Guild Wars 2

1) Giving more stats to players is never the solution; I shouldn’t lose a 1v1 because he’s outmanned and I’m not.

2) It’s extremely detrimental to gameplay. A team should never actually STRIVE to be outmanned in order to gain bonuses.

3) More stuff like this to make this “fair” doesn’t promote any form of strategy.

3) “Divine” intervention in a WvW setting is not fun at all. PVE mobs aren’t either. We like our sandbox full of players, without a God-sent buff that massively increases stats.

The real solution? Give more incentives for small groups killing larger groups, and to make it so outmanned just means there’s more people to kill.

People complaining about zergs in a WvW game is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever came across. What do you expect everybody to do? Run around solo accomplishing nothing? Zergs make WvW fun for many, many people. I don’t think this game should hold your hand to make it so it’s “fair and fun” for you.

Instead, make those zergs manageable by reducing culling and making small-man play more powerful versus those zergs. Only then will outmanned buff not be a problem.

Then what “incentives” do you propose? How many people really play WvW just for any material incentive that they could get more easily in PvE, except BoH?

Its a typical mentality of “lets just throw more money at it and it will work” instead of fixing it so it engages more people.

As it is, everyone on a red and blue server know they barely have any fighting chance and either jump ship onto greens or just avoid it totally exacerbating the situation. Much less talk about trying to reap the incentives of being outnumbered.

Winning servers get outmanned buff too quite frequently too.

If arenanet wants to entice more players into WvW, the obvious solution is to offer the same variety of rewards from there that you can get in PvE. Right now, all you can get is P/T/V armor and weapons with ugly skins, worth a ridiculous amount of badges.

Convenant.7092:

1) Giving more stats to players is never the solution; I shouldn’t lose a 1v1 because he’s outmanned and I’m not.

2) It’s extremely detrimental to gameplay. A team should never actually STRIVE to be outmanned in order to gain bonuses.

3) More stuff like this to make this “fair” doesn’t promote any form of strategy.

3) “Divine” intervention in a WvW setting is not fun at all. PVE mobs aren’t either. We like our sandbox full of players, without a God-sent buff that massively increases stats.

The real solution? Give more incentives for small groups killing larger groups, and to make it so outmanned just means there’s more people to kill.

People complaining about zergs in a WvW game is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever came across. What do you expect everybody to do? Run around solo accomplishing nothing? Zergs make WvW fun for many, many people. I don’t think this game should hold your hand to make it so it’s “fair and fun” for you.

Instead, make those zergs manageable by reducing culling and making small-man play more powerful versus those zergs. Only then will outmanned buff not be a problem.

Someone complaining about 1v1 in W3 is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen…..

If you want 1v1 go to sPvP, that’s where you belong.

I agee with the culling, the culling is a major major priority issue in W3 at the moment.

Smaller groups killing larger groups has nothing to do with the overall state of W3, the issues is that once the tiers finish balancing out, there is no way for a server in third spot of a tier to suddenly overtake the top 2 servers that out man it population wise. Then the tiers stagnate, so that the #1 server isn’t strong enough to go up a tier but is wiping the floor with the current tier, same goes for 2 and 3. So #3 gets screwed after all the dust settles simply because of the population of their server.

One of the other things that needs to corrected IMHO, is where Red sits in eternal… I personally believe it is absolutely the worst spot on the map. The advantage it has in being able to treb stonemist (which stone mist can also treb back) is mitigated by the fact that most people PUSH NORTH instinctively. Is how all the borderlands run and were designed to run…North, South. In all borderlands the “home” team has the advantage at citadel and in the north, while the two advancing teams have a respective corner and by design are intended to 2v1 the “home” team and vice versa on the other maps…..

So WHY on gods green earth…would you create the SAME setup in eternal…and put the 3rd place team at the top of the map….what do you think is going to happen?! When green or blue starts expanding almost always they start by pushing north, or clashing at SM…put green at the top…red where green is and leave blue where it is…

It has been proposed months ago that instead of removing orbs, they should have switched the orb and out-manned bonuses.

Convenant.7092:

2) It’s extremely detrimental to gameplay. A team should never actually STRIVE to be outmanned in order to gain bonuses.

This is highly debatable. It is arguably much more detrimental to gameplay when one server in a match-up is constantly outmanned. If every encounter is 30 v 10, people cease to play WvW because of it. And there actually would be little incentive to seek the buff if it does what is intended: equalize. If it truly equalizes, then there is no incentive to seek the buff because it isn’t an advantage. Example: golfers don’t intentionally seek handicaps.

Convenant.7092:

People complaining about zergs in a WvW game is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever came across. What do you expect everybody to do? Run around solo accomplishing nothing? Zergs make WvW fun for many, many people. I don’t think this game should hold your hand to make it so it’s “fair and fun” for you.

Instead, make those zergs manageable by reducing culling and making small-man play more powerful versus those zergs. Only then will outmanned buff not be a problem.

Let’s be clear, zergs are fun when the matchups are even. Getting rolled constantly is only fun for the roller, never for the rollee. The question is how to better equalize matchups and the only thing I would agree with you on is finding a way for smaller groups to be more powerful versus zergs. A stat-based outmanned buff is just one way to do that, but I’m sure it’s not the only way if the devs brainstorm hard enough.

errm vid here 10 taking down 30 or more…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbyG5rHK9k

its not that zergs are always winning our guild flanks and destroys zergs way larger than us. Now imagine us with outmanned buff and with boosts ………

Completely disagree with the OP. Outmanned servers DEFINITELY need buffs. WvW is NOT about 1v1 balance. It is about a server vs a server. The buffs will help a server get back into the fight.

Gamadorn.2659:

Someone complaining about 1v1 in W3 is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen…..

If you want 1v1 go to sPvP, that’s where you belong.

Someone thinking that 1v1s don’t happen in normal wvw is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen.

Clearly you’ve never defended a camp. ;D

I 100% agree with Convenant

@Reize: DAOC had large long lasting mezzes (CC where everyone fall asleep) that breaks easily (getting hit by a debuff/or 1 damage) Smaller groups could mezz a whole zerg and then kill a large part 1 by 1 before the mezz was gone. Large groups also had mezzes ofcourse but because of the tons of players throwing stuff at the enemy as soon they see them will break all the mezzes)
But mezzes had as problem.. standing still not able to do anything is booring and GvG was all about who could mezz first.
So no mezzes please, but there are always ways to let smaller groups win of bigger groups.

GW2 has to many advantages for large groups at the moment. (small zone so they dont have to split because with speed they can reach everything before enemy can take something.. because of ability lag and able to only use the auto attack no skill needed.. large force can keep rezzing the death people even if they encounter a skilled opponent etc)

Game should be more about the battles not about the weekly score. People stop playing during the week when they already lost wouldnt happen if for example they introduced personal ranking/title with extra abilities.

Not a lvl based ranking like realm ranks but an ranking based on skill where you also will drop in rank if you dont play or others play better. So like top 3% will be highest rank .. next 10% rank2 .. 30% rank 3 etc..

With titles that enemies and friendlies can see (maybe even with special armor for highest rank that you can wear as long you dont drop rank)
With titles for a lot of different things (you can only choose 1)
With a pointing system based on skill not of time playing.
So an average over each hour you have played with that title path.
(can always change path)

So for example an officer rank for group leaders.
How more big battles you win how more points you will get
How harder the battle (more enemies) how more points you get.
Fighting a battle against a force that is a lot smaller will loose you points.
Loosing battles will make you loose points.
Each rank will give you more abilities like an auto face officer for people in your squad.
Or an auto follow, Being able to see everyone in your squad on the map. Special color in zone chat etc..
And squad buffs that get activated while being a fights where your group doesnt outumber the enemy
And the highest abilities even abilities like port everyone in 1200 yards in your squad to your spot.

Or a weapon master (different like sword, axe, hammer etc) where every time you kill someone with that weapon you will get points. getting killed will loose you points . Winning outnumbered fights will give you extra points.. Fighting people while you outnumber them will loose you points. Rewards would be solo(so not effecting rest of your groups like AOE boons) abilities only usuable in large fights where you are about equal or smaller in numbers.

Or a Defender who will get points by winning battles but looses points if allies close to them die. The reward will be extra defence/heal abilities and CC abilites only usuable when you not outnumber the enemy.

Or a Guard who will get points killing people during keep defences. Who get extra keep defence abilities and highest rank can kick lower rank people of sieges

Or a Supplier who get points by people getting killed by your build siege(so not have to use them yourself) And loosing points if your siege get destroyed or when you die with carrieing still supplies. With bonusses like being able to carry more supplies, building special siege (like defence walls) etc..

Or Scout where you get points being in enemy country (surrounded by enemy keeps/towers) solo or with a small group. Where you loose points being in a large group to long in enemy country (so still can join battles). That gives exra abilities like a different color in zone chat and hide and run abilities while not in combat.

Etc…

You guys do know the outmanned buff does absolutely nothing for the player unless ur a low level doing camp raiding lol. To QQ about karma/exp buffs is INSANE.

Convenant.7092:

People complaining about zergs in a WvW game is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever came across. What do you expect everybody to do? Run around solo accomplishing nothing? Zergs make WvW fun for many, many people. I don’t think this game should hold your hand to make it so it’s “fair and fun” for you.

The inability of some to grasp the reasons people complain against zergs (in most cases), is what is dumb.

Zerging is a perfectly valid tactic, however the issue that has been pointed out time and time again is that various elements of the design of WvW / combat in this game favour it too much, making it a better “strategy” than it should be, a few of those things are:

- The silly AOE limit.

- The rez system.

- The small map size / proximity of objectives / how fast objectives fall to a large group.

All of which give added advantage to the larger group over the small group, the fact that a large group outnumbers a smaller group should be enough advantage in itself, all these poor design decisions, do not make for fun, varied WvW.

As for ‘hand holding’, the zerg friendly design is just that.

Ikarushka.9564:

It has been proposed months ago that instead of removing orbs, they should have switched the orb and out-manned bonuses.

I totally support this, heck I was one of those clamoring for this change even way back when orbs were still in play.

Hadan.2841:

You guys do know the outmanned buff does absolutely nothing for the player unless ur a low level doing camp raiding lol. To QQ about karma/exp buffs is INSANE.

Which shouldn’t be how world conquest works.

The winning team don’t need a WINMORE button, they already have the skills and the sheer numbers to prevail. The losing team/s on the other hand, need motivation to fight back even against insurmountable odds—in other words, they get an incentive to go on while Outmanned.

So for the winning team, their reward should reflect what factions occupying the bigger territories receive. Thus, they get more loot, more gold, and more karma for being winners. This would serve as motivation to defend their holdings with their lives, and not abandon the camp/tower/keep they just captured ten minutes ago just so that they can continue playing the boring zerg karma train flipping game with the enemy servers.

I would ask, what was your opinion about the breakout events? They are a part of the balancing solution and gave players impenetrable siege. That’s quite a benefit.

Thiefz.3695:

I would ask, what was your opinion about the breakout events? They are a part of the balancing solution and gave players impenetrable siege. That’s quite a benefit.

Breakout events aren’t particularly that much of a benefit.
They mostly do what they were designed to do,
Though there are still many problems surrounding when servers get the opportunity to start them.

As far as the actual combat benefit goes,
More often than not when breakout events are used the way they’re intended (IE: A force of 10~15 people trying to regain a foothold in a map), they are fairly easy to counter. I have seen them fail far more often than succeed.
The success rate is far higher, however, when they are activated by a zerg of 40+ Invaders that really wouldn’t have needed the breakout event to take a tower to begin with.

It should. WvW is way too zerg friendly atm and we get things like 1 queued map and 3 completely empty.

Outmanned is 1:3 ratio right? You can’t really do anything with that difference.

In general WvW also needs a lot more mechanisms to prevent snowballing blowout matches that everyone hates. Maybe something like double stats on NPCs when outnumbered for over 15 minutes. And outnumbered changed to a smaller ratio like 1:2 (if its 1:3 now).

I think commander event shouldnt even activate unless your outmanned.

I think it should have a hard limit on a number of people in a squad (30) and then make it so:
1) squad leader can controll who is in the squad
2) people in the squad dont buff or heal people not in the squad
3) people not in the squad dont buff, heal or have their combo fields work for people in the squad
4) people not in the squad are counted seperately for loot and quest completion situations (if squad gets credit for capping an objective people not in squad dont)
5) escorting yaks through checkpoints should be very rewarding (encouraging people to do it more)

Even MASSIVE (which I define as 1500 members in 3 guilds) guilds out there rarely field more than 30 in an effective squad at a time (See the recent Junkies Vid where MERCs GM gives examples of what they field).

Anything larger than 30 is a zerg, it looses cohesion, efficiency, and draws people away from more important objectives…

The biggest problem with zerging though is that it makes culling terrible, and its almost impossible to follow the commander.

We will see what the next few weeks bring, but either the culling will be solved or people will start looking more and more at ESO for their gaming going forward.

Thiefz.3695:

I would ask, what was your opinion about the breakout events? They are a part of the balancing solution and gave players impenetrable siege. That’s quite a benefit.

Utter garbage and dumb as a bag of hammers. Yeah, like the other guy said, can break em if min BO, but only if you have ppl there to do it. They make low pop servers hell. You finally push invaders out, maybe get some upgrades started, and a new BO starts up. And the title is Break OUT, not IN. So why the hell are they on the invasion side of things in the first place. I despise them completely and don’t even take part of them with my server. The only place I can barely see them having a point, and that is if I’m drunk and in my most agreeable mood ever, is if a server gets rolled back into it’s citadel and can’t Break OUT of it. As for the laughable Outmanned buff? Well, when you are outmanned to the point you actually need a buff, extra karma and xp don’t mean kitten when you are never getting kitten for defending the timer unless you actually break the siege. So you can hold for an hour or more and fall, and get kitten. Whoop dee doo.

Thiefz.3695:

I would ask, what was your opinion about the breakout events? They are a part of the balancing solution and gave players impenetrable siege. That’s quite a benefit.

erm apart from the fact that a zerg of 40+ will use the outbreak too and siegrazer keeps respawning right away if u dont leave him alive…

btw if u need your daily healer, stick around siegrazer…

Monsoon.2589:

Weren t the orbs removed because of the hacks?

They were, but the orb bonus was worth while strategically. While out-manned bonus is worth while individually and makes no difference from the server perspective. Swapping the two would be perfect in the way that an underdog would get a hand, while even if the orb is hacked it does not affect the actual fight (from the server perspective)

1.add better drops, example if someone is lvl 80 he/she shouldn’t be getting lvl 10 drops.
2.remove gold sink, maybe double karna cost instead for upgrades
3.add several new armor and weapon skins to WvW
4.adjust achievements, really 1,000,000 yak kills?

I believe if they do things along these lines then we would almost never see the out maned buff. unless you happen to play at a time most of your server is in bed.

O ya number 5. give everyone a law rocket that tracks down and one shots any thief

Just a suggestion, but maybe they should make stomps permanent when you are killed by an outmanned server. Meaning they cant rez you at the zerg location. You would have to run back to position.

Jaytee.9513:

Just a suggestion, but maybe they should make stomps permanent when you are killed by an outmanned server. Meaning they cant rez you at the zerg location. You would have to run back to position.

i think it would be good if someone who is fully dead could not be ressed by people that are in combat. this goes for all times not just when someone is out manned.

I’d suggest that people with outmanned buffs should be able to take twice the amount of supply.

This makes it easier for their team to build siege; something that the populated team can easily do. This will also give them the incentive to take camps and drain the populated team’s supply. And, it would promote less confrontational gameplay for people who can’t confront their enemies on equal terms.

This will probably lead to people going to outmanned borders to get supply then go back to home border… but that may not be such a bad thing, because it would spread people (even if all their take is camps).

Convenant.7092:

1) Giving more stats to players is never the solution; I shouldn’t lose a 1v1 because he’s outmanned and I’m not.

Are they introducing new stats to the outmanned buff? because at the moment, more xp, more magic find and more karma isn’t an advantage at all.

SickDelirium.3956:

Convenant.7092:

2) It’s extremely detrimental to gameplay. A team should never actually STRIVE to be outmanned in order to gain bonuses.

This is highly debatable. It is arguably much more detrimental to gameplay when one server in a match-up is constantly outmanned. If every encounter is 30 v 10, people cease to play WvW because of it. And there actually would be little incentive to seek the buff if it does what is intended: equalize. If it truly equalizes, then there is no incentive to seek the buff because it isn’t an advantage. Example: golfers don’t intentionally seek handicaps.

Convenant.7092:

People complaining about zergs in a WvW game is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever came across. What do you expect everybody to do? Run around solo accomplishing nothing? Zergs make WvW fun for many, many people. I don’t think this game should hold your hand to make it so it’s “fair and fun” for you.

Instead, make those zergs manageable by reducing culling and making small-man play more powerful versus those zergs. Only then will outmanned buff not be a problem.

Let’s be clear, zergs are fun when the matchups are even. Getting rolled constantly is only fun for the roller, never for the rollee. The question is how to better equalize matchups and the only thing I would agree with you on is finding a way for smaller groups to be more powerful versus zergs. A stat-based outmanned buff is just one way to do that, but I’m sure it’s not the only way if the devs brainstorm hard enough.

What happens if your server is constantly outmanned? Yes, you lose the matchup and fall to lower tier after a week. Then your server is no longer outmanned.

If you give the outmanned server handicaps, it will stay in the tier where it does not belong. So week after week the server is outmanned and hovering up there only because of the handicap.

The servers at the bottom tier do not have this option though. They present small percentage of players and the battlefields are in general empty. Any guild event or even rallying a PUG in Lions Arch can make a significant difference.

Korgov.7645:

What happens if your server is constantly outmanned? Yes, you lose the matchup and fall to lower tier after a week. Then your server is no longer outmanned.

You seem to think that the servers are of similar average population within each tier; this is incorrect. There are tiers with little movement and where servers are regularly outmanned every week.

Korgov.7645:

If you give the outmanned server handicaps, it will stay in the tier where it does not belong. So week after week the server is outmanned and hovering up there only because of the handicap.

Who says it does not belong in the tier? The entire point of the gripe about average server populations is that ranking is based, in large part, on average WvW population and that it is not “fair.”

What if you played a game of chess where pieces randomly appeared on the board and there was no guarantee both sides would have the same number of pieces? What if there were no limit to the number of players on a football field? Obviously, the side with more players or pieces is much more likely to win. Would you call such games “fair”? This is largely how people on regularly outmanned servers feel.

Average WvW population is almost completely outside the control of the WvW players, and yet it has a significant effect on how the server performs in the matchup. If ANet did a regression to see just how much average WvW population affects performance in WvW, I suspect they would find that it is one of the best predictors of WvW score.

So to bring this back around, why should a server not belong in a tier merely because of average WvW population? It can be based on a host of other things that are much more within the control of each WvW player, group, or guild like coordination, strategy, supply management, and gear (though ANet tends to disfavor creating gear differentials I think). Basing rankings on which server happened to get lucky when players were picking home servers or which servers suffered or benefited from a mass exodus is silly.

Sidenote: I’d also like to point out that if there was an outmanned buff, it would also probably solve a fair portion of the night-capping phenomena people complain about, which is essentially “we’re outmanned at night and it’s not fair.” IMO, the outmanned issue and night-capping issue are two sides of the same coin: disproportionate WvW populations.

You pretty much summed it all up.

WvW is not fair (sPvP is for that). However the ranking system yields more or less balanced matchups.

The amount of people server can field is the most decisive factor to determine the ranking.

Why would you want to rank server higher for not playing WvW?

The night capping thread has discussed the topic to exhaustion. Handicaps of all sorts were suggested. Fairness of such mechanisms is always an issue and ANet, rightfully so, has decided not to “solve” the night capping.

Lol since when does outmaned give actual stats besides m.find, karma and exp boost ?

Completely disagree. Outmanned should give actual offensive/defensive stats.

Convenant.7092:

1) Giving more stats to players is never the solution; I shouldn’t lose a 1v1 because he’s outmanned and I’m not.

So you lose against ppl who get more xp, mf and karma from playing when outmanned? How would that actually help him survive the 1v1?

Ikarushka.9564:

Monsoon.2589:

Weren t the orbs removed because of the hacks?

They were, but the orb bonus was worth while strategically. While out-manned bonus is worth while individually and makes no difference from the server perspective. Swapping the two would be perfect in the way that an underdog would get a hand, while even if the orb is hacked it does not affect the actual fight (from the server perspective)

orb bonus was op, stats are not the answer… shouldnt loose a 1v1 vs an equally geared opponent if your even slightly more skilled and its flat out wrong to suggest this as a solution!

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Convenant.7092:

1) Giving more stats to players is never the solution; I shouldn’t lose a 1v1 because he’s outmanned and I’m not.

So you lose against ppl who get more xp, mf and karma from playing when outmanned? How would that actually help him survive the 1v1?

current bonus dosent help him survive the 1v1: we are saying they shouldnt do somthing like the orb bonus for outmanned: hp and +all stats, if it did then even LESS people would want to roam than already are and it would even FURTHER contribute to the zerg problem

Korgov.7645:

Why would you want to rank server higher for not playing WvW?

Because I believe that the number of people who happen to WvW on your server should be irrelevant to your score.

Also, fixing disproportionate server populations does not guarantee a server would be ranked higher. It just makes the matchups less about who has more people and more about other things like strategy, coordination, supply management, etc. Even with a different outmanned buff, the server might still be terrible at WvW.

Hadan.2841:

You guys do know the outmanned buff does absolutely nothing for the player unless ur a low level doing camp raiding lol. To QQ about karma/exp buffs is INSANE.

This exactly. The outmanned buff in it’s present form is pointless to actually being outmanned in WvW.

The other thing is AoNs syle of play is different than most in WvW. It helps to have these type of groups running around, as it provides a disruption. However, they would definitely be against anything that makes an opponent stronger. Whereas if you’re focused on the keeps/towers, you’d be focused on being able to withstand the onslaught while outnumbered.

Personally, I’d like to see:
1) a separate set of buffs based on whether it’s the server homeland or the opponents BL.
2) On the homeland, I’d actually like to see the buffs applied to keeps/towers too, to make the PVdoor more of a challenge. For NA servers with opponents with big Oceanic/Asian presence, it could possibly at least delay the inevitable reset of all upgraded keeps/towers each night.

Korgov.7645:

However the ranking system yields more or less balanced matchups.

The scores don’t seem to indicate much balance to me, there are only 7 matchups out of 17 (EU + NA) where the 3rd place team is within 60k of the 1st place team, and really 60k is not even really close given it amounts to around a half to a third of many teams scores.

You know what happens when people don’t have a fair chance of winning, they get bored and leave and that part of the game dies off.

I’m not sure I understand the OP. How are Karma, XP, and Magicfind buffs affecting combat? Why would you lose to a player more often if he/she has these? I’m at a loss.

Is OP basically complaining about a change to the outmanned buff that has not been proposed by ANet and is not on the table?

I would not like to see it give damage output buffs. I’m not aware of this even being proposed but then I don’t slavishly follow every announcement/tweet/etc.

Outmanned should mean zero repair bills accumulated during the time you have the buff. Encourage people to get stuck in since a large chunk of the reason for not getting stuck in is removed. If you have accumulated repairs before getting the buff you still have the repairs so people can’t use it to cheat the repair costs.

I think the outmanned buff should give a bonus to siege damage and health (except trebs, to prevent possible exploits), and a bonus to wall and door health, as well as NPC damage and health.

Basically, it wouldn’t make the players themselves stronger, but would make the team stronger and give them a better chance at taking and holding objectives against a superior force. If you’re outmanned 2-1, your siege, gates, walls, and NPCs should be 25-50% stronger.

being outmanned is a double negative. Not only does it show you don’t have the numbers on the map, you’re also broadcasting to the otherside to gang up on you and take your stuff