Guild Wars 2

Dynnen.6405:

Kyus.3812:

From an organised small group perspective we actually find the aoe cap of 5 gives us an advantage and makes wvw a better working model than in other games. By capping it at 5 you give yourself a quantifiable number to balance around a maximum damage for that skill. by not capping it you end up having several very powerful aoe abilities that rule the lakes (Warhammer online).

In terms of 60+ zergs running around firing off aoe, imagine the ammount of death they will bring without an aoe cap of 5 they would be able to instantly kill anyone with that much overlapping aoe. a 60 + zerg can obviously already bring this kind of fiery death but the zerg nature makes them uncoordinate to stag that aoe so you will often find the cap of 5 helping you more than you’d think with inferior numbers.

There are some very good guilds out there that beat 60+ with small groups of about 15-20 day in day out and they do it by adjusting to the design of wvw not playing what they want and wearing what gear they want.

distance between defence points and siege range i agree with the OP siege should be an open field solution that draws open field fights to its location not a sit behind the walls and spam 1 eventuality. this is a bigger problem in EB over the borderlands though where you get a bit more room.

culling is pants we’ve learnt to allow for it somewhat now, but yup also right its pants.

If a 30 player zerg runs into another 30 player zerg, both groups can output high amounts of aoe. This will make large field engagements more fluid because one group can’t just run in all ‘durrrrrrrrrrrrp’ style. If they did this they would be punished for it because of the aoe output of the other zerg. The damage of both groups is equal and therefor forces the zergs to think about how to attack each other and maneuver.

We have done quite a bit of damage to large groups of players, but that wasn’t because we were able to reliably attack the zerg. We would chop off smaller chunks of the zerg into more manageable bites.

when it comes to fighting large groups we’re getting to the stage of wiping the more mindless zergs of 60-80 with 15-20 people. its a lot of fun, but better when the opposition has a guild group in there to worry about. the current build of the games biggest issue in support zergs other than culling is the res mechanic (not rallying). the ability to res quickly on mass often leads us having to kill zergs repeatedly in the same fight until they are all dead. I think our best effor was this sunday where we wiped what must have been an entire servers pop in one borderland with under 20 people in one prolonged push. the current mechanics allow it but the res mechanic from fully downed hinders us and other small groups a lot.

Culling is never going to go away unless the action is spread out to multiple areas of the map. Uninterruptable mass ressurections, AoE lawn mower trains and a lack of well placed diverisfied objectives on the map all contribute to zerg tactics.

I don’t like zergs. I prefer small group combat but, maybe the designers don’t want it that way. Culling and ability delay is game breaking to me. The engine cannot support this type of gameplay.

We are arguing that smaller groups should have tools to deal with large zergs. This is not going to be easy to balance. Its not going to be a one dimensional solution of increasing the targets that player AoE can hit. Large zergs of players should be easily countered by seige equipment.

Trebuchet and catapult fire should flaten players and send them back to Lion’s Arch in a box. Arrow carts should have multiple utilities like immobilize, cripple, chill and pelt players into swiss cheese. Balistae fire should pierce through players in a line or deal explosive AoE knockback. Zerg mass ressurections should be severly limited; 1 player max and should be interruptable by damage.

Calae.1738:

Culling is never going to go away unless the action is spread out to multiple areas of the map.

I disagree. Culling is only code and it the game engine can be optimized where they will not need to do it (this is what they are working on).

If games could handle hundreds of players on screen at the same time a decade ago, modern game engines can as well if coded properly.

Calae.1738:

Large zergs of players should be easily countered by seige equipment.

Trebuchet and catapult fire should flaten players and send them back to Lion’s Arch in a box. Arrow carts should have multiple utilities like immobilize, cripple, chill and pelt players into swiss cheese. Balistae fire should pierce through players in a line or deal explosive AoE knockback. Zerg mass ressurections should be severly limited; 1 player max and should be interruptable by damage.

There is already too big of a reliance on siege equipment in this game. It isn’t fun sitting still on a piece of siege spamming a button or two because it isn’t very dynamic game play.

Most people want to be fluid, mobile, dynamic, and engaged in combat.

covenn.7165:

Calae.1738:

Large zergs of players should be easily countered by seige equipment.

Trebuchet and catapult fire should flaten players and send them back to Lion’s Arch in a box. Arrow carts should have multiple utilities like immobilize, cripple, chill and pelt players into swiss cheese. Balistae fire should pierce through players in a line or deal explosive AoE knockback. Zerg mass ressurections should be severly limited; 1 player max and should be interruptable by damage.

There is already too big of a reliance on siege equipment in this game. It isn’t fun sitting still on a piece of siege spamming a button or two because it isn’t very dynamic game play.

Most people want to be fluid, mobile, dynamic, and engaged in combat.

this description should be the top of the bill for Arena Net in future WvW improvements, the actions needs to be swift, and depend on good movement by the realm. Movement should be the number 1 factor in determining victory or defeat in wvw.

This game caters to the lemming, every game since DAoC has failed to implement large scale PvP correctly because the gameplay simply does not fly today. Zerging is not fun, victories 90% dependent on numbers are not fun. It doesn’t matter what rewards or reworks they do, this game will lose steam because…….zerging and PvDooring are boring.

DAoC ‘accidently’ hit a sweat spot with 2 major mechanic designs, lockdown CC and AoE. It enabled tactics to outwin numbers. Sure the zergling cried when PBombed or Assist trained after landing a wonderful mez…..but eventually the zerg adapted, broke into smaller groups, forced the meta to change to extend groups.

Unfortunately this will never be the case in this game, probably never again in a mainstream game. People cannot live with the fact they got rolled by 1/4 of their numbers. They HAVE to be equal. They HAVE to be able to do what you do, hell look at the class design, we all have to tank,heal, and dps. There are no more roles, there is no teamwork, it’s a glorified spamfest…………and sadly it’s still the only thing worth playing out there!

Yeah no doubt, over the years game companies have been catering more and more towards the carebears to try and appeal to the masses. Even this game with no trinity and what appears to now be catering to a very small subset of the player base….. grrr

Maybe Elder Scrolls Online this year? Frior from DAOC is leading it and they don’t have EA forcing them release a game far too early like what happened with WAR. Heh. I know nothing of the actual game play though.

Heck, over the years designers have even made the easiest classes in their games (those with invisibility) easy to play. Stealthing in combat, damage not breaking stealth, etc. I miss the old days of MMOs.

While I LOVED DAoC, and seriously miss Molvik, I really don’t want to see bard speed and AoE Mezz in this game. We sort of have the speed, but it’s not 110% of run speed, it’s 33%. The AoE mezz was just whoever hit theirs first and than the 1:10 wait to be killed if you had no CD available…kind of pointless.

Actual tactics should matter. Troop movements, supplies, etc.

No reason any realm should start with supply at reset, or be able to pick up 15 supply on one map and bring it to another. If you leave a map, then your supply is gone. This would help. Requires you to be on a map, establish a footing and keep the spice flowing.

AoE should not be limited to how many it can hit. I’m against the nerf for a number of reasons, but if it was toned down say 15% and than the 5 person limit was removed that would be a start.

Zergs rule by number, not skill. AoE is irrelevant with regards to the zerg winning. They will still steamroll their opponents with single target due to numbers. The biggest problem right now is zerging is the most effective tactic.
1. Culling – your enemy is dead before they know you are there – win
2. Culling – you can walk right past aoe and ground effects and kill your opponent because the game hasn’t told your client about traps and aoe (so no damage to you) – win
3. AoE is capped to 5 people – so just stack in a ball which makes a large group nearly invulnerable to damage and smaller groups – win
4. Siege doesn’t do crap for damage, despite having a cap of 50 players. So, the zerg just runs in and speed caps because it’s the fastest way to favor and badges – win

IF they can fix culling, then remove the AoE cap and make siege actually kill people (maybe not 1 shot – but you shouldn’t be able to stand under an arrow cart for 5 minutes not dying while disarming siege on walls or ramming), that would be a start.

Ubi.4136:

While I LOVED DAoC, and seriously miss Molvik, I really don’t want to see bard speed and AoE Mezz in this game. We sort of have the speed, but it’s not 110% of run speed, it’s 33%. The AoE mezz was just whoever hit theirs first and than the 1:10 wait to be killed if you had no CD available…kind of pointless.

That was the exact noob sentiment that forced game designers to cater to carebears.

The truth is that mezz was counterable across the board. It broke on damage, could be cured, had a long immunity timer (1 minute) so you couldn’t be chain mezzed, and each class had the ability to break it with a cool down (cool down dependent on how much you invested into it)

It was balanced and supremely so. It was also meaningful.

Dynnen.6405:

Sabull.5670:

removing aoe limit would break the game entirely. It would make culling far more powerful, encourage random spreaded out pugs instead of coordinated movement, using combo fields and healing.
Wiping keep door sieges single handledly vs tens of players…

Most people talking in this thread have no idea how actually organised raid works. 15 people of actually organised people rolls over 30 from a average, decent guild.
Being in same TS does not make you actually coordinated. There is long way to go from that.

GET ORGANISED. 50 pugs in a server TS blobbing together aka using somekind of “tactic” no matter how lame it is. Hell yea it should require you to actually get organised aswell and realise how sitting ducks they are stacking like that. Instead of crying “why i dont kill them alone or with my 5 man when they sit in my red circles”.

We are organized, and I guess we are crying a bit. But its because small groups aren’t balanced with the large groups atm. Look at it like this. 20 people are in a small area outside of a tower attacking it. 5, lets just say guardians since I know the class, run in behind them and catch them unawares. If all guardians we running hammer, and even if they spread their mighty blows across a small section of it to maximize their aoe damage, they would still only knock down about 3-4 of them. This would leave the 17 others to turn around and attack, heal up, zerg res, etc.

Now even though the 5 man, maneuvered into a great position, organized their initial assault, they are still being punished and not as effective as the zerg. The point is that uncapping AOE damage would not only balance out small group play vs large group play, but make everyone have to pay attention more; even in small groups. Large groups would have to ‘keep their head on a swivel’ otherwise they will get flanked by a small group, and small groups would also have to do that otherwise they will get run over by a zerg (which is the current situation for small groups anyway).

HAHAHA, of course they’re not as effective as the ‘zerg’, they have 15 less people. Does that mean the 5 can’t wipe the 20? of course not, it just means you actually have to work to overcome the odds rather than win through nothing other than getting the first hit in.
The only thing that needs to change to combat massive zerging imo, is to reduce the ability to res fully downed players by anyone in combat, and lower the res from downed state speed.

Twinklefairy.6739:

Dynnen.6405:

Sabull.5670:

removing aoe limit would break the game entirely. It would make culling far more powerful, encourage random spreaded out pugs instead of coordinated movement, using combo fields and healing.
Wiping keep door sieges single handledly vs tens of players…

Most people talking in this thread have no idea how actually organised raid works. 15 people of actually organised people rolls over 30 from a average, decent guild.
Being in same TS does not make you actually coordinated. There is long way to go from that.

GET ORGANISED. 50 pugs in a server TS blobbing together aka using somekind of “tactic” no matter how lame it is. Hell yea it should require you to actually get organised aswell and realise how sitting ducks they are stacking like that. Instead of crying “why i dont kill them alone or with my 5 man when they sit in my red circles”.

We are organized, and I guess we are crying a bit. But its because small groups aren’t balanced with the large groups atm. Look at it like this. 20 people are in a small area outside of a tower attacking it. 5, lets just say guardians since I know the class, run in behind them and catch them unawares. If all guardians we running hammer, and even if they spread their mighty blows across a small section of it to maximize their aoe damage, they would still only knock down about 3-4 of them. This would leave the 17 others to turn around and attack, heal up, zerg res, etc.

Now even though the 5 man, maneuvered into a great position, organized their initial assault, they are still being punished and not as effective as the zerg. The point is that uncapping AOE damage would not only balance out small group play vs large group play, but make everyone have to pay attention more; even in small groups. Large groups would have to ‘keep their head on a swivel’ otherwise they will get flanked by a small group, and small groups would also have to do that otherwise they will get run over by a zerg (which is the current situation for small groups anyway).

HAHAHA, of course they’re not as effective as the ‘zerg’, they have 15 less people. Does that mean the 5 can’t wipe the 20? of course not, it just means you actually have to work to overcome the odds rather than win through nothing other than getting the first hit in.
The only thing that needs to change to combat massive zerging imo, is to reduce the ability to res fully downed players by anyone in combat, and lower the res from downed state speed.

Well obviously theres more to it than just getting the first hit off =P and you make some great points about revives from downed and dead states. Maybe lower the max rezzers from 6 to 3. Hopefully they will answer that little issue in the Feburary patch.

Now your point about ‘getting the first hit in’ is changing the point on the 5 cap for aoe. If I had enough time and set up I’d rather build 5 ballistas and fire from a distance and do WAY more damage. However if the aoe was uncapped damage output would be balanced. The 20 man could hit as many targets as their aoe could hit, and the 5 man could hit as many targets as their aoe could hit.

Check out this video here. It shows not only a great killzone we set up, but how effective a zerg can be just because a small man group’s aoe can’t threaten the numbers.

What I am going to suggest is not likely to happen, simply because it would be too resource intensive. Its probably not even the best way to go about it! I still think it would be a neat idea.

Basically, each AoE skill has an individual percentage of how many players it can hit in a given area. Some skills, like lava font, might have something like a 100% hit rate. Meaning, it would be able to hit any amount of players that are on it. Its small, so mechanics wise shouldnt be a huge issue. But, logically, I think lava would damage anyone stepping on it. A skill like meteor shower might still have the cap of 5 per meteor. The skills could be tuned depending on metrics at an individual level, but using a universal system.

A similar, but different mechanic, could be used for explosions. Where the damage is distributed more to those who are closer. Something like the Engineers Big Ol Bomb would do more damage the closer to the explosion you are. It seems a similar mechanic might be in play with some of the skills already (Mesmer GS auto attack for example). This could also start leading to strategies like having someone “jump on the grenade” to soak up the damage for their allies. Though, something like the Big Ol Bomb would be less effectively stopped than the grenade kit or a Thief’s cluster bomb.

These fixes are pointless. Ok sooooo a Zerg can’t use aoe then? Would you prefer a Zerg aoes a door and you cannot go through anymore due to their sheer numbers? Removing a cap won’t solve anything besides make a lot more people die since aoe does high damage

CrassBippy.4619:

These fixes are pointless. Ok sooooo a Zerg can’t use aoe then? Would you prefer a Zerg aoes a door and you cannot go through anymore due to their sheer numbers? Removing a cap won’t solve anything besides make a lot more people die since aoe does high damage

Except AoE doesnt do high damage.

1 thing would fix all the zerging.. player collisions.. So you cant run in a blob, and you can make a meat shield for your ranged DPS etc, that would fix sooo much

+1 for clipping although it requires a very solid infrastructure which may not quite be there yet.

aoe does do high damage when applied by multiple people. removing the cap increases the gap between single target and AOE damage.
balancing wvw much more in favor of aoe classes.

its a sticky situation. fact of the matter is that aoe is very powerful.

They could make certain effects like meteor shower and such only do damage to those that the meteors actually hit. same with other object effects.

maybe they could make the effects not overlap. so that people take the damage from only the most damaging effect. or add in a aoe dimishing returns effect so that the first aoe does full effect. the second half and so on over the course of a few seconds.

This tilts things in favor of coordinated groups who can time the ae effects better than a zerg can.

Well i think removing the cap completly would be bad. In the long run WvWvW would be ele, necro only because of the large AOE attacks they have.
Guardian, thiefs, warrios would become useless because they would die to fast because not having great AOE.

So i say no to the no cap. A group of 5 ele’s would be OP like hell (1 have seen meteor shower hit for 3k) because with a little bit of timing they could defend a broken wall against and big zerg.

But i got a little solution. Let the player decided how much players it can hit with a max of lets say 10.
It will work out like this. Meteor shower will do overtime and when everything hits 10k dmg. So if the player decides that he would hit 5 players then every player could be hit for 10k / 5 = 2000dmg.
But if the player want’s to hit 10 players his max damage would be (10k / 10 = 1000dmg).

Dynnen.6405:

Check out this video here. It shows not only a great killzone we set up, but how effective a zerg can be just because a small man group’s aoe can’t threaten the numbers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWpTAX6dicU

I’m trying to understand the point of this video, while it was a good ninja (ftw!) was this during offpeak or morning hours or something? Where are the enemy numbers streaming out of Bay, where were their scouts while you were inside, and where was their force while trying to push through the outer wall?

EDIT: Got to the bit at the end, please ignore above. I agree with your assessment.

I’m not familiar with NA meta but this is what things look like from one of the best EU guilds and what we deal with multiple times on a daily basis in EU tiers 1 & 2. Yesterday EB CRASHED TWICE due to the size of the engagements between all three servers

Guild Wars 2 is a dynamically evolving world, so i never understood why WvW wasn’t. In this manner, i could think of some things to create anti-zerg mechanisms.

.1 – Reduce the effectiveness of the AoE strikes with the amount of players hit by them:

Players using AoE Skills are imo one of the Best Anti-Zerg Mechanics and the most mobile one. However there is thin line where they act as a Zone Nuclear strike instead of a Zerg Breaker. This could be corrected by adjusting the power of the skill depending on the amount of targets hit.

-Up to one target: 80% Skill Damage (As it is ANet intention to tone down effectiveness of AoE’s while fighting solo players);
-Up to 5 targets: 100% Skill Damage;
-Up to 10 targets: 80% Skill Damage;
-Up to 20 targets: 60% Skill Damage;

.2 – Set more capping points depending on the size of the zerg.
Right now, WvW is {Rush to Place A, Zerg place A, Cap the point A, Move to point B} and repeat this procedure. A defending force can’t do nothing if a tremendous force will come to take down that keep.
Why not to add more capping points into Structures (Keeps, Garrisons and Castle), so that if:
- A small force gets in: One Lord, One capping point under the Lord.
- An Average Force: One Lord, Two “Lesser Lords”, 3 Capping Points inside the Structure, with a geometrically evenly distance from each other;
- A Huge Force: One Lord, Four “Lesser Lords”, 5 Capping Points inside the structure, with a geometrically evenly distance from each other;

All the points must be capped at the same time for the assaulter to take the structure.
This would separate the zerg and defenders could decide where to make the better defense…

Small scale AOE should be buffed, large scale AOE should be nerfed to the ground and even lower. Why?
“Gather big zerg and lay AOE everywhere” is not skilled tactic. But “gather group of Ele, flank and lay AOE on those stupid zerglings” required have equal skill – zero.
Skill – in focusing targets, CC, splitting and dragging away enemy groups/individuals, evasive tanking, etc, not in “lol i go there, mash all my AOE buttons and bam, everyone dead”.
Buff of small and nerf large scale AOE will fully manifest dominance of large well-organized groups, and will be major blow to poor-organized zergs, and at the same time, it will not lead to stupid situations where small parties with a strong AOE will prevail over the battlefield. Size+organization should ALWAYS be much better then just organization.

Hjulstad.6317:

1 thing would fix all the zerging.. player collisions.. So you cant run in a blob, and you can make a meat shield for your ranged DPS etc, that would fix sooo much

That has been tried and it ultimately causes more problems than its worth. At least in the implementations I saw in other games. In fact, your entire game has to be designed around it from the beginning in order for it to work mechanically.

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

aoe does do high damage when applied by multiple people. removing the cap increases the gap between single target and AOE damage.
balancing wvw much more in favor of aoe classes.

its a sticky situation. fact of the matter is that aoe is very powerful.

They could make certain effects like meteor shower and such only do damage to those that the meteors actually hit. same with other object effects.

maybe they could make the effects not overlap. so that people take the damage from only the most damaging effect. or add in a aoe dimishing returns effect so that the first aoe does full effect. the second half and so on over the course of a few seconds.

This tilts things in favor of coordinated groups who can time the ae effects better than a zerg can.

I disagree with you 100% ….people can ignore AE currently, aside from siege AE, and do simply by stacking on top of one another.

You also are kind if clueless about meteor shower. Half the time you can stand inside of the AoE and not even take damage from a single meteor. Who a meteor hits and when during the duration is random. It is a low dps ability on average and is completely unreliable.

Also, there is already a severe diminishing return on AoE. Any target after the first 5 it hits, takes 0 damage.

SintLucifer.4206:

(1 have seen meteor shower hit for 3k)

Are you seriously complaining about a meteor shower hit for 3k damage. That is like 1/9th of the average players health pool in WvW, and not only that, the ele hitting you that hard is most likely full glass cannon.

Add in the fact that the meteor that hit you was random, the ability is a channel, and there is even chance that you dont get hit by any meteors while standing in the area of effect… I am wondering exactly what you are complaining about.

Even if we say that you average getting hit by two meteors (its more like 1 at best) while in the area of effect during duration, the actual dps of the ability is extremely low given its duration. Even from a glass cannon with you taking two crits from him, it is still low dps given the duration of the spell.

Basically you are complaining about a low overall damage ability, that does completely unreliable or consistent damage, that is an interruptable channel, and has an extremely long cool down.

let me put it to you this way, even if meteor shower had no cool down, any half way decent ele wouldn’t sit there and spam it because the damage blows overall.

Ok I think I might have discovered the problem. I got invited to a group the other night by a enemy player who then went off on me and my group saying that I was an aoe spamming baddie (funny thing was he was a D/D thief who was probably the one spamming 2 a lot), etc, etc. Funny thing was he was from a zerg guild and we caught him and about 8 of his friends trying to get to the northern camp. He apparently was caught off guard by how much damage we could put onto his group.

This might be the problem as when people are running in smaller groups when they are used to larger groups protecting them from the aoe. Thereby making it seem OP when they are in smaller groups, moving to reinforce or retreating.

Also people who thinking the uncap would be a bad idea are still mentioning that people would zerg MORE. They are acting like if there was an AOE uncap then one zerg would be stupid OP, but the other zergs they would run into wouldn’t have any aoe whatsoever. Analytically speaking that is a bit ignorant =P Each zerg would be able to put out about the same amount of AOE. To make a stronger zerg, players would HAVE to coordinate to be effective, such as maneuvering into better positions, focusing their attacks, etc.

Still a great discussion though guys, and I kinda like the idea of players setting their own aoe with 5 being the minimum and all being the max. Don’t know how they would implement that, but its outside the box and I like that kinda thinking

MarzAttakz.9608:

I’m trying to understand the point of this video, while it was a good ninja (ftw!) was this during offpeak or morning hours or something? Where are the enemy numbers streaming out of Bay, where were their scouts while you were inside, and where was their force while trying to push through the outer wall?

That was primetime on Friday (reset night). EB took down the wall with trebs, we mesmer portaled into the inner moat behind Kaineng while they were trying to keep EB out. We snuck to the very back and catapulted a wall down.

Keep in mind we stole this keep from Kaineng, you know… the guys who are going to T1 during primetime on a reset night.

Oh and on the video. How can you tell who is best when there is so much zergspam that you can’t even use your utilities due to UI/client lag?

All I have to say…is that PAXA 100% agrees with eliminating the AoE cap. We have had to pull off, / lost so many fights with 10+ people downed….just didn’t have the man pwr to stomp them because of the MASS AoE dmg being taken by the other 20 idiots spamming a collective total of 2 buttons. 2 buttons from 20 people…is 40 attacks on 5 people….instantly.

Funny part is, all the forum “Warlords” from these 400+ member guilds that run in freight trains of 30+ wouldn’t know how to explain to the 30 people in vent/TS/mumble how they all were forced to release with 5 guys standing over their bodies…..

Anet, put skill back in the skillfuls hands. Let unskilled players learn the hard way, like we all had to at some point in our pvp careers.

PS: AD, keep pushing 5 man (Hopefully inc grp size to 7-8) culture with us. Figure it will probably be about a year before that becomes standard, but don’t stop pushing zergers into that mindset.

PLEASE POST ON THE CULLING DEVELOPER THREAD.

I’m sure anyone who runs in a small man will remember how disastrous their culling trial in December was when you don’t run in a big dumb zerg. They are actually reverting to this…..please post your negative opinion. Read my post if you didn’t experience it, I try to sum it up. It makes the game 100% unplayable for small gank style groups. I know we lost half of our members after that trial that never bothered to come back, not to mention NONE of us played after two days of it until it was removed. I’m 100% sure our group will be done if this goes through.

Yeah, the “culling trial” they did made culling much worse for me personally.

Essentially Oozo, the current system (arbitrary numbers) allows a max of say 50 models loaded. When you’re in a 5 man you have 45 slots to load enemies. The December system reserves slots for each side the 50 is now 25 ally 25 enemy. This helps a zerg, their resources are not all used up by their companions. For a small man, it screws us, because we end up reserving resources for allies we don’t have. The current system is not bad for us, we either load enough to say oh kitten that’s alot, and when it finally culls we’re like oh man that’s a WHOLE LOT. On the other hand the other system would many times not even load anyone until we were dead, giving the advantage to the zerg, because they have slots reserved to see your 5, but we are only loading up 10 people each time because so much is reserved for our allies. It was unplayable to say the least. I don’t overract in these games, I don’t knee jerk, most things you can adapt and workaround. This on the other hand, is absolutely unplayable or adaptable to for our styles of gameplay. It’s broken coding…..and a horrible mismanagement of resources.

Yeah, man. We would have people not appear until they were 10 feet away from us. People disappearing in the middle of fights. It was horrible.

I was under the impression that it was acknowledged to be a complete failure. There was a ton of negative feedback. I don’t get it.

/resurrect

Continue discussion!

will.2105:

In my opinion, some AoE does too much damage, i would rather have it hit more targets, like 7-8 maybe even 10 but with less damage, it would correct the fact that if you are unfortunate to be hit with 3-4 AoE in a zerg you would probaly die and don’t even see it. Major problem in zerg fights is by far culling thou. That is the thing that should be fixed asap if possible.

I go a step further here. If someone is in the red circle, they should be hit. How many times do you see entire zergs stacking on a point? They should ALL be hit by AOE if they want to use that tactic.

This isn’t group vs group, but World vs World!!!

You knew the type of game you paid for, so quit complaining that they’re creating the massive war type atmosphere World vs World was meant to be. They created a group based player vs player atmosphere when they created sPvP.

I run solo in WvW, so save me the childish; “You run in Zerg nonsense”.

covenn.7165:

CrassBippy.4619:

These fixes are pointless. Ok sooooo a Zerg can’t use aoe then? Would you prefer a Zerg aoes a door and you cannot go through anymore due to their sheer numbers? Removing a cap won’t solve anything besides make a lot more people die since aoe does high damage

Except AoE doesnt do high damage.

AoE does more to a single target than most, probably if spec’d right, all other single target abilities.

That should NEVER happen.

jkctmc.8754:

This isn’t group vs group, but World vs World!!!

You knew the type of game you paid for, so quit complaining that they’re creating the massive war type atmosphere World vs World was meant to be. They created a group based player vs player atmosphere when they created sPvP.

I run solo in WvW, so save me the childish; “You run in Zerg nonsense”.

Spare me. Small man was explicitly stated to be a supported play style in WvW.

For example: http://www.arena.net/blog/mike-ferguson-on-guild-wars-2-world-vs-world

With players from three different servers fighting each other, we knew that we would need a lot of different areas for them to fight over, and we wanted to have plenty of locations for guilds of all sizes to claim as their own. With this in mind, we created a number of different objectives that are designed to be captured and contested by large groups, small groups, or even just a few players.

A comprimise wouldn’t be bad, a small man wiping a zerg with little effort and no cap on AoE would be silly. I’ve played games like this and its rediculous, however, 5 people is to low. I would think 10 people cap would be a happy medium. Its gives small mans a little more bang for their buck, but doesn’t allow for zerg to be wiped by 1 Ele.

Nuzt.7894:

A comprimise wouldn’t be bad, a small man wiping a zerg with little effort and no cap on AoE would be silly. I’ve played games like this and its rediculous, however, 5 people is to low. I would think 10 people cap would be a happy medium. Its gives small mans a little more bang for their buck, but doesn’t allow for zerg to be wiped by 1 Ele.

Why shouldn’t a zerg, which I believe most regard as a mindless group, not be destroyable by a single, intelligent, Ele?

If the zerg actually pays attention and adapts, unlike the lemmings they often are, a single Ele would not be able to do this (given current mechanics and damage values). There is no “instant death” AE in this game.

If the zerg “stands in the red circle” for 20-30 seconds then they deserve their embarrassing death.

AoE needs to be addressed in several ways, one remove cap, two make some effect areas smaller, three make pbaoe stronger then range AoE risk vs reward, four make AoE have a fall off closer to the center of AoE the more damage you take less the closer to the edge you are.

As for removing the cap like I said it is important to do so, we have dodge and big kitten circles on the ground that tell you where not to be already do people really need that much more hand holding?

And this is why it will never happen, unwilling to comprimise. The reason is a moot point, with no bearing. Give a little, get a little. They won’t give you unlimited AoE cap, just accept that.

When talking about AoE cap you guys have to consider also the organized WvW guilds. When these guys form into a zerg ball, they stack up their AoE attacks on a concentrated area, use culling exploit tactics with flanking maneuvers. The only thing that’s actually mitigating their insane damage as a group at this moment is the AoE cap. Go up with one of the organized guild zergs in T1 and see if you can dodge their AoE. They’ll open up with Veil, Stacked AoE daze you, Stacked AoE knockdown, Stacked AoE damage, rinse and repeat. Bottom line is stacked AoE damage is just insane enough that removing the cap is just crazy.

Please send this WvW video to Anet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzO770ngey8

It seems they are not doing their homework at all. Nerfing AoE? LOL WHAT? Isnt AoE is already too weak? 5 targets cap is a real problem here. It will even make this video worse if they nerf the damage of AoE as well. Right now people just need to group together as a huge ball of death stack up with boons/condition removal, then run around like a lawn mover… Everything can be wipe out. Yes i do agree that it take coordination to do what they do, but really, it eliminate all those open field tactic / siege placement because they aint matter at all when meet with this kind of deathkittenerg.

If Anet doesnt have a clue and still want to nerf AoE damage, i think they need to seriously invite RG/VotF/HB for a guild vs guild :P

We need to buff AoE damage (or nerf AoE damage but remove the 5target cap!), make it matter so they dont zerg in or just run pass the fire. Choke point/ Siege placement will be utilize more this way. That’s a better WvW.

Nuzt.7894:

A comprimise wouldn’t be bad, a small man wiping a zerg with little effort and no cap on AoE would be silly. I’ve played games like this and its rediculous, however, 5 people is to low. I would think 10 people cap would be a happy medium. Its gives small mans a little more bang for their buck, but doesn’t allow for zerg to be wiped by 1 Ele.

I don’t believe many people want small groups to be able to wipe big zergs with no effort. I know for a fact that Dynnen, Oozo, Tiglie, and I don’t.

What we want is to have a fighting chance. We can accept having a disadvantage from having fewer people. Hell, we welcome it.

What we hate is getting wiped by unintended game mechanic failures, oversights, and just plain bad design.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve died because I’ve retreated from a fight to somewhere that seems safe only to get instantly ganked by 10-20 people who suddenly appear all around me.

I’m tired of getting involved in drag out fights that we literally cannot win because the enemy can easily dedicate people to rezzing fully dead players with negligible performance loss.

For some of us this has literally been going on for bloody months. And made all the worse by the constant band wagoning driven by the utterly horrendous free server transfers.

Bloody near everything in the game at the moment encourages and supports zergs, can’t we afford to have just a few things that don’t?

Anet’s design really implies that siege is intended for dealing with large numbers (since it has a target cap of like 50), and that not much is really to be decided in open field at all, since kills are not worth points, and there is not good tactical reasons to be fighting over worthless empty space.

They are going the opposite direction apparently and actually nerfing AoE, I don’t really see where that is necessary, except as individual class balancing, but clearly they are trying to push certain kind of combat in WvW.

I hope when they reduce the damage of AoE’s they also expand on how many enemies can be hit by it. What’s the point of fighting 5 on 10 if you can only hit 5? All the cap does is promote zerging and people “get on top of me and heal heal heal”.

AOE’s have traditionally been used to punish large groups that don’t spread out. I never understood the limit of 5 targets… It really allow large groups to exploit it by stacking up on a commander. AOE’s should be able to hit all targets standing in it, forcing the group to spread out. But AOE’s shouldn’t do as much damage as a single target skill, which is the trade off for hitting multiple people. LHound’s idea sounds pretty awesome.

LHound.8964:

.1 – Reduce the effectiveness of the AoE strikes with the amount of players hit by them:

Players using AoE Skills are imo one of the Best Anti-Zerg Mechanics and the most mobile one. However there is thin line where they act as a Zone Nuclear strike instead of a Zerg Breaker. This could be corrected by adjusting the power of the skill depending on the amount of targets hit.

-Up to one target: 80% Skill Damage (As it is ANet intention to tone down effectiveness of AoE’s while fighting solo players);
-Up to 5 targets: 100% Skill Damage;
-Up to 10 targets: 80% Skill Damage;
-Up to 20 targets: 60% Skill Damage;

Tajz.9826:

Please send this WvW video to Anet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzO770ngey8

It seems they are not doing their homework at all. Nerfing AoE? LOL WHAT? Isnt AoE is already too weak? 5 targets cap is a real problem here. It will even make this video worse if they nerf the damage of AoE as well. Right now people just need to group together as a huge ball of death stack up with boons/condition removal, then run around like a lawn mover… Everything can be wipe out. Yes i do agree that it take coordination to do what they do, but really, it eliminate all those open field tactic / siege placement because they aint matter at all when meet with this kind of deathkittenerg.

If Anet doesnt have a clue and still want to nerf AoE damage, i think they need to seriously invite RG/VotF/HB for a guild vs guild :P

We need to buff AoE damage (or nerf AoE damage but remove the 5target cap!), make it matter so they dont zerg in or just run pass the fire. Choke point/ Siege placement will be utilize more this way. That’s a better WvW.

Notice how the Warriors health in that video hardly ever moves, while he is surrounded by enemies, as if they don’t see him, or have him targeted? These are the culling issues that can be manipulated, for maximum carnage.

The Mesmer skill veil is more problematic than aoe on its own in wvw. When combined with aoe and culling it allows a group of 15 people to destroy upwards of 30 plus people in under five seconds. You can’t evade or attack what you can’t see or target. Those fights are no fun.

I think there need to be a separation between blast aoe and non-blast aoe.

-Blast AoE works like a grenade. The people in the middle of the aoe takes a ton of damage. While people outside takes less damage due to distance and people inside semi-blocking the blash for you.

So it should work like:

0-5 meters from centre: 100% damage
6-10 meters from centre: 80% damage
11-15 meters from centre: 60% damage
etc

-Non blash AoE are spells like Mark of Blood. They are magical and deals damage evenly to enemies. However each spell has limited power, so their damage is spread evenly amount the enemies inside

So it should work like:

Damage= (95%)^(number of foes you hit) + 5%

So if you hit 5 foes, each foe takes .95^5 0.05 = 82.38% damage
If you hit 20 foes, each foes takes .95^200.05= 40.85% damage

Gotta admit, the game is a lot harder when people can see you.