob and pressing “1”. More rewards for brainless gameplay? How about no?
Second, this change make ranged classes much more powerful than melee. Right now melee group can run through aoe-heavy zone and survive because of aoe cap. Without cap any attempt of assault though aoe will be guaranteed suicide. WvW will turn into ranged AoE wars.
Third, this is huge buff for elementalist. You want buff ele? Seriously?

Well the first thing they need to do is FIX the stupid ability to dark field and life tap the camp commanders.. we are all killing these " unkillable NPC’s in about 30 seconds maybe a minute of your zerg is small. It really allows a zerg to move very fast stay supplied and just take take take.

That will force some defense/slow down right there or you’ll get supply locked alot.

Remove AE damage cap? keep dreaming

Persephone.7436:

I wouldn’t mind if they made it so you couldn’t occupy the same space as another player esp enemy players. Bodyblocking was an excellent tactic in GW1 that they should totally bring back. Along with GvG, HA, TA, and RA but that is another topic entirely.

The only problem with that is it wouldn’t take much for an opposing server to have some of their players transfer to your server and then body block their new “allies”. Since they are considered your allies, you wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop them from using this tactic; can’t kill them, can’t kick them out of WvWvW, and hard to prove if you report them. The gem costs for transfers would be insignificant for a large, well-organised guild.

Of course, the easy solution then is to make body blocking only apply if they’re an enemy, not an ally. But then that defeats what I took to be the one of the intents of your post; body blocking even amongst allies so as to prevent them from stacking up to defeat AoE because of the cap.

What it needs is two things:

1) remove AOE cap
2) split AOE abilities for PVE/WvW . Lower the damage coefficients for AOE skills in WvW but give them control elements, like Daze, Knockdown … For instance, Ele Staff Meteor Shower could give 50% chance to Knockdown on hit, but damage is reduced by around 50% – this means that AOE is used more as a control element to funnel rather than a big damage skill to wipe.

In doing so you don’t give an AOE heavy squad the means to wipe a zerg, but you give them control tools to keep a blob in place while your ground crew moves in to mop up.

declan.3968:

What it needs is two things:

1) remove AOE cap
2) split AOE abilities for PVE/WvW . Lower the damage coefficients for AOE skills in WvW but give them control elements, like Daze, Knockdown … For instance, Ele Staff Meteor Shower could give 50% chance to Knockdown on hit, but damage is reduced by around 50% – this means that AOE is used more as a control element to funnel rather than a big damage skill to wipe.

In doing so you don’t give an AOE heavy squad the means to wipe a zerg, but you give them control tools to keep a blob in place while your ground crew moves in to mop up.

I agree with this. Removing the AOE cap will at least stop players from stacking up in 1 huge zergball to abuse the aoe cap. There is a server in tier 1 that only runs in 70+ zergballs to take advantage of the aoe cap since it’s the easiest way to win open field battles.

If you think about it, it doesn’t make sense. To avoid aoe, you stack up in 1 huge zergball instead of spreading out to get out of the range of the aoe. If there is no cap, that huge zergball will have to split up and play more tactically. Maybe have 1 group in the front and then have a second group flanking on the side. But right now, without the aoe cap, the best way to fight is just to form a zergball, close your eyes and spam your skills.

Zerging wasn’t really a problem before they added the ranks, It definitely is now though because the zergs have doubled in size with all players wanting to gain as much WXP as possible.

Usually only the massive SM battles gave everyone skill lags but now it’s EVERY fight at every keep/tower/camp :/

Zerging is rewarded = zergs. It’s not rocket surgery.

Surely just make wxp/karma/xp rewards a fixed amount that’s dividing amongst all participants ( with sensible max and min caps ) will encourage smaller groups.

This would be akin to dividing the spoils of war.

Just needs the right scaling:
ie. a 12 man group member gets a full reward while a 30 man group member gets a 10th of the reward ( or less )

WvWvW = World VS World VS World. What did you get in ancient times when two nations fought? Huge zergs. That’s what WvW is, so please stop this nonsense rambling because it’s not going to change anytime soon.

I’m total fine with people running around in zergs. But what I totally hate is that Anet favours zergs with two things:

1. AOE Cap
2. Instant reviving without penalties

Anet should remove the AOE cap and add penalties to revived players (e.g. -50% stats for 1 min after being revived). This wouldnt prevent zerging. People will always run in zergs because the more you are the less you wipe. But the system should not favour large zergs even more.

Removing AOE Cap would also remove those stupid hilarious Zergballs because people would have to spread out when combat starts like in any other freaking RVR based game.

Zergballs are the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in 12 years of MMOs.

MrKnieves.4162:

WvWvW = World VS World VS World. What did you get in ancient times when two nations fought? Huge zergs. That’s what WvW is, so please stop this nonsense rambling because it’s not going to change anytime soon.

I am actually fine with large fights. What I don’t like right now in the wvw “meta” is stacking up in 1 large zergball to take advantage of the aoe cap. I do not think that in ancient times when you have archers shooting arrows, the opposing group would stack up in the range of the arrows to avoid the damage.

In the current wvw “meta,” when you fight against 1 large zerball, you die instantly when they run over you and you don’t really know what happened. You don’t know what the players in the zergball are doing nor are you be able to select any of the players since it’s just a ball of name tags.

If aoe cap is removed and it forces players to spread out in large fights, it’ll allow everyone to be able to see what other players are doing better. Instead of seeing 1 ball of name tags, you might be able to see a few players in front of you casting aoe, a few in the back buffing, a few on the side starting their attack motion, etc. Seeing what other players are doing will allow you to time your attacks, avoid/dodge, etc which is what small scale fight is all about..

MrKnieves.4162:

WvWvW = World VS World VS World. What did you get in ancient times when two nations fought? Huge zergs. That’s what WvW is, so please stop this nonsense rambling because it’s not going to change anytime soon.

Could they run through each other and rez the fallen multiple times? When a boulder fell on top of them were they safe because the AOE cap protected them? Comparing a game with mechanics that dont apply to real life war is “nonsense rambling” in my opinion.

AOE cap is there for a reason. With my elemental I can spam an area for a minute with hits ranging from 800 to 3K damage. With no AOE cap I could decimate a whole a zerg by myself, and no player should have that kind of power. Ever.

Torqky.3682:

Could they run through each other and rez the fallen multiple times? When a boulder fell on top of them were they safe because the AOE cap protected them? Comparing a game with mechanics that dont apply to real life war is “nonsense rambling” in my opinion.

They couldn’t build a wall within minutes either, should we stop being able to fix towers because of that?

I don’t know why everyone loves to hate zerging so much. I think it’s great fun as a player, and a tactically sound application of player resources. No, it’s not fun to be beaten….but someone’s gotta lose.

MrKnieves.4162:

AOE cap is there for a reason. With my elemental I can spam an area for a minute with hits ranging from 800 to 3K damage. With no AOE cap I could decimate a whole a zerg by myself, and no player should have that kind of power. Ever.

ANet can reduce the damage coefficient by splitting a skill into PVE/WvW , so you could hit multiple targets but deal much less damage.

My suggestion would be to add a control element to the skill so instead of doing damage, you control the zergball, and thus letting a ground crew mop up.

So remove AOE limit by giving another AOE limit that reduces the original limit making your class even more useless? No thanks. Current model works just fine, not perfect, but it works.

No, one of WvW’s primary purposes is to create large zergvszerg battles.

That being said, when zergs run around each other and backcap for karma training, that is where I think the problem lies.

MrKnieves.4162:

AOE cap is there for a reason. With my elemental I can spam an area for a minute with hits ranging from 800 to 3K damage. With no AOE cap I could decimate a whole a zerg by myself, and no player should have that kind of power. Ever.

No. The consequence of removing the AOE cap would be that nobody runs in zergballs any more. You just have to spread out when combat begins to not give a target for AOEs. This is common practice in other RVR based games like DAOC and worked perfectly well.

Besides: Meteor Shower is one of the easiest skills to avoid. You only take damage inside the circle AND when you get hit by a meteor. And the skill has a pretty large delay. You can just walk out of the red circle in the beginning before any meteor actually hits the ground.

If you really want to destroy a zerg ball, drop an arrow cart, it just takes 3 players to build one and you have unlimited AOE. Oh they moved? Well too bad, drop another.

There wouldn’t be a karma train if karma was divided by the number of participants…

teg.1340:

MrKnieves.4162:

AOE cap is there for a reason. With my elemental I can spam an area for a minute with hits ranging from 800 to 3K damage. With no AOE cap I could decimate a whole a zerg by myself, and no player should have that kind of power. Ever.

No. The consequence of removing the AOE cap would be that nobody runs in zergballs any more. You just have to spread out when combat begins to not give a target for AOEs. This is common practice in other RVR based games like DAOC and worked perfectly well.

Besides: Meteor Shower is one of the easiest skills to avoid. You only take damage inside the circle AND when you get hit by a meteor. And the skill has a pretty large delay. You can just walk out of the red circle in the beginning before any meteor actually hits the ground.

I’m fine with zerg balls so I don’t see a need to “remove” them. There are tools to deal with them. Bu removing AOE cap you’re making several classes way too powerful.

Also, there are ways to keep players INSIDE the meteor shower. Staff air 5, staff fire 5, fire glyph of storms, staff ice 4, ice bow 4, earth 5, and finally fire 5. Rinse repeat and you killed a whole zerg.