Guild Wars 2

In T3 of the NA ladder, the new WvW meta post-patch is simple. Form one mega-zerg, abandon all other maps. Roll around speed capping everything, switch maps when needed.

Now how is this different than before? Very simple. Everyone wants to maximize their WXP. This is done by mega-zerging. Dragonbrand is doing this, YB is doing this, SoS is doing this.

But here is why it breaks WvW, there is no incentive to fight another zerg. There is no incentive to defend or upgrade anything. There is no incentive to split off the mega-zerg. In fact, there is a negative stigma now to upgrading buildings. You want to cap things as quick as possible, you want the enemy to cap your things as fast as possible, so that you can cap them back quicker(and get more WXP). Each server’s mega-zerg rolls across a borderland map, and they generally swap around the same time so no server has their mega-zerg on the same map at the same time.

I am very curious, are your servers doing the same thing? I suspect all servers are doing it right now.

Is this just a patch-day phenomenon? Or is this the new meta-game for WvW? If this style of play becomes the norm then WvW just became a permanent WXP train, without skill or tactics, or any decision making at all.

Tier 8 isn’t doing this at all. People are attacking each other and defending like normal.

This may be why we are tier 8…

Karma trains are nothing new. You’re kind of making it sound like zerging didn’t exist before this patch.

Nirvakitten796:

Tier 8 isn’t doing this at all. People are attacking each other and defending like normal.

This may be why we are tier 8…

T7 hasn’t adopted this method either. Really hoping it stays that way. It sounds super boring to play that way.

Mega zergs are just bags for guilds groups. They’ll disperse once they get farmed a few times.

It’s embarrassingly sad to calls this the “fix” for WvW. I am in tier 1…JQ….every BL…..zergs just avoid each other and swap camps/towers/keeps now. Hardly any real fights.

Its seems a little premature to say that WvW is broken and that the entire way the game is played has changed based on half a day of post-patch play. Karma trains are nothing new, but if you are noticing an increase of that sort it may just be people trying to get an early jump on the leveling system. Soon enough people will go back to having fun, especially if a mega-zerg gets countered by the other server holding everything else in every zone while they rush to storm one single keep/tower at a time. People will want to win, and this doesn’t seem like a strategy for winning so much as a strategy for farming.

Not the case in T5 either. Seems a lot like reset night, incredible amounts of people but we aren’t trading. And seems to me if you want wxp fast zerg busting is the way to go, A tower is 150 wxp, and thats equivalent to 5-10 kills.

Welcome to Warhammer Part II, musical keep trading.

I really hope this doesn’t keep up too long, and once most regulars get their crappy bonuses we can go back to actually fighting once in a while.

Or they put some new shinies in PVE so the grinders go back over there.

Since you also get wXP for Invader Kills and Defense Events it won’t be long before the organized Guilds seek out opportunities for “Zerg Massacres” inside Towers and Keeps.

This is no surprise to me since there are basically no rewards for defending a structure. Anet’s efforts to combat botting has incentivized zergging more with each patch. However, this is what the masses asked for……“The WvW Ranking/Zerging System”. The game has been made extremely easier since launch to capture structures and harder to defend them. Without rewards why defend unless that is what you enjoy doing? Just wait five mins and recap behind them and get all the fortune and glory.

Getting the new “shinnies” trumps all, no matter how dull it can get. Learned this pretty quick in Warhammer and has since really turned me off to “RvR”, something I really enjoyed in my DAoC days.

So, T7-8 hasn’t seen it yet, but T1 is doing it. Interesting, thanks for the reports.

And yes, it might be premature to claim it is breaking WvW.

And yes there have always been karma trains.

But now the karma train is even more incentivised. Defending/roaming is de-incentivised. And a lot of players in WvW are experienced(or jaded) enough to realize that their server ‘winning’ a match-up gives them no rewards, but being in the karma/wxp train does reward them.

We shall see, I hope I’m wrong.

Caliburn.1845:

But now the karma train is even more incentivised. Defending/roaming is de-incentivised. And a lot of players in WvW are experienced(or jaded) enough to realize that their server ‘winning’ a match-up gives them no rewards, but being in the karma/wxp train does reward them.

Eh what rewards are they really getting though, if they don’t intend to ever fight the other team anyway. Doing more damage with siege? There is no use of siege when zergs are bypassing each other trading objectives. More damage on guards? Guards are a speed bump to a zerg and no importance when no one defends anything where they are.

what happened to the lag….its just gone mental in there. 3-5 second delays on abilities.

FPS is fine, but latency is through the roof.

Pendragon.8735

Eh what rewards are they really getting though, if they don’t intend to ever fight the other team anyway. Doing more damage with siege? There is no use of siege when zergs are bypassing each other trading objectives. More damage on guards? Guards are a speed bump to a zerg and no importance when no one defends anything where they are.

Most people haven’t thought that far ahead, and we could be entirely wrong about how the meta-game is developing. Maybe organized guilds will bust the mega-zergs instead of joining the mega-zergs. Maybe population/timezone/coverage differences will end it. Maybe it is just a patch-day phenomenon. Maybe people will get bored of it.

Right now though, everyone wants to grind those WXP ranks as quick as possible, and that means mega-zerging.

I am in T7, the reason we don’t have behavior like mega zergs rolling borderlands and taking turns is because we lack coordination and large guilds that focus on WvW. Currently it’s one big spaghetti of people in EB and sure people run in a very large group because suddenly a lot more people show up just for the progression aspect but I can’t say it became more fun to be in WvW.

I feel it kind of ruined World vs World. I had more fun back when we had orbs on borderlands because that one item gave benefit to all, now it’s every man for himself.

T1 is like this as well and has been. Now its just even worse to finally be able to see the 80man zergball, so sad.

This is amusing. I figured something like this would happen. Culling forced players to end up fighting zergs despite numbers. You couldn’t see, so you couldn’t avoid. Once you’re in it, you’re committed. Now the side effect of it all? {AnotherNameForCat} zergs avoiding other {AnotherNameForCat} zergs because they can see all of the titles. I know what my guild is doing and they’re going to go right back to defending Keeps. No more GvG field battles, it’s all about how much you can farm off the enemy zergs.

Yes, Zergs existed before this patch but there’s another major problem with the removal of culling and it’s the nameplates. It is now increasingly more difficult to slip passed enemy lines because you can see the nameplate halfway across the map. Prior to the patch, you could see a dim figure in the distance but no nameplate. After the patch, you can see the entire nameplate right in your face. This makes it increasingly more difficult for smaller, scouting groups to get around the map. Why try and do the impossible when you can form megazergs?

I pray this is just the shiny factor to all the PvErs and when the regular WvW people are the ones in WvW all the time it’ll change back. I’d like to see nameplates adjusted a bit when it comes to when you can and can’t see them. I’d also like an option to turn off the kittening titles. Who the hell had that idea?

Caliburn.1845:

In T3 of the NA ladder, the new WvW meta post-patch is simple. Form one mega-zerg, abandon all other maps. Roll around speed capping everything, switch maps when needed.

Now how is this different than before? Very simple. Everyone wants to maximize their WXP. This is done by mega-zerging. Dragonbrand is doing this, YB is doing this, SoS is doing this.

But here is why it breaks WvW, there is no incentive to fight another zerg. There is no incentive to defend or upgrade anything. There is no incentive to split off the mega-zerg. In fact, there is a negative stigma now to upgrading buildings. You want to cap things as quick as possible, you want the enemy to cap your things as fast as possible, so that you can cap them back quicker(and get more WXP). Each server’s mega-zerg rolls across a borderland map, and they generally swap around the same time so no server has their mega-zerg on the same map at the same time.

I am very curious, are your servers doing the same thing? I suspect all servers are doing it right now.

Is this just a patch-day phenomenon? Or is this the new meta-game for WvW? If this style of play becomes the norm then WvW just became a permanent WXP train, without skill or tactics, or any decision making at all.

oh, hey… it’s ET’s hide-and-seek method we were ALREADY using. sweet.

I haven’t been able to gain entry to WvWvW, despite trying 4 hours in a row (trying all BLs and EB), so I haven’t been able to see it. All I get is this error message “The world you are attempting to join is full. Please try to have your party member join you in your world.” <- could someone explain what is this?!? That 2nd sentence doesn’t compute, because I am not in any party. Are they trying to force partying before entering WvWvW? (= most stupid idea ever)

All the skill “balance” updates Arenanet has done since the launch have been zerg friendly e.g. the 5-man AoE limit. Without that limit smaller smart enemy could try to lure the big zerg into a choke point and use AoE to kill them, but not only 20% of enemy will be affected assuming a 25-man zerg. More and more power to zerg style of play. There has been a lot of good suggestions in these forums how to make the zerging less feasible, yet I have never seen any Arenanet developer comment any of those threads.

It seems the outmanned buff is still not that useful. How many times the developers need to read this: outmanned buff should provide some beneficial combat-related buff (e.g. health bonus, bonus to thoughness) to the outmanned side NPCs, players and structures. This is how it is done in other games.

So far this update has left a really bad impression on me. No explanations from the developers behind their flawed logic. No discussion with the player base before implementing the changes (oh, they communicate with 2 top tpvp players, who are both mesmers, but that is not I mean with communication).

Once again nerfing the least played profession = engineer (kit refinement made useless for those who use lots of kits, elixir gun #1 & #2 severely weakened when used with rifled barrels trait) and giving useless turret buffs. While buffing the elementalist and mesmer, which were already probably the two most powerful professions and both are very common in WvWvW. On the positive note: giving 50% nerf to quickness was actually a good idea and quickness should have been like that from the start. But that probably also was the last nail in the coffin for only viable meta build for warrior in spvp/tpvp: frenzy+greatsword warrior is dead for pvp.

It really looks like: Arenanet developers hate diversity. They do everything in their power to lure or force people play just one style, few professions and builds.

Do people not realize u also get rewards for defending?

Valik Shin.9027:

Do people not realize u also get rewards for defending?

You also get rewards for killing Invaders…

but no, most people don’t realize that :P

deniara there more warrior builds than just that. I can think of at least 3 others that are effective in wvw and one of them works well in spvp

Valik Shin.9027:

Do people not realize u also get rewards for defending?

Yes, but not as fast. A zerg can flip locations quickly and do not have to wait for that location to come under attack.

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

Valik Shin.9027:

Do people not realize u also get rewards for defending?

You also get rewards for killing Invaders…

but no, most people don’t realize that :P

True, but defending is usually a more reliable way to help your server win

Straegen.2938:

Valik Shin.9027:

Do people not realize u also get rewards for defending?

Yes, but not as fast. A zerg can flip locations quickly and do not have to wait for that location to come under attack.

I gonna have to disagree. You can actually get more rewards from defending. U get rewarded every 3 mins for defending. This become most prevalent in SM. You defend that for a hr against constant assault and watch the rewards rack up

1st I want to mention that this is the players fault not Anets. Yes Anet designed the system that does in fact encourage it to a degree, but the players choose to do it. If people were not total cowardly, instant gratification, skilless kittens you wouldn’t see this.

Now you more properly appreciate one of the big difficulties with giving players freedom and choices, people today more often than not take the “easy” route to “win”.

2nd it has been mentioned several times that Anet actually wants to add more incentive to defense and supportive roles. Unfortunately botters screw us all over on that. We can’t even have Dolyaks because, once again, people.

So yes, Anet made changes and people are trying to exploit them (though they could just as easily do a good defense and earn points) but we, the players, are to blame. Not Anet.

This is what happens in mainstream games. When games were less mainstream you’d see alot less of this kind of stuff and people self-policed alot better.

Valik Shin.9027:

deniara there more warrior builds than just that. I can think of at least 3 others that are effective in wvw and one of them works well in spvp

I am mostly a WvWvW player. I never use greatsword there. In fact I am one of those rare people who use dual swords as my main melee weapon set. Yes, I know it is a weird combo and build, mixing power + precision + crit + condition damage.

Hammer warriors are very strong in a melee train, but I dislike zerging, so I am still gonna stick to my unique set for roaming.

In my opinion warriors have always been strong in pve, but at the moment they are one of the weaker choices for spvp/tpvp, due lack of tools of disengagement.

Ralathar.7236:

Now you more properly appreciate one of the big difficulties with giving players freedom and choices, people today more often than not take the “easy” route to “win”.

This is human nature, to win, and win most efficiently. This is why a lot of us level up to 80 and want BIS gear, not for fun but to win (for many this is fun). If I can zurgball for 2 hours what took me 2 days to do then I’ll choose the 2 hour method every time (for me that’s 6 hours less grinding so it’s a no-brainer).

The system ANet setup is to give a reward for each win, this means the more wins you get per hour the better-off you’ll be, so ANet either made a mistake in their design or they want this.

T1 was always a huge zerg fest, now instead of maybe having 2 different zergs on a map (pretty rare even then) everyone is in 1 zerg. Another reason why T1 zergs seem to be bigger than usual right now is because every BL is full (even before it was prime time). I’ve actually thought of getting out of T1 for a while now, zerg vs zerg is so boring.

The Incentive is to win, always has been.
In a couple weeks these WXP trains will be a thing of the past.

Right now the game design favors forming up into massive melee blobs (T1 EU we’re seeing 100-150 man french blobs) and run at things mashing 1. Ability lag is so awful that any defense doesnt work and siege is ineffective. lost a fully upgraded homeland keep in <2min that way – then you take your blob and chain roll round every keep. The bigger the blob, the worse the ability lag of your opponent.

Game is officially broken.

I’ve been trying to get in any WvWvW map for over and hour and a half with no luck. Hopefully they put the queue back to make it a little less random.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Valik Shin.9027:

deniara there more warrior builds than just that. I can think of at least 3 others that are effective in wvw and one of them works well in spvp

I am mostly a WvWvW player. I never use greatsword there. In fact I am one of those rare people who use dual swords as my main melee weapon set. Yes, I know it is a weird combo and build, mixing power + precision + crit + condition damage.

Hammer warriors are very strong in a melee train, but I dislike zerging, so I am still gonna stick to my unique set for roaming.

In my opinion warriors have always been strong in pve, but at the moment they are one of the weaker choices for spvp/tpvp, due lack of tools of disengagement.

That fact that you know how to spec a sword sword build tell me u know something about warrior. I have a dual sword/long bow condition spec that works well in both zergs and small group/roaming. A crowd control warrior with hammer/axe shield is a pretty good spvp build from my experience. People get a bit flustered when they exhaust their stun breaks and are still getting immobilized

Ethose.5694:

Karma trains are nothing new. You’re kind of making it sound like zerging didn’t exist before this patch.

I think the OP just didnt know this because he couldnt see them befor :P

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

Valik Shin.9027:

Do people not realize u also get rewards for defending?

You also get rewards for killing Invaders…

but no, most people don’t realize that :P

You get alot more “rewards” for attacking.

tagnut.8621:

Right now the game design favors forming up into massive melee blobs (T1 EU we’re seeing 100-150 man french blobs) and run at things mashing 1. Ability lag is so awful that any defense doesnt work and siege is ineffective. lost a fully upgraded homeland keep in <2min that way – then you take your blob and chain roll round every keep. The bigger the blob, the worse the ability lag of your opponent.

Game is officially broken.

This is because the game rewards mindless zerging as there is really no fear of being wiped except by a bigger Zerg.

If this game had DAOC type PvP, that zerg would be wiped in seconds by some random 8 man running by.

GW2 though is a poor E-sport game that does WvW poorly…but at least the maps are pretty.

Zerging wasnt as much of an issue prepatch as points could be held by smaller numbers.

Now forget it. There is no counter to a 100 man blob except a bigger blob.

Harbinger.9645:

Nirvakitten796:

Tier 8 isn’t doing this at all. People are attacking each other and defending like normal.

This may be why we are tier 8…

T7 hasn’t adopted this method either. Really hoping it stays that way. It sounds super boring to play that way.

I wouldnt say they havent adopted it. Not this exactly, but having recently witnessed a very large zerg letting people recap a tower so they can cap it back. Several times in a row on different towers. While it isnt exactly the same, the results are the same.

I have a fairly good computer set up.

Before I would maximum dip max about 38FPS in the BIGGEST of zerg battles. But tonight for the first time since I didn’t upgrade my graphics card I hit 12 FPS.
There are so many PvE players cluttering up my screen catching arrows in their mouths its unbelievable.
I had to force my computer down to low settings and its still hurting. Guess I will have to roam for the rest of my life so I can get my frames back to 100+

Not only that but it seems the latency has spiked like no tomorrow as I d/c in an army of Maw grinders.

WvW is now Maw T_T

Culling was not that bad. Its basically like when you get killed in Call of Duty or Halo and blame it on the controller and or lag. Now everyone avoids everyone and its just one giant blob of lettering on my screen.

sostronk.8167:

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

Valik Shin.9027:

Do people not realize u also get rewards for defending?

You also get rewards for killing Invaders…

but no, most people don’t realize that :P

You get alot more “rewards” for attacking.

I agree, you get WAY more from attacking.

Before I joined a WvW guild I was always defending towers, I did this 90% of the time. I barely got anything for my effort, maybe 1 or 2 bags an hour and wasting all my silver on upgrades and siege. Plus it was very, very boring to sit in a tower waiting for an enemy to show up and bash on the door.

When I joined an organised guild that 1 or 2 bags turned into 50-100 per hour. I amassed 2,500 badges in 2 months! There is no incentive that I can see to defend except to kill time and frustrate the enemy IF they ever turn up.

All the issues with this patch, and the way they did WxP pails in comparison to the lack of content they DIDN’T ADD to maps we’re already tired of, and lacks in comparison to the amount of stuff they havn’t put into WvW, that needs to be done, like Ascended Gear, bug fixes, and buffing up some classes that desperately need it.

The patch that was meant for WvW, is the worst patch possible for the WvW community.

tagnut.8621:

Zerging wasnt as much of an issue prepatch as points could be held by smaller numbers.

Now forget it. There is no counter to a 100 man blob except a bigger blob.

they need to unnerf sige equipment and remove the caps on how many people it can hit.

more so now that culling is fixed i think

I’m happy to hear this actually. Show’s we have some intelligent “Free” thinkers that figured out how to benefit by cooperating. It’s well past time!!

Ralathar.7236:

1st I want to mention that this is the players fault not Anets. Yes Anet designed the system that does in fact encourage it to a degree, but the players choose to do it. If people were not total cowardly, instant gratification, skilless kittens you wouldn’t see this.

Now you more properly appreciate one of the big difficulties with giving players freedom and choices, people today more often than not take the “easy” route to “win”.

2nd it has been mentioned several times that Anet actually wants to add more incentive to defense and supportive roles. Unfortunately botters screw us all over on that. We can’t even have Dolyaks because, once again, people.

So yes, Anet made changes and people are trying to exploit them (though they could just as easily do a good defense and earn points) but we, the players, are to blame. Not Anet.

This is what happens in mainstream games. When games were less mainstream you’d see alot less of this kind of stuff and people self-policed alot better.

That’s just stupid. You can’t blame players for following the reward path that ANet laid out for them. In fact, LOTS of players predicted this would happen and practically begged ANet to reconsider how they set up these rewards. This falls squarely in ANet’s lap.

But it was fun… we capped everything in YBBL, swapped over to DBBL, capped your stuff while you guys capped our stuff. Rinsed and repeated a few more times…. xD
But now that the fun is over, it seems like we’re back to normal.

I don’t know if it broke WvW or not but the size of the zergs running around T3 at the moment is shocking. DB is qued on all four maps. We can’t even get our whole guild on one map.

this is why they need to implemented orbs back to the game!