Guild Wars 2

Just some ideas. Comments/criticisms encouraged.

1.) Remove crossed swords from the map. They’re essentially zerg magnets which makes scouting much less important than it should be, and make it easy for zergs to quickly rush back and defend when required. Removing them would make attacking multiple objectives simultaneously more viable. Perhaps allow players to activate an alarm at objectives which will place swords over them or broadcast a message in chat (only if it is actually being attacked, and subject to a cooldown).

2.) Remove or increase the cap on the number of players that can be hit by siege AoE. This would make large bunched up groups much less effective. I’d probably remove the cap for catapult and trebuchet AoE since they are harder to aim at a group of players, and just increase the cap for arrow carts slightly since they’re so spammable (or remove the cap, but make it so players can only be hit by one arrow cart at a time). Being hit by a catapult or trebuchet shot should be something pretty devastating to a group of players.

3.) Make players do much less damage to doors (or possibly zero damage). This would mean a huge blob of players can’t just melee the door down as they can now, and would mean smaller groups can potentially break through as fast as large ones if they have the siege and the supply. Basically make siege weapons much more effective relative to players compared to now.

4.) Maybe add some sort of points bonus for taking multiple objectives within a short amount of time.

if alarm is going to be added thieves should have an ability to disarm it!

there needs to be some mechanics that make it so you cant do dmg to doors/walls as a player at all and you can only use so much seige at once on any given target

like have a door actualy have like notches on its target bar and each seige hititn it fills one for 30 seconds and when all notches full (fully engaged by seige) it becomes immune to additional seige so teams would have more motivation to attack more than 1 place at a time or stand and protect seige they have in place

amount of seige per door would obviously be up to anet

another solution would be to limit amount of supply a map could have on its players like say a map can only have 200 supply in players hands

The way to reduce zerging is to organize. Zergs are moving loot bag trains for organized attackers, doubly so with portal bombing at present rendering issues.

i thought we werent allowed to organize remember ta had to split among allt he servers

Taking the commander icons out of the game would probably be the single biggest thing that could be done to reduce zerging.

There are already too many Squad Commanders as it is. It has reached the saturation point.

thrumdi that depend son server often i feel obligated to turn mine on due to there being none present

I can see that.

Another way to accomplish this would would also cure another issue I have.

Make claiming a tower or a keep worthwhile. The tower guards should report how many enemies are in the area. That should be reported in Guild Chat and then can be relayed to the /map.

Downed state is ridiculous for the side with larger numbers.

AE cap of 5 is ridiculous for the side with larger numbers.

The game’s basic mechanics already favors a zerg of casuals, the two mechanics above just make it silly.

About the only way to reduce zerging is to dramatacaly increase the size of the maps. At the moment the maps basically only allow for zergs and small groups are extreamly limited in what the can do or where they can go

I made a lovely post about this here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Idea-The-Pigeons-of-WvW-and-the-Defenders-of-the-Keep/first#post647818

Basically with Pigeons and an active scout or two servers would be able to mount an appropriate defense against most zergs. Now, a proper siege is another question but those should always be more effective than smashing your head against doors and hoping for the best.

Scaling door/wall HP to the number of nearby enemy players would reduce the effectiveness of zerg tactics.

Chat me up in-game, I’ll show you what to do to counter zergs.

I may not be a 100g WvW commander, but I have real command experience to make up for it. There are many ways to counter zergs or beat out zergs….Even raise the proper zerg too that is overlooked.

Of course GW2 has only existed for a short time. I just wish there was a better system in place to allow us to not lose everything captured in the day time in minutes at night due to lack of people…..

countering a zerg is easy but when you are outnumbered you have to run back and forth to both servers countering htem over and over without tiome or enough people to use supplies to repair the damge they do so you lose everything anyway even if your party NEVER dies wv3 is very broken

eventually it just ends up being swiss cheese keep and maby another nearby objective where the defenders are just running aroudn trying to keep up with the wiping of enemy zergs until eventualy the lag defeats them or the zergs get luck and pincer in the right manner they are finally defeated we have seen this play out countless times skill and tactics mean very very little befor numbers and when you put numbers iwth skill and tactics you get HOD and we all know the gaming world cant make enough HOD to ensure competitive play

The fact that the counter to AOE is to stack is so stupid i dont even have words.

Then how about Spawn-Control?

In other games, Specially shooters that have team-deathmatch…There are some gametypes which do not allow an immediate respawn, because those games view respawning to just die again as a counter (and call it strategy) as an exploit.

In real warfare, a soldier just dies. However in Guild Wars 2 in our Tier 1 match, the biggest thing I saw was that each group was abusing the existence of spawn location and built waypoints to just take a small zerg, attack a larger one, Kill members of the zerg, Die themselves so that when they respawn it costs NOTHING to respawn and then waypoint to the location closest to which they died.

The result was fighting for six hours straight while the server we faced and their strategy was to simply wear us down by simply respawning over and over again and having unlimited lives vs our spawning and having to walk all the way to the area again.

This is something that in a lot of online games has been dealt with by actually putting a respawn timer on each death. I hated the idea that I had 20 people in an area who managed to kill over 60 players who kept respawning and coming back one by one to die….who knew they could just respawn.

In fact when I spoke to some commanders about it, they said “Oh being wiped is good, it buys us time to take things”

and in the real world it translates to “Our soldiers intentionally dying is great for taking positions”

Thing is that everyone knows how to abuse it, and part of WvW deals with how many people are in the server at once and simply respawning over and over again to kill a target is not even a decent gameplay experience.

…..This is one of the few games that allows me to take advantage of that and even abuse that.

cool story brah but honestly you just got outplayed why didnt you just send 1 guy to attack enemy keep with wp every 3 mintues to completely eliminate thier waypoint

Darkademic.2603:

Just some ideas. Comments/criticisms encouraged.

1.) Remove crossed swords from the map. They’re essentially zerg magnets which makes scouting much less important than it should be, and make it easy for zergs to quickly rush back and defend when required. Removing them would make attacking multiple objectives simultaneously more viable. Perhaps allow players to activate an alarm at objectives which will place swords over them or broadcast a message in chat (only if it is actually being attacked, and subject to a cooldown).

2.) Remove or increase the cap on the number of players that can be hit by siege AoE. This would make large bunched up groups much less effective. I’d probably remove the cap for catapult and trebuchet AoE since they are harder to aim at a group of players, and just increase the cap for arrow carts slightly since they’re so spammable (or remove the cap, but make it so players can only be hit by one arrow cart at a time). Being hit by a catapult or trebuchet shot should be something pretty devastating to a group of players.

3.) Make players do much less damage to doors (or possibly zero damage). This would mean a huge blob of players can’t just melee the door down as they can now, and would mean smaller groups can potentially break through as fast as large ones if they have the siege and the supply. Basically make siege weapons much more effective relative to players compared to now.

4.) Maybe add some sort of points bonus for taking multiple objectives within a short amount of time.

Soooo basically disable the concept of large scale wvwvw pvp…..

Ever grasp the idea that large scale pvp was kind of the point?

everyone agrees large scale pvp is groups of 5-20 running around a large area hunting eachother and battling over objectives what wv3 often devolves into is nothing but zergvzergvzerg(ideally) but its actually more likely to be zerg+zergvoutmanned

Sorry op but those are not fixes that will prevent zerging. To prevent zerging you have to stop the formation of large groups or the desire to join a moving mob with solid game mechanics, not bandaids.

Anet has the info they need to fix Wv3, whether they do it or not is up them. But my wallet and yours can make them chaqnge their minds or listen faster. It simply takes people banding together to make the no imagination people listen.

aaron.4317:

Downed state is ridiculous for the side with larger numbers.

AE cap of 5 is ridiculous for the side with larger numbers.

The game’s basic mechanics already favors a zerg of casuals, the two mechanics above just make it silly.

This. Even if you removed ONE of the above, I believe it would radically alter the zerg force. Getting rid of downed state would allow you to pick people off and shrink the size of the other force. Having unlimited aoes would allow smaller groups to engage bigger forces and not have it be an auto loss.

It’s lame and a little disappointing that I can go into the middle of a group of 20 people, down 5 of them (when I should be able to hit anyone who was within range), barely escape with my life only to see them revived in an instant.

There’s no fear of organized groups because you can’t do 10vs30 (unless the 30 are REALLY bad and you managed to spread them all out) because of sheer numbers.

How about, no cap on AOE’s and amount of people they hit.
Or cap it at like 10-15 people.

Maybe turtling will die out some, along with mindless zerging.

Also, party gets 1st priority in AOE heals/buffs over non party members.

1) Completely agree – remove the swords.
2) Completely agree – siege weapons should be a no limit AOE.
3) Playes should do no damage when hitting a door without siege weapons. However, if that were the case, siege weapons should be much harder to destroy than they are now and have their cost reduced and their supply needs reduced. WvW is too kitten expensive when it comes to upgrading vs zergs.
4) Increased karma maybe for those doing it.

Downed in PvE I am fine with, but in WvW, it’s stupid and should be removed.

good stuff here, listen

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Remove-Orange-Swords-and-Other-Propositions/first#post650357

1. yes. Makes it organisation friendly.

2. no, too powerful

3. they will not do it, it takes revenue away from them

4. interesting

aaron.4317:

Downed state is ridiculous for the side with larger numbers.

AE cap of 5 is ridiculous for the side with larger numbers.

The game’s basic mechanics already favors a zerg of casuals, the two mechanics above just make it silly.

This, exactly. Downed state (and rallying) has ruined so many of my 1vXs because my downed opponent rallies because a by-standing mob died, or like last night, i successfully manage to 1v2 2 guys to downed, but get downed myself seconds later from condition damage, then i proceed to get 2v1ed to defeated due to the 3 of us throwing rocks, which rallies both guys. It was a ridiculous end to an otherwise great fight where the 3 of us should have simply died.

Downed state is, without exaggeration, the stupidest and most annoying game mechanic i have ever experienced in 25 years of gaming. It is ruining the otherwise decent PVP in this game for me. It is my #1 hate in this game and i desperately hope it will be removed entirely from PVP zones, or at least rezzing made to break on any damage and no rallying.

mjharrison.3209:

aaron.4317:

Downed state is ridiculous for the side with larger numbers.

AE cap of 5 is ridiculous for the side with larger numbers.

The game’s basic mechanics already favors a zerg of casuals, the two mechanics above just make it silly.

This, exactly. Downed state (and rallying) has ruined so many of my 1vXs because my downed opponent rallies because a by-standing mob died, or like last night, i successfully manage to 1v2 2 guys to downed, but get downed myself seconds later from condition damage, then i proceed to get 2v1ed to defeated due to the 3 of us throwing rocks, which rallies both guys. It was a ridiculous end to an otherwise great fight where the 3 of us should have simply died.

Downed state is, without exaggeration, the stupidest and most annoying game mechanic i have ever experienced in 25 years of gaming. It is ruining the otherwise decent PVP in this game for me. It is my #1 hate in this game and i desperately hope it will be removed entirely from PVP zones, or at least rezzing made to break on any damage and no rallying.

I hear you. Enemies rally off monsters, and it’s absolutely infuriating.

Metalripper.5406:

mjharrison.3209:

aaron.4317:

Downed state is ridiculous for the side with larger numbers.

AE cap of 5 is ridiculous for the side with larger numbers.

The game’s basic mechanics already favors a zerg of casuals, the two mechanics above just make it silly.

This, exactly. Downed state (and rallying) has ruined so many of my 1vXs because my downed opponent rallies because a by-standing mob died, or like last night, i successfully manage to 1v2 2 guys to downed, but get downed myself seconds later from condition damage, then i proceed to get 2v1ed to defeated due to the 3 of us throwing rocks, which rallies both guys. It was a ridiculous end to an otherwise great fight where the 3 of us should have simply died.

Downed state is, without exaggeration, the stupidest and most annoying game mechanic i have ever experienced in 25 years of gaming. It is ruining the otherwise decent PVP in this game for me. It is my #1 hate in this game and i desperately hope it will be removed entirely from PVP zones, or at least rezzing made to break on any damage and no rallying.

I hear you. Enemies rally off monsters, and it’s absolutely infuriating.

Whilst I agree that the downed state majorly favors the larger force, the aoe cap actually favors smaller organised groups. The aoe cap is the best thing that arena net included for WvW. it is a great way of controlling and equalising aoe damage.

I do like downed state however it requires you to think a lot more especially when out numbered.

The term zerging is so ridiculously overused online. No one seems to remember, the other half of zerging is each unit being extremely weak. That is to a degree not possible in most mmorpgs unless the guy is watching tv.

Outnumbering an enemy has been powerful since forever. Start using force multipliers or fail to adapt.

Kyus.3812:

the aoe cap actually favors smaller organised groups. The aoe cap is the best thing that arena net included for WvW. it is a great way of controlling and equalising aoe damage.

No it doesn’t. It does however favour zerging. Zergs exacerbate the server culling issue, leading to more invisible enemies and lagggggggy fights that look terrible due to excessive #s of particle effects.

AOE cap is also being routinely exploited in the “turtling” tactic, where zergs stack in a bunch to trivialise AOE damage while maximising healing and condition removal, the latter 2 of which are not capped.

I do like downed state however it requires you to think a lot more especially when out numbered.

As a thief, you should hate it. Even if you manage to pick off members of a zerg and get a stomp off them, even if you don’t die in the process, they will simply rez and continue about their business.

mjharrison.3209:

Kyus.3812:

the aoe cap actually favors smaller organised groups. The aoe cap is the best thing that arena net included for WvW. it is a great way of controlling and equalising aoe damage.

No it doesn’t. It does however favour zerging. Zergs exacerbate the server culling issue, leading to more invisible enemies and lagggggggy fights that look terrible due to excessive #s of particle effects.

AOE cap is also being routinely exploited in the “turtling” tactic, where zergs stack in a bunch to trivialise AOE damage while maximising healing and condition removal, the latter 2 of which are not capped.

I do like downed state however it requires you to think a lot more especially when out numbered.

As a thief, you should hate it. Even if you manage to pick off members of a zerg and get a stomp off them, even if you don’t die in the process, they will simply rez and continue about their business.

In regards to turtling, you will find that boons and heals actually effect a maximum of 5 people. There is a lot of confusion based around this at present. Many GTAOE buff/heal rings operate on a pulse effect where they reward applications of boons and heals in progressive bursts over time. This has the effect of awarding the heals and boons to 5 people in each burst. this can have the overall effect of awarding them to more than 5 people but they have the overall efectiveness reduced.

If you want to see this work then i’d recommend looking at combo fields with blast finishes. I believe light fields grant retalliation. If you stack 5 people in a light field and blast with cluster bomb you can stack about 40 seconds of retalliation. put 10 people in the field and do the same thing you can stack only 20 seconds ish.

There are a few exceptions these are most notably physical barriers and other moves that offer reflection. Sanctuary, feedback would be good examples.

In terms of AOE damage if you see a turtled group and apply 5 rings of aoe from your 5 people on that group the total damage caused will be the same as if you administered your aoe to 5 seperate targets each all spread out. It simply doesn’t let you actively seek out the targets since the aoe is applied based on the proximity of the enemy to the center of the aoe.

In regards of being a thief and downed state. for one I don’t play a back stab spec I play agroup orientated shortbow aoe spec that has occasional uses in 1v1 1v2 … etc (but not against mesmers its terrible against mesmers).

The reason I like the downed mechanic is that its a mechanic that makes you think beyond just killing someone. I have to think he’s on 10% health but if I down him I can’t finish him so should I back off. or he’s in a downed state but i’m nearly dead so I should dps the other guy then he’ll down me and if he’s not smart i can then finish his friend rally and take him out. sure it doesn’t favor everyone or 1 v more situations but if anyone thinks they are worth their wait in salt in PvP it should be in overcoming these obstacles not in wanting them removed to simply make the job in hand easier.

I also profit from downed state being in an aoe spec, I often wrack up kills on the clueless guys rushing in to help someone bunching up nicely for some cluster bomb spam.

(I do agree it favors zergs though but the answer is adjust your group tactics we have and up to a certain point its comfortable to deal with x3 our number now)

Most aoe buffs (those that grant boons or have a pulsing effect) are capped to 5.

Stacking does not exploit aoe cap (at least not in the way you are thinking). It exploits ground targeted physical barriers like Wall of Reflection and Sanctuary, traits that reduce the cooldown of these skills and via rotation allow you to have permanent or near permanent uptime provided you have enough guardians in the correct ratio running the correct builds.

The direct counter to any kind of Zerg or Stack is to wait for them to attack a map marker. Arrow carts (especially superior ones in sufficient numbers) can keep a force of any size outside arrow cart range because the damage is huge and doesn’t have a target cap. Ballistas (especially superior ones) are used to force Zergs to spread out and to deter them from storming choke points. You have to fall back to longer range siege (catapults or terbuchets) or stealth rushes (i.e. portal trained golem rush under cover of crossed swords) where the aim is to burn down a wall or gate before it can be adequately defended.

Due to the concentration of force, Zergs overcome all individual weakness by running with lots of other players who cover those weaknesses, rez them up when they go down, grant them benefits from skills they would not otherwise have access to and provide limitless combo opportunities etc.

The price of this is that you need alot of players in the Zerg to make it effective, which means less players spread out across the map. Your information gathering suffers. Your ability to react to simultaneous assaults on multiple objectives becomes limited (you have to choose one or the other or split up).

Zerging is really not a problem. A clever team will exploit the fact that the Zerg’s strength is entirely concentrated in one location. All you need to do is make sure your team can read a map and that your team has effective scouting and communication so you know where the Zerg is and where its going at all times.

A clever team will not try to fight a battle they know they cannot win. They will try to fight multiple battles they know the Zerg cannot be in at the same time. A clever team trades towers/keeps for better ones that can be used against the enemy team later. For instance, Losing West Keep whilst simultaneously attacking Garrison and South West Tower is to me, a good trade as long as you can take and hold either the Tower or the Garrison.

Why? It gives you a location from which you can trebuchet West Keep and deny supply to it without being easily counter sieged. Both South West Tower and Garrison can be counter sieged but you have to split up your forces to hold either the Northern Towers (from which you can safely treb Garrison) or Ruins (from which you can safely treb South West Tower, but only if you can commit enough forces to Ruins to protect the siege without giving up West Keep).

All of these maneuvers are meant to split enemy forces and test their ability to remain coordinated when their Zerg needs to divide down and reform.

In my opinion nothing suggested in this thread would stop zerging. I did see one thing I agree with and that is downed state should be removed from WvW. They could even give everyone a small HP bump to make up for the fact of removing downed state.

in my opinion we should still have the downed state but when people are dead they have to respawn without possibility to be rezzed

Besetment.9187:

Most aoe buffs (those that grant boons or have a pulsing effect) are capped to 5.

Stacking does not exploit aoe cap (at least not in the way you are thinking). It exploits ground targeted physical barriers like Wall of Reflection and Sanctuary, traits that reduce the cooldown of these skills and via rotation allow you to have permanent or near permanent uptime provided you have enough guardians in the correct ratio running the correct builds.

The direct counter to any kind of Zerg or Stack is to wait for them to attack a map marker. Arrow carts (especially superior ones in sufficient numbers) can keep a force of any size outside arrow cart range because the damage is huge and doesn’t have a target cap. Ballistas (especially superior ones) are used to force Zergs to spread out and to deter them from storming choke points. You have to fall back to longer range siege (catapults or terbuchets) or stealth rushes (i.e. portal trained golem rush under cover of crossed swords) where the aim is to burn down a wall or gate before it can be adequately defended.

Due to the concentration of force, Zergs overcome all individual weakness by running with lots of other players who cover those weaknesses, rez them up when they go down, grant them benefits from skills they would not otherwise have access to and provide limitless combo opportunities etc.

The price of this is that you need alot of players in the Zerg to make it effective, which means less players spread out across the map. Your information gathering suffers. Your ability to react to simultaneous assaults on multiple objectives becomes limited (you have to choose one or the other or split up).

Zerging is really not a problem. A clever team will exploit the fact that the Zerg’s strength is entirely concentrated in one location. All you need to do is make sure your team can read a map and that your team has effective scouting and communication so you know where the Zerg is and where its going at all times.

A clever team will not try to fight a battle they know they cannot win. They will try to fight multiple battles they know the Zerg cannot be in at the same time. A clever team trades towers/keeps for better ones that can be used against the enemy team later. For instance, Losing West Keep whilst simultaneously attacking Garrison and South West Tower is to me, a good trade as long as you can take and hold either the Tower or the Garrison.

Why? It gives you a location from which you can trebuchet West Keep and deny supply to it without being easily counter sieged. Both South West Tower and Garrison can be counter sieged but you have to split up your forces to hold either the Northern Towers (from which you can safely treb Garrison) or Ruins (from which you can safely treb South West Tower, but only if you can commit enough forces to Ruins to protect the siege without giving up West Keep).

All of these maneuvers are meant to split enemy forces and test their ability to remain coordinated when their Zerg needs to divide down and reform.

superb points

Interesting discussion, especialy due to the fact its several qq threads about how smal guilds portal stomp unorganiced zergs. One threa about zergs be a bad thing and need to be weaker and other threads about how smal organiced portal groups are a bad thing

A day ago or so I posted the Judge PvP vid of us portal jumping french al friday last week with ~500 kills ina few hours as ressult. Ppl keep flame us for this as we al fom exploiting stealth, portals or like some claim the whole zergs are accualy afk…

So pls keep zergs roaming, its a lovely feeling hit them with a organiced 15 man team, 3 spinning thiefs, 2 guardians with mass heal, 2 elementals time warp etc… so many loot.

I like the ideas of players not being able to damage doors and walls. I also think it would help not only zerging but exploits being used because of the serious rendering isssues, to limit each warzone to a max number of players (for example 50 per server for each battle ground and 200 in total). This allows a weaker server to try to be competitive in a single BG. WvW should not simply be a numbers game.

WvW arguably should not be a numbers game but the reality is that it is. There is no avoiding that. It doesn’t matter if you zerg or split and have highly coordinated small team play. Eventually not having the numbers will get you. Lack of numbers hurts a zerg but it also hurts split team play. Your small teams are less effective (more limited in the quantity of siege they can build and the speed with which they can build it) and you can’t hit as many targets simultaneously.

I guess I am on the other side of the fence on this one. I do not understand people who want to any way limit, downsize, or change WvW. It is WORLD vs WORLD not 5 man group vs 5 man group. We already have sPvP and tPvP for that.

The fights in my opinion should be large scale and epic.

You need the zerg to go around and take things quickly. The issue is that there are not more who will stay and upgrade/defend behind the zerg.

Besetment said it best with:
“Zerging is really not a problem. A clever team will exploit the fact that the Zerg’s strength is entirely concentrated in one location. All you need to do is make sure your team can read a map and that your team has effective scouting and communication so you know where the Zerg is and where its going at all times.”

My opinion is stop trying to change the game, and start trying to change how your team plays it.
You need a well rounded squad (including a zerg) to excel in WvW.

Besetment.9187:

Most aoe buffs (those that grant boons or have a pulsing effect) are capped to 5.

Stacking does not exploit aoe cap (at least not in the way you are thinking). It exploits ground targeted physical barriers like Wall of Reflection and Sanctuary, traits that reduce the cooldown of these skills and via rotation allow you to have permanent or near permanent uptime provided you have enough guardians in the correct ratio running the correct builds.

The direct counter to any kind of Zerg or Stack is to wait for them to attack a map marker. Arrow carts (especially superior ones in sufficient numbers) can keep a force of any size outside arrow cart range because the damage is huge and doesn’t have a target cap. Ballistas (especially superior ones) are used to force Zergs to spread out and to deter them from storming choke points. You have to fall back to longer range siege (catapults or terbuchets) or stealth rushes (i.e. portal trained golem rush under cover of crossed swords) where the aim is to burn down a wall or gate before it can be adequately defended.

Due to the concentration of force, Zergs overcome all individual weakness by running with lots of other players who cover those weaknesses, rez them up when they go down, grant them benefits from skills they would not otherwise have access to and provide limitless combo opportunities etc.

The price of this is that you need alot of players in the Zerg to make it effective, which means less players spread out across the map. Your information gathering suffers. Your ability to react to simultaneous assaults on multiple objectives becomes limited (you have to choose one or the other or split up).

Zerging is really not a problem. A clever team will exploit the fact that the Zerg’s strength is entirely concentrated in one location. All you need to do is make sure your team can read a map and that your team has effective scouting and communication so you know where the Zerg is and where its going at all times.

A clever team will not try to fight a battle they know they cannot win. They will try to fight multiple battles they know the Zerg cannot be in at the same time. A clever team trades towers/keeps for better ones that can be used against the enemy team later. For instance, Losing West Keep whilst simultaneously attacking Garrison and South West Tower is to me, a good trade as long as you can take and hold either the Tower or the Garrison.

Why? It gives you a location from which you can trebuchet West Keep and deny supply to it without being easily counter sieged. Both South West Tower and Garrison can be counter sieged but you have to split up your forces to hold either the Northern Towers (from which you can safely treb Garrison) or Ruins (from which you can safely treb South West Tower, but only if you can commit enough forces to Ruins to protect the siege without giving up West Keep).

All of these maneuvers are meant to split enemy forces and test their ability to remain coordinated when their Zerg needs to divide down and reform.

This sounds like strategy and as all the experts on these forums know, there is no strategy in WvW. JUST TEH ZERG!

Seriously though, people need to play better instead of crying about mechanics. If ANet made all the changes people cry about on the forums WvW would be 10v10 with no siege on a gigantic map.

I agree with SpaceLord – this is WvW, the fights should be large and epic. I love being in a 40 vs 40 pitched battle with total chaos everywhere.

However, there should be ways to prevent zergs from being over powered. Removing the ability of players to hit doors/walls is one idea that I like. But make siege equipment tougher. Usually if a keep is well-defended it’s difficult to even get a ram built, let alone keep it alive long enough to attack the door. Make the ram tougher and it won’t be necessary to build 3 at one door to hope one survives long enough to batter it down.

Nothing will stop a zerg from roaming from camp to camp. That’s just the way it is. But being able to zerg down a keep in 1 minute, even if the keep is upgraded, is stupid. Maybe as the guards are killed, more are summoned in proportion to the size of the attacking force. Dynamic Events scale now, why can’t guards scale too? If 30 people are attacking 5 guards, then 10 much tougher guards show up, etc.

I think there are ways that this can be addressed while still keeping WvW fun for everyone.

OldRodKS, taking down a fully upgraded keep in a minute is impossible unless they invested in absurd amonts of siege.

In any case, there are already plenty of ways to make a zerg not be the end all. As other people have stated. Don’t like the way things are going? Its time for a new strategy. Rarely are the issues merely numbers once you get to the higher tiers.

They should leave the doors alone. You should feel bad for suggesting that players shouldn’t be able to harm the doors. Doors are ok as is.

The only thing ANet needs to do is increase aoe cap. All players should be hit by the aoe they stand in, there should be no limit. That way an organized defense/siege group can take out zergs or force them to adjust.

there is only one thing that needs to be changed to make taking on larger forces with smaller forces more effective.

and that is increase the attack arc of ranged hard target attacks enough that you can properly and effctively strafe kite(as opposed ot currently you can only strafe ktie for roughly 5s and circle strafe liek it’s 1992 and this is doom 1)

Kuari.8106:

OldRodKS, taking down a fully upgraded keep in a minute is impossible unless they invested in absurd amonts of siege.

Fully upgraded, you are right – not in 1 minute, but I was just trying to make a point. I didn’t mean literally one minute.

However, I have seen groups with 3-4 golems take down a keep that the enemy had just captured (so no defenses yet) in not much more than a minute. That shouldn’t happen.

OldRodKS.9758:

Kuari.8106:

OldRodKS, taking down a fully upgraded keep in a minute is impossible unless they invested in absurd amonts of siege.

Fully upgraded, you are right – not in 1 minute, but I was just trying to make a point. I didn’t mean literally one minute.

However, I have seen groups with 3-4 golems take down a keep that the enemy had just captured (so no defenses yet) in not much more than a minute. That shouldn’t happen.

Given the cost of golems, I don’t see why it shouldn’t. They’re a pain to set up and make. I mean, if you see that coming, you get defenses up to destroy those golems or you kiss the keep goodbye.

Zerging has its advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

• Safety in numbers mentality.
• Blunt instrument usually led by one commander.
• Easily overwhelms servers with less players.

Disadvantages:

• May have more people required than what it is needed elsewhere and pugs are less likely to divert from the main group.
• Inflexible when it comes to defending multiple locations.
• Can be outmaneuvered or easily tricked into distractions.

Pooka.3420:

I can see that.

Another way to accomplish this would would also cure another issue I have.

Make claiming a tower or a keep worthwhile. The tower guards should report how many enemies are in the area. That should be reported in Guild Chat and then can be relayed to the /map.

I like this idea. I think NPCs claimed by a guild would do some /report in guild either periodically or upon event.

Example:

let guilds claim sentry points (they have a flag), gives smaller guilds and assigned scouting route. The sentry reports whenever it’s been aggroed by Small/Large/Immense enemy forces, it saw x# of friendly/enemy yak heading south in the last 30 minutes. The road scouts would still work their areas but that guild would have to relay the information to /team for it to become viable intel and encourage smaller guilds to become involved int he larger war effort with sense of purpose.

Supply camps, have the supervisor report to the guild x# of supply in camp, yaks leaving for garrison, small/large/immense enemy forces sighted. A small guild could double as scouts and supply camp defense, reporting what their subordinates (the supervisor) has reported to them.

Just adding onto the idea that claiming a point for a guild actually engages them to “own” it and relay that intel to the /team rather than claim/buff and roll on. I think it gives smaller guilds more interaction ability rather than it just being large guilds or conglomerates only the power on the map.

Liriel.1473:

in my opinion we should still have the downed state but when people are dead they have to respawn without possibility to be rezzed

Now THAT I agree with. The downed state is core to the game, but the ability to just sit there dead waiting for your team to finish overpowering and pick you back up in seconds isn’t fitting for the wvw concept. Taking minor losses is legit and anyone being overaggressive should have the long walk back. Instead there’s no consequences.

You are supposed to have your players do that. You can also tell alot by looking at the map, when contested and orange swords pop, how long it takes for map points to disappear and by corroborating information from your scouts (to rule out quaggans, scrit or other such anomalies).

Communication and information gathering is a big deal in this game. Yesterday in Mag BL I was dismayed by the quality of information being passed on in mumble. Stuff like: “HUGE Darkhaven force at Spiritholme! Need help now” (Numbers? Direction? ETA?)

If lots of people give really unreliable information its absolutely devastating for your chances of winning. Your commander will make really dumb decisions based on the position and direction in which a Zerg is travelling in, only to find when they get eyes, its like a 10 man pubbie supply cap team and those crossed swords at Garrison that everyone told you was “probably” Quaggan but neglected to check out? Yeah thats a 6 Golem rush on the water gate.

Besetment.9187:

You are supposed to have your players do that. You can also tell alot by looking at the map, when contested and orange swords pop, how long it takes for map points to disappear and by corroborating information from your scouts (to rule out quaggans, scrit or other such anomalies).

Communication and information gathering is a big deal in this game. Yesterday in Mag BL I was dismayed by the quality of information being passed on in mumble. Stuff like: “HUGE Darkhaven force at Spiritholme! Need help now” (Numbers? Direction? ETA?)

If lots of people give really unreliable information its absolutely devastating for your chances of winning. Your commander will make really dumb decisions based on the position and direction in which a Zerg is travelling in, only to find when they get eyes, its like a 10 man pubbie supply cap team and those crossed swords at Garrison that everyone told you was “probably” Quaggan but neglected to check out? Yeah thats a 6 Golem rush on the water gate.

I was not talking about replacing players scout input but adding onto giving guilds incentive to “own” the property they claim and getting smaller guilds to be less run whit the zerg and more control their area.