Guild Wars 2

WvW actually has a name for the type of engagement that goes down when two zergs run into eachother: a pirate ship battle. This is largely due to the way you can throw out an AOE damage skill or spell at quite a long range, leading to people not wanting to get close to eachother due to having to run through a red field of AOE markers.

The difference between a ranged missile skill and an AOE is that there are counters to missile skills in the form of reflecting and blocking walls, however there is no such counter for an AOE skill.

It is in my personal opinion that WvW battles should be more close range focused than it is now, and there are two ways i can think of making this happen, by either:

-Nerfing all AOE ranges to be much lower in WvW

-Creating AOE cancellation skills and giving them to a class or spreading them over mulitiple classes

Hopefully either method will cause there to be less ranged potshotting.

Fipmip.7219:

WvW actually has a name for the type of engagement that goes down when two zergs run into eachother: a pirate ship battle. This is largely due to the way you can throw out an AOE damage skill or spell at quite a long range, leading to people not wanting to get close to eachother due to having to run through a red field of AOE markers.

The difference between a ranged missile skill and an AOE is that there are counters to missile skills in the form of reflecting and blocking walls, however there is no such counter for an AOE skill.

It is in my personal opinion that WvW battles should be more close range focused than it is now, and there are two ways i can think of making this happen, by either:

-Nerfing all AOE ranges to be much lower in WvW

-Creating AOE cancellation skills and giving them to a class or spreading them over over mulitiple classes

Hopefully either method will cause there to be less ranged potshotting.

In essence create a melee train. Are you going to make all classes heavy armor also? Those light armor classes can only take just so much toughness.

I think changing AoE damage, would lead to a complete proliferation of heavy classes. Drop the damage amount by maybe 10% and reduce CCs, but it’s not nearly as much of the pirate ship as you note.

I will never understand why people bring up armor weight as if it’s a big debate point.

It’s like saying guardian can’t Frontline because they are a low hp class.

Justine.6351:

I will never understand why people bring up armor weight as if it’s a big debate point.

Maybe because heavy armor users take much less damage so they suit better for frontline?

FogLeg.9354:

Justine.6351:

I will never understand why people bring up armor weight as if it’s a big debate point.

Maybe because heavy armor users take much less damage so they suit better for frontline?

Assume a 12,000,000 base hit.

A Berserker heavy armor wearer in Ascended takes: 5,284
A Berserker light armor wearer in Ascended takes: 6,100
A difference of 816, about 15%

A heavy armor wearer in Ascended with +1.5k Toughness takes: 3,182
A light armor wearer in Ascended with +1.5k Toughness takes: 3,461
A difference of 279, about 9%

Toughness makes a much bigger difference than armor weight. As you add more, the percentage taken between heavy armor and lower weights decreases.

That’s not to say that guards and revs are not front-liners for a reason. However, that reason is less the weight of their armor and more due to their contributions to the current boon vs. boon-strip meta.

IndigoSundown.5419:

FogLeg.9354:

Justine.6351:

I will never understand why people bring up armor weight as if it’s a big debate point.

Maybe because heavy armor users take much less damage so they suit better for frontline?

Assume a 12,000,000 base hit.

A Berserker heavy armor wearer in Ascended takes: 5,284
A Berserker light armor wearer in Ascended takes: 6,100
A difference of 816, about 15%

A heavy armor wearer in Ascended with +1.5k Toughness takes: 3,182
A light armor wearer in Ascended with +1.5k Toughness takes: 3,461
A difference of 279, about 9%

Toughness makes a much bigger difference than armor weight. As you add more, the percentage taken between heavy armor and lower weights decreases.

That’s not to say that guards and revs are not front-liners for a reason. However, that reason is less the weight of their armor and more due to their contributions to the current boon vs. boon-strip meta.

You are correct that the toughness is more important than the type/armor weight.

But there is a difference inherent in them. If the AoE damage became nerfed then Zerg balls become more of a problem as well.

Nerf how far AoE does damage, and remove the AoE cap.

Strider Pj.2193:

IndigoSundown.5419:

FogLeg.9354:

Justine.6351:

I will never understand why people bring up armor weight as if it’s a big debate point.

Maybe because heavy armor users take much less damage so they suit better for frontline?

Assume a 12,000,000 base hit.

A Berserker heavy armor wearer in Ascended takes: 5,284
A Berserker light armor wearer in Ascended takes: 6,100
A difference of 816, about 15%

A heavy armor wearer in Ascended with +1.5k Toughness takes: 3,182
A light armor wearer in Ascended with +1.5k Toughness takes: 3,461
A difference of 279, about 9%

Toughness makes a much bigger difference than armor weight. As you add more, the percentage taken between heavy armor and lower weights decreases.

That’s not to say that guards and revs are not front-liners for a reason. However, that reason is less the weight of their armor and more due to their contributions to the current boon vs. boon-strip meta.

You are correct that the toughness is more important than the type/armor weight.

But there is a difference inherent in them. If the AoE damage became nerfed then Zerg balls become more of a problem as well.

Nerf how far AoE does damage, and remove the AoE cap.

In what way do zerg balls become more of a problem if AOE range gets nerfed? The way i see it now i don’t see how exactly one AOE spamming zerg ball vs another AOE spamming zerg ball is any better than my solution.

The professions with longer ranges on their AoE’s generally have less ‘oh kitten’ buttons and defensive-oriented abilities.
If you want the backline moving with the front line on their generally glassier builds you had better give them some blocks, invulns and good defensive traits to counteract all that extra damage they’ll be taking.

IMO this particular element is fine as it is.

~ Kovu

By bringing the zergs closer together, you’ll probably see glassy artillery classes stay further towards the back, dart in to get off a few bombs and then use abilities to escape out again. As it stands now these classes are at the front, trying to lob their AOEs into the enemy as much as they can. We want heavy classes to lead the line, and duke it out with other heavies, all the while protecting their glassy characters. If they do their job right then glass cannons should be hard to get to among the rest of the zerg. Overall I’d say being a glass AOE cannon would become riskier, but in my opinion this is the way it should be. As it stands, AOE classes have too much range to allow heavies to close the gap.

The boon sharing era was all about melee trains and basically no back line.
You want to go back to that boring game play?
There needs to be a balance for both melee and range.

Fipmip.7219:

WvW actually has a name for the type of engagement that goes down when two zergs run into eachother: a pirate ship battle. This is largely due to the way you can throw out an AOE damage skill or spell at quite a long range, leading to people not wanting to get close to eachother due to having to run through a red field of AOE markers.

The difference between a ranged missile skill and an AOE is that there are counters to missile skills in the form of reflecting and blocking walls, however there is no such counter for an AOE skill.

It is in my personal opinion that WvW battles should be more close range focused than it is now, and there are two ways i can think of making this happen, by either:

-Nerfing all AOE ranges to be much lower in WvW

-Creating AOE cancellation skills and giving them to a class or spreading them over mulitiple classes

Hopefully either method will cause there to be less ranged potshotting.

This is only an issue because of poor tactics and an unorganized zerg.

Fipmip.7219:

By bringing the zergs closer together, you’ll probably see glassy artillery classes stay further towards the back, dart in to get off a few bombs and then use abilities to escape out again. As it stands now these classes are at the front, trying to lob their AOEs into the enemy as much as they can. We want heavy classes to lead the line, and duke it out with other heavies, all the while protecting their glassy characters. If they do their job right then glass cannons should be hard to get to among the rest of the zerg. Overall I’d say being a glass AOE cannon would become riskier, but in my opinion this is the way it should be. As it stands, AOE classes have too much range to allow heavies to close the gap.

Sounds like removing -300 range from all AOE skills ?

So all existing 1200 range becomes 900.
All existing 900 becomes 600 etc.

Basically forcing people to use normal attacks and single target attack at 1200, but forcing you to move a little closer to actually aoe carpet bomb. Close enough that you have to take some risk.

I think I could dig that. Who knows, might even change a bit how easy it is to carpet bomb walls.

Strider Pj.2193:

IndigoSundown.5419:

FogLeg.9354:

Justine.6351:

I will never understand why people bring up armor weight as if it’s a big debate point.

Maybe because heavy armor users take much less damage so they suit better for frontline?

Assume a 12,000,000 base hit.

A Berserker heavy armor wearer in Ascended takes: 5,284
A Berserker light armor wearer in Ascended takes: 6,100
A difference of 816, about 15%

A heavy armor wearer in Ascended with +1.5k Toughness takes: 3,182
A light armor wearer in Ascended with +1.5k Toughness takes: 3,461
A difference of 279, about 9%

Toughness makes a much bigger difference than armor weight. As you add more, the percentage taken between heavy armor and lower weights decreases.

That’s not to say that guards and revs are not front-liners for a reason. However, that reason is less the weight of their armor and more due to their contributions to the current boon vs. boon-strip meta.

You are correct that the toughness is more important than the type/armor weight.

But there is a difference inherent in them. If the AoE damage became nerfed then Zerg balls become more of a problem as well.

Nerf how far AoE does damage, and remove the AoE cap.

How about just remove the AoE cap. I think it’s time for omni-zerging against much inferior numbers to be not so safe. If your people rely on just stacking to avoid AoE mechanics against smaller more skilled players. Then I say it’s time for you all to L2P and stop nut hugging each other.

The harsh AoE caps is what lead to the proliferation of zerg balling with a full map with 2 or 3 tags on one spot in the first place. AoE in my opinion needs to go. ZOS learned this which brought back loads of solo and havoc players to ESO. At the height of zergballing absolute META. ESO saw the least amount of players interested in Cyrodiil Alliance War. ZOS removed nerfed the AoE cap from 5 to 75. Players in mass became more interested in the Alliance War battles. ZOS took it a step farther and took away rewards for just PvDing undefended keeps and resources. Turning ESO into a fight oriented RvR style game. That only rewards players for fighting and winning the tougher battles. Fast Forward to today. Alliance War in that game is pretty populated, and has a place for all playstyles. Even the ones outside of just stacking and burning. Because ZOS nerfed the living hell out of zerg balling, Cyrodiil is no longer a dead game mode and has map queues on all 3 factions throughout the day.

TL;DR If you want people’s interests back into WvW. And maybe get back some of the fight oriented guilds that lefted this game because of Server Stacking/OMNI-ZERG BALLING META. Unlock the AoE cap. Reward in game skill based play. Nerf, out of match and skill-less based play and METAs. Again rally behind this idea, and help lobby to remove the AoE caps. Make Omni-blobbing less safe.

Let’s make WvW great again!

I don’t think anet remember they have different defense value for each armor type.

Skill based play? whats skill based about painting the land between your zerg and their zerg in AOEs and expecting them to run through it and wipe them all with up to a single red circle? Removing the cap would completely solidify large scale warfare into an AOE spamfest, not to mention the load it would cause to have to check against every character in an AOE, rather than just the first 5.

XenesisII.1540:

The boon sharing era was all about melee trains and basically no back line.
You want to go back to that boring game play?
There needs to be a balance for both melee and range.

Yeah dude I’m trying to achieve that balance. Currently it is far too much in favour of ranged AOEs. With the new spellbreaker coming out with the potential to remove dozens of boons at once, i don’t think we’ll see a return to those days.

To simplify you wish to ban ele from WvW but your aware that comes across as stupid so you masked your sinister intentions in the form of an arbitrary balance change that would eliminate their value?

Rangerdeity.5847:

To simplify you wish to ban ele from WvW but your aware that comes across as stupid so you masked your sinister intentions in the form of an arbitrary balance change that would eliminate their value?

lmao

Just take it back to the builds where you had to use some semblance of skill, Anet has screwed the pooch with this game as far as WvW especially with the blob servers regardless , not everybody is an adept game player at least back in the day before this meta crap you had some chance of being competitive ,imagine if out of the blue they decided to have a season what a shambles , enough is enough and I for one will be skipping this part of the game it is no longer the fun it used to be , and yes I am not as skillful or nimble of finger as I used to be.Will leave it for the chest thumping kids with no skill and just their metas and blobs. I am sure they will get off on it .

Reaper Alim.4176:

Strider Pj.2193:

IndigoSundown.5419:

FogLeg.9354:

Justine.6351:

I will never understand why people bring up armor weight as if it’s a big debate point.

Maybe because heavy armor users take much less damage so they suit better for frontline?

Assume a 12,000,000 base hit.

A Berserker heavy armor wearer in Ascended takes: 5,284
A Berserker light armor wearer in Ascended takes: 6,100
A difference of 816, about 15%

A heavy armor wearer in Ascended with +1.5k Toughness takes: 3,182
A light armor wearer in Ascended with +1.5k Toughness takes: 3,461
A difference of 279, about 9%

Toughness makes a much bigger difference than armor weight. As you add more, the percentage taken between heavy armor and lower weights decreases.

That’s not to say that guards and revs are not front-liners for a reason. However, that reason is less the weight of their armor and more due to their contributions to the current boon vs. boon-strip meta.

You are correct that the toughness is more important than the type/armor weight.

But there is a difference inherent in them. If the AoE damage became nerfed then Zerg balls become more of a problem as well.

Nerf how far AoE does damage, and remove the AoE cap.

How about just remove the AoE cap. I think it’s time for omni-zerging against much inferior numbers to be not so safe. If your people rely on just stacking to avoid AoE mechanics against smaller more skilled players. Then I say it’s time for you all to L2P and stop nut hugging each other.

The harsh AoE caps is what lead to the proliferation of zerg balling with a full map with 2 or 3 tags on one spot in the first place. AoE in my opinion needs to go. ZOS learned this which brought back loads of solo and havoc players to ESO. At the height of zergballing absolute META. ESO saw the least amount of players interested in Cyrodiil Alliance War. ZOS removed nerfed the AoE cap from 5 to 75. Players in mass became more interested in the Alliance War battles. ZOS took it a step farther and took away rewards for just PvDing undefended keeps and resources. Turning ESO into a fight oriented RvR style game. That only rewards players for fighting and winning the tougher battles. Fast Forward to today. Alliance War in that game is pretty populated, and has a place for all playstyles. Even the ones outside of just stacking and burning. Because ZOS nerfed the living hell out of zerg balling, Cyrodiil is no longer a dead game mode and has map queues on all 3 factions throughout the day.

TL;DR If you want people’s interests back into WvW. And maybe get back some of the fight oriented guilds that lefted this game because of Server Stacking/OMNI-ZERG BALLING META. Unlock the AoE cap. Reward in game skill based play. Nerf, out of match and skill-less based play and METAs. Again rally behind this idea, and help lobby to remove the AoE caps. Make Omni-blobbing less safe.

Let’s make WvW great again!

Aoe cap is due to technical limitations. Make wvw great again? Make wvw unplayable again you mean.

Reducing the AoE for more melee trains is perfectly fine, assuming of course we add two more features at the same time to make the game truly great.

- Friendly fire
- Body collision

Make it happen.

Fipmip.7219:

WvW actually has a name for the type of engagement that goes down when two zergs run into eachother: a pirate ship battle. This is largely due to the way you can throw out an AOE damage skill or spell at quite a long range, leading to people not wanting to get close to eachother due to having to run through a red field of AOE markers.

The difference between a ranged missile skill and an AOE is that there are counters to missile skills in the form of reflecting and blocking walls, however there is no such counter for an AOE skill.

It is in my personal opinion that WvW battles should be more close range focused than it is now, and there are two ways i can think of making this happen, by either:

-Nerfing all AOE ranges to be much lower in WvW

-Creating AOE cancellation skills and giving them to a class or spreading them over mulitiple classes

Hopefully either method will cause there to be less ranged potshotting.

I actually agree with this. I find it ridiculous a necro can cast aoe as far as my 1200 projectile shots and not be subject to any drawbacks. This aoe can go over cliffs and whatever…..its not impacted by terrain in any way, its like a homing missle that hits alot of people compared to single target projectile shots that are blocked by player skills, terrain, and everything inbetween.

If anything it makes sense to reshape aoe so it does something like:
-extreme high damage
-extreme short range ( 900 or something lesser )
-delay on the activation, so you can walk/dodge out of it before it goes off. I just don’t find it fair that these single attack aoe can condi me for 15k hp…and they have no projectile or anything midair for me to time my dodge. Its just the cast animation which is rly generic and you have no idea what they are using really. With a projectile shot like gunflame for example….you have the cast….AND you have the projectile. So you have 2 things to tell you when/how to dodge/block/counter. Aoe only really gives you a single thing. THe exception is stuff like ele meteor. I’d like all necro aoe to work like meteor…you see the giant circle….you have a chance to get out of it before you get hit.

Even single target necro attacks….most of them don’t have any projectile of any kind. Just a hand wave and immediately your toon is subject to 15k worth of bleed and chill.

Strider Pj.2193:

In essence create a melee train. Are you going to make all classes heavy armor also? Those light armor classes can only take just so much toughness.

I think changing AoE damage, would lead to a complete proliferation of heavy classes. Drop the damage amount by maybe 10% and reduce CCs, but it’s not nearly as much of the pirate ship as you note.

Always that 1 person who uses utter nonsense to convince us things are fine as is…

“Just a hand wave and immediately your toon is subject to 15k worth of bleed and chill.”

Exactly,and this is why it baffles me that warri got animation nerfs when theres classes around with little to no tell at all and every animation is the same kitten.

XenesisII.1540:

The boon sharing era was all about melee trains and basically no back line.
You want to go back to that boring game play?
There needs to be a balance for both melee and range.

Now you have necros necros necros necros some dh and some ele…Oh yeah such healthy and fun gameplay.Stand around kiting and throwing condi bombs forever with no melee pushes.but im sure all you condi spammers absolutely luv this gameplay,its very skillfull and such.

Dawdler.8521:

Reducing the AoE for more melee trains is perfectly fine, assuming of course we add two more features at the same time to make the game truly great.

- Friendly fire
- Body collision

Make it happen.

This^.

All it would do is encourage even more omniblobs.

AOE cap removal would be better, (run in an Omni blob and die to smaller numbers cause you dumb) and neither is a good fix.

Strider Pj.2193:

Dawdler.8521:

Reducing the AoE for more melee trains is perfectly fine, assuming of course we add two more features at the same time to make the game truly great.

- Friendly fire
- Body collision

Make it happen.

This^.

All it would do is encourage even more omniblobs.

AOE cap removal would be better, (run in an Omni blob and die to smaller numbers cause you dumb) and neither is a good fix.

ANet have stated that due phisical and code limitations that cant be raised.

Cap cant be reduced, if u remove cap with all the ticks calc on served side, servers would crash or u would have enormous time with skills lag until the servers could dispach the infor for the clients…

That would creates several gltiches, not all players would receive the same info on the client, if the server <-> client works how i think it works it would be really awfull thing to do.

What would be possible to do and what i have been asking is to reduce remove cleaves from autos, and increase on some AOE spells a bigger cap besides 5 (i think the max they cant cap is arround 7-10).

But that would bork up the easy pve cleave high damage spam, and ANet puts pve easyness aoe/cleave DSP spam above game stability as a whole.

I think they should be nerfed a bit. Maybe like 25% or something. It is ridiculous to the point that a lot of squads you join in WvW are 70% casters, and the fights are just stupid. Bring back the good fights when class numbers were more equal, and the fights way more epic!

Now 7/10 fights are just stand there and Pew, Pew, Pew. Not much strategy anymore, more like a couple condi bombs then run away and hide behind siege fight.

Caedmon.6798:

XenesisII.1540:

The boon sharing era was all about melee trains and basically no back line.
You want to go back to that boring game play?
There needs to be a balance for both melee and range.

Now you have necros necros necros necros some dh and some ele…Oh yeah such healthy and fun gameplay.Stand around kiting and throwing condi bombs forever with no melee pushes.but im sure all you condi spammers absolutely luv this gameplay,its very skillfull and such.

Heh Scourge are not even in the game yet.

Dunno what server you’re on, or maybe you’re just following pug blobs, but there’s still effective front line and pushes happening.

Dawdler.8521:

Reducing the AoE for more melee trains is perfectly fine, assuming of course we add two more features at the same time to make the game truly great.

- Friendly fire
- Body collision

Make it happen.

Also, don’t forget that the melee range will need to be lowered from 130 (on average) to 30. Other physical melee weapon attacks that hit for absurdly long ranges (150 to 300) will also need to be reduced to 30.

Honestly what is the problem with what you describe? You just want no classes with range? Just move out of the way, don’t suck your thumb if there is a blob infront of you. Sounds like your commander isn’t very good tbh.

About removing AoE caps, I thought the game actually ran without any caps back at launch or pre-start etc ? But they changed it to the 5 man target limit pretty fast. I mean they changed the warriors shouts to target 10 players, so 5 is definitively not a hard-cap.

The problem with removing AoE Cap’s is that it helps the organized groups. If you have 50 players semi organized, they will just run over 25 less organized players that much faster, making them feel the game is even more unfair.

Sure, 10 eles/necros etc could be hiding and ambushing a group of 50 and kill most of it by coordinating their aoe’s properly. But ask yourself, which situations is going to happen the most often ?

Still think this would work best if linked up to the Outnumbered effect, increase all 5 target max to 10 target max while outnumbered. It isn’t perfect, but it would be a better way to implement it than anything else I’ve heard or can think off.

Also thumbs up for collision control and friendly fire, they’ve even made the guard staff #1 almost friendly fire friendly !

And u guys keep hitting on the “remove aoe cap” thing

joneirikb.7506, colisions detecting system is another thing that this game engine cant handle well, ANet have been decreesing some of the colision validations to incrase game performance.

Did ANet changed something where is now possible to remove cap..?

Fipmip.7219:

By bringing the zergs closer together, you’ll probably see glassy artillery classes stay further towards the back, dart in to get off a few bombs and then use abilities to escape out again. As it stands now these classes are at the front, trying to lob their AOEs into the enemy as much as they can. We want heavy classes to lead the line, and duke it out with other heavies, all the while protecting their glassy characters. If they do their job right then glass cannons should be hard to get to among the rest of the zerg. Overall I’d say being a glass AOE cannon would become riskier, but in my opinion this is the way it should be. As it stands, AOE classes have too much range to allow heavies to close the gap.

Not like it’s super hard to get into the opposing zerg’s backline now. Not to mention that once you’re through that long distance AoE you don’t take any damage at all. This whole kerfuffle is much ado about nothing.

Kaiser.9873:

Fipmip.7219:

By bringing the zergs closer together, you’ll probably see glassy artillery classes stay further towards the back, dart in to get off a few bombs and then use abilities to escape out again. As it stands now these classes are at the front, trying to lob their AOEs into the enemy as much as they can. We want heavy classes to lead the line, and duke it out with other heavies, all the while protecting their glassy characters. If they do their job right then glass cannons should be hard to get to among the rest of the zerg. Overall I’d say being a glass AOE cannon would become riskier, but in my opinion this is the way it should be. As it stands, AOE classes have too much range to allow heavies to close the gap.

Not like it’s super hard to get into the opposing zerg’s backline now. Not to mention that once you’re through that long distance AoE you don’t take any damage at all. This whole kerfuffle is much ado about nothing.

I know that probably more than many due to playing thief a lot, it’s just who’s going to follow me? I’m trying to make your average everyday zerg be a better experience rather require voice communication and coordination to pull off. I know you probably want to say that ‘we should reward coordination and communication’ but if the tradeoff is to have what we have now for the average player that just wants to jump in and have some fun, well then i say it’s not worth it.

I think it’s tuned quite well as it is – two well-led zergs in a meeting engagement will maneuver for an advantage until one side or the other can bring the train into contact…or die trying, if the enemy does it better.

Nerfing AoE will just make the game a boring bludgeon match at the higher levels, rather than the dance that it currently is.

-Jeff

Reaper Alim.4176:

How about just remove the AoE cap.

You think the lag is bad now, it would be even worse if you did that.

I don’t think it would even work technically.

It would make the server CPU glow red and then melt.

Instead of looping over 5 targets and doing calculations the server would have to loop over 150 targets (assuming 3 way SMC lord room fight with 50 player blob per side) – it would have to calculate this every second and it has to do this for every player and every skill cast.

Basically all I get out of the anti remove AoE cap corner. Is that GW2 engine can not support it WvW. Thus it’s ok for over stacked server to have no counter against them. Thus making bandwagoning to BG the ultimate META. Thus making servers like BG completely unchallengeable.

See how silly that sound? Then you have other dev teams, run into similar issues. Actually upgrading their game engine to provide a decent experience for their players. I guess this is beneath ANet to even think of doing. It’s not a legitimate excuse, when other dev teams prove it’s not.

Please enlight me how removing aoe cap would be a counter to an overstacked server. Like they cannot use their aoes without the cap?

It all would lead to one big thing called LAG. Have you been around before the aoe cap? I was and if you think lag is bad now you are very wrong.

Offair.2563:

Please enlight me how removing aoe cap would be a counter to an overstacked server. Like they cannot use their aoes without the cap?

It all would lead to one big thing called LAG. Have you been around before the aoe cap? I was and if you think lag is bad now you are very wrong.

Have you not fought overstacked servers? Most of the time they just stack and burn with their numerical advantage. And just win for being bigger.

To answer your question it’s simple grade school math.
-If AoE cap is only 5.
-Server A can field 60 or more players.
-Server B can field 20.
-Server C can field about 10 to15.

-Because of the huge numerical advantage Server A has, with the current game mechanics. Server A only seeks out fights were it can just stack and burn.
-Server A can land 60 AoE at a cap of five hits per player
-Server B can only land 20 AoE at a cap five hits per player.
-Server C can only land 10 to 15 AoE at a cap of five hits per player.

Since the AoE cap mechanics only allows a player to hit 5 other players. Server A just omni blobs around the map to face the smaller groups of players. Because it can effectively just stack and burn, and stack and revive. All the while only taking a 1/3 or less of the damage it’s dealing to the other servers. This is why stacking one or two servers became so popular with the “I just want easy wins and bags” crowd.

Ok moving on. All 3 server now have the same population. However, there are no AoE caps.

-Server A will still have the same power it had before.
-Servers B and C would now be able to effectively remove the advantage that server A had. Safety in stacking to mitigate damage and revives.
-Servers B and C can now effectively start punishing Server A for it mistakes. Even tho it has larger numbers the them.
-Server A players will now have to start adjusting to the smaller servers.
-Server B and C can now start to split up it’s forces. To smaller groups. Now without AoE caps. Server A will have to decide another plan, that is not just stack numbers and win.

Here is some footage from another game. With a RvRvR system. That increased it’s AoE caps from 5 to 75. This is what this would look like.
https://youtu.be/7gVIftIeAdw

As you can see here. Yes the zerg does has the same tools as the smaller groups. However the zerg does not have the most powerful boon in a game. Decreasing mass amounts of incoming damage. Just by having superior numbers.

Removing AoE caps is the biggest nerf a game dev can give to zergs. This would lead to the better more skilled players winning. While the players who only relies on a huge numerical advantage, with AoE cap, will lose. This will encourage players to spread out as super zerging offers very little anymore. This would reward organized and skilled players as they should be.

Don’t you think that will just allow Server A to nuke all 20 of you at the same time, still with 3x more power than you have? They’ll still be 60 people fighting 20 and you’ll still be 20 fighting 60.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Don’t you think that will just allow Server A to nuke all 20 of you at the same time, still with 3x more power than you have? They’ll still be 60 people fighting 20 and you’ll still be 20 fighting 60.

Not to mention it would definitely push the meta to pirate ship again with the added bonus of long range siege wars. But apparently he thinks 40 people will die on first push and transfer off. Sure that might happen, what also might happen is those 20 skilled fighters might just be fighting 20 other skilled fighters who are surrounded by 40 pugs and would only take a couple more aoes from them to help wipe the 20.

Lastly unlocking the caps would probably blow up the servers. Conditions and boon calculations are already pushing the server lag to unplayable with just 5 targets, now imagine 20 or 50.

Aeolus.3615:

And u guys keep hitting on the “remove aoe cap” thing

joneirikb.7506, colisions detecting system is another thing that this game engine cant handle well, ANet have been decreesing some of the colision validations to incrase game performance.

Did ANet changed something where is now possible to remove cap..?

Haha, the whole collision detection + friendly fire is a joke (mostly), as both of them would completely destroy how zerging worked. Imagine a group of 50 players, when someone starts shooting 3-4 sup AC’s on top, and you try to run out but crash in the rest of the zerg? We’re not serious about adding that (But I’d love to see it for a week test!)

And the Aoe limit of 5 isn’t hard locked in any way. The game originally didn’t have any aoe limit at all, it was added very early in the game (I don’t remember when, probably within first couple of months). And Some warrior skills (banners iirc) was changed to target limit 10.

There was also a bug back when they changed the build system before HOT, that removed the target limit on a bunch of skills, notable Guardian staff and shouts. I remember it well! I was indestructible as long as I had 10+ people around me! Went to EOTM just to test it with my guardian shout/healway build, heal on every time I apply boons to friends, and I stood in the middle of enemy zerk, and just spammed skills with 20+ people attacking me, and outhealed them :p

Easy fix: Add minimum range cap to necro wells and marks. Then just hug them to take zero damage.

@Reaper Alim, At the end of the day they still hit you 20 with 60 unlimited aoes while they get 20 unlimited aoes on their head. So please tell me how does this work to fight bigger servers?

Offair.2563:

@Reaper Alim, At the end of the day they still hit you 20 with 60 unlimited aoes while they get 20 unlimited aoes on their head. So please tell me how does this work to fight bigger servers?

This I understand. However that would happen regardless. What releasing the AoE cap will do however. Is take away the super zerg’s main advantage which is not the damage, but how a smaller group can’t output it’s damage against a superior sized group. The whole stack on me and let me think for you, while you are safe from a smaller group’s damage. Will be completely thrown out of the window.

This will give more coordinated, skillful players tools to kill a much larger zombie super zerg. The effect this had in ESO will transfer over to GW2. People will stop super zerging one object because of the damage mitigation current AoE caps gives.