Guild Wars 2

If you are not using strategy with your zerg, you aren’t doing something right.

Oh and if you uncap AoE then AoE becomes the be all end all of the game. He who has the most AoE wins. Because 1 guy hitting someone for 500 dmg will loose to the team AoE’n the guy plus 39 of his friends for 20,000 (that’s 500 × 40)per AoE’r.

Man I would love to see downed state completely removed. Or if anet refuses to remove it completely atleast get rid of all the interrupts, mists and teleports basically every #2 skill.

fact : all winning servers are because of numbers

reduce map cap by half, then we talk about skills…..

I want to see statistics:
Servers → day, time (hours) → peak numbers, low numbers → income

I think we will see strong correlation “server place in league” — “www population”.

And i want to see more strategy too :/

Btw, i want extra points for every kill with finisher, but not only when your server have ruins buf, because most of times strongest servers have this buf.

Chuck Zitto.2367:

Man I would love to see downed state completely removed. Or if anet refuses to remove it completely atleast get rid of all the interrupts, mists and teleports basically every #2 skill.

Downed state is fine, how else are you going to get stomps? It’s the combat and instarez that hurts more imo.

But..but…but Zerg IS a strategy

One of the great points of DAOC. A smaller and well organized group or force could defeat a larger force with SKILL.

That can work to some degree in GW2, but not as well as it should.

Can’t even bring myself to read the entire first post when the first 2 sentences are incorrect. You can ABSOLUTELY defend an objective while outmanned. You just need to build defensive siege. I’ve seen as little as 1 person, with a trebuchet, stop a zerg from attacking a gate (supply cows) You also have supply traps at your desposal. 1-3 people can stop an entire enemy zerg at an objective they are defending. Sure that zerg can dps the gate, but it takes a while, and you can get reinforcements by that time.

If WvW was purely about numbers, then how come I often beat players in 1v2s, 1v3, 1v4, and even 1v5s? (level 80s) Heck last night I was on an axe warrior spec, with a lvl 40 p/p engi teammate nearby. We beat 2 level 80 elementalists and a level 80 dps hammer warrior.

Keiel.7489:

Your statement is based on your assumption that a smaller force is always more tactical and/or strategical than a larger force. Which is not true if your smaller force constantly gets -steamrolled-. When both sides have equally good players, the only ting left to define the fight is numbers, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that, the option to move away to a better position or attack a different objective is always there if you believe your small force is in cappable of taking on the larger force.

This many times over

Jorjeis.2169:

Keiel.7489:

Your statement is based on your assumption that a smaller force is always more tactical and/or strategical than a larger force. Which is not true if your smaller force constantly gets -steamrolled-. When both sides have equally good players, the only ting left to define the fight is numbers, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that, the option to move away to a better position or attack a different objective is always there if you believe your small force is in cappable of taking on the larger force.

This many times over

Agreed.

There seems to be pretty rampant disdain for “zerging” and although some of that io justified, as others have mentioned, zerging is a legitimate tactic.

People seem to automatically assume that the people ion the zerging group are talentless hacks only smart enough to mash their face on the 111111 key. Some of them probably are, oithers might be skilled players looking for a break, or just looking to push their side’s PPT up. As a smaller force you are not entitled to do well against a zerg, and the average skill of the players in the zerg is probably much closer to yours than you’d like to admit.

Additionally, zerging “properly” requires some skill and some discipline. Better servers have better zergs and better commanders that know how when to stack, when/how to push/pull back, that dont chase after stragglers, and that have players that know when to break off and re-supply.

That’s a big part of our problem here on NSP, the population density of the servers we usually face (out of season) is low enough that roaming here is great (usually), we do not know how to zerg. Many of our players and map chat are disdainful of following a commander. If you’re in a close battle against us (probably only prime time) all you need to do to break our zergs is send a few scouts to distract us… every straggled will pull 4-6 players out of the zerg, before long the commander will reach their objective with only 7-8 people with them.

If WWII taught is anything, that is in real life, the numbers matter.

While the downed player system does promote zerging in terms of straight combat, the way supply and siege is now, zerging is an absolute necessity. Taking a keep requires 200 supply minimum (excluding times when you have literally zero opposition) which is 20 ppl. Zergs can flip a keep quickly drain the supply there and keep on trucking. If you want to provide a viable alternative you need to do several things. Increase player supply capacity, reduce supply stored in keeps/towers to 200 max, and eliminate stored supply when keeps and towers flip. Please look at my thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Fixing-the-zerg-problem-Supply-Capacity/first#post3273123

A Lizard Bolting Skin.7426:

While the downed player system does promote zerging in terms of straight combat, the way supply and siege is now, zerging is an absolute necessity. Taking a keep requires 200 supply minimum (excluding times when you have literally zero opposition) which is 20 ppl. Zergs can flip a keep quickly drain the supply there and keep on trucking. If you want to provide a viable alternative you need to do several things. Increase player supply capacity, reduce supply stored in keeps/towers to 200 max, and eliminate stored supply when keeps and towers flip. Please look at my thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Fixing-the-zerg-problem-Supply-Capacity/first#post3273123

I love people who provide solutions rather than just moaning around, yu have my +1

Ravenmoon.5318:

If WWII taught is anything, that is in real life, the numbers matter.

Numbers have a right to matter…but they’re not the only thing that should matter.

Remove gates. Now a zerg can’t cover the entire map. Now a 5 man team can take a keep without 4 supply runs. Now the 13 objectives on each BL map can become 13 different fights, all of various sizes, compositions, and skill level. If you want your tower/keep, you better have good scouts and a team very nearby.

Sirendor.1394:

Ravenmoon.5318:

If WWII taught is anything, that is in real life, the numbers matter.

Numbers have a right to matter…but they’re not the only thing that should matter.

And it doesnt. But a lot of people dont want to admit they arent the pro-PvPers they believed to be. And completely misjudge how pvp works in a larger group environment, where synergy is far more important then having a bunch of people that have only individual skill.

They also dont want to admit they lack the coordination or tactical insight to make use of their smaller groups by striking multiple points at the same time.

And they sure dont want to have to accept that in order to bolster their groups power versus a (much) larger group they might have to supplement with siege.

No, instead its all the big zergs that should just artificially and arbitrarily be nerfed.

^ That,

Strategy > Numbers, you might not know this but clashing a small group into a zerg isn’t how you win.

Hit north bay, run away once scouted, zerg comes, go hit north hills, rinse repeat. Can’t count the number of times on SoS / BG I have been outnumbered on a map but been on the offensive simply because you break into diff locations over and over eventually taking them when the bigger force gets tired of chasing you.

Strategy is knowing your numbers and their limitations, often you can have a full map but still be no match for the other force on the map as it may be a full queue of guilds vs 1 pug blob, play smart, don’t rely on numbers.

Zergs are encoruaged by this game, it might be different if :
1. the AOE cap was increased/removed.
2. Downed state removed.
3. Rally has a small player cap. (2 player max)
4. An adjustment to supply
Not exactly sure yet but running a 65 man zerg with +5 supply give you 975 which means you can speed build 6 omega golems at someones keep which is very difficult to defend against even if sieged well.

Zergs are not the problem. Players should be free to play in zergs if they want to. The problem is when one side has 5 zergs x 50 people and another side has 50 people total on the map.

More choke points to major objectives in the Map should effectively help smaller teams in culling the zerg. Other obvious thing would be AOE to affect a target area instead of limited at 5 people.

And of-course the sledgehammer option – Give only the first 5(Camp), 15(tower), 25 (Garri/Keep) and 40 (SMC) people to enter the structure WXP and rewards: Watch the groups get smaller as the incentive to blob goes down..

Edited for addition:

Set a total XP for structure say ‘X’ to be divided between say 40 people for SMC. If 25 people do it, divide ‘X’ between these 25, rewarding them for a smaller group. Not sure how it would work with Items though – Increased drop chance?

Immolator.5640:

@OP, it’s more effective if you spell it correctly.

Sorry I had to

LOL, thank you. It was late when I started this thread =)

pffft. people complaining about strategy… If you want strategy go play an mmo that promised it’s customers a wide variety of pvp in a world vs world setting, no powercreep and no pay to win, free server transfers, no grind, per patch gear tredmil or A release when the game was finished

hmmm….. i mean to say go play something else i guess..

Mochann.5298:

Strategy is probably greater than blob, but almost nobody plays on that level of strategy. So blood are still winning.

Not sure how you play in NA but in EU there are enough of guilds able to whipe blobs on there own even if they are outnumbered 2 to 1 or more.

Elusive.9481:

WvW is all about number of players. Nothing can counter a large zerg except another large zerg. It doesn’t matter how upgraded a location is or how much seige is built inside, the zerg will win, especially against a tower or supply camp.

Things flip too easily and frequently. This is good right now since the achievements are based on this principle. But honestly, it shouldn’t be like this. Structures should be sturdier, and something should counter the zerg.

One simple correction could be that the “legendary” defenders and guards scale to the number of enemies in proximity to it. If you don’t like getting one-shot, make them have nasty AOE attacks. Anet certainly doesn’t hold back when it comes to the Nightmare content.

Force strategy: How many times have I been in or near a zerg that busts easily through a fully-upgraded tower only to drain its supply and move on with no intention of upgrading? I propose that towers specificly award no points for ownership until a new, gold-free, but supply-required upgrade is completed. This would force a server to take a supply camp first and hold the structure until enough yaks supplied the tower with this basic upgrade. Towers and Keep should be stragetic strongholds. How many towers, keeps, and SM itself have trebs built on the supply depot? That is ridiculous. The only strategic place to put a treb in most towers is on the supply depot so that it can still hit things, but forces an opponent to actually take the tower to destroy it. The outer area of SM is a huge EMPTY area with trebs build on the various supply depots. Anet, I think you can design something better than that.

Personally, I think Keeps should have more than 1 level, with a gate in-between. Have permanent traps fall from above, triggered by players. The defending server should have the advantage — by a lot. The borderland Garrison has 5 outer gates to baby-sit. Why does it take more effort to defend it than to overtake it? Why build a tower if you’re not going to put a mass weapon on top of it? For the view? It should be a strategic structure. What castle doesn’t have dozens of guards defending it?

If the structures remain basically useless besides awarding points, the answer will always be numbers. Why have the matchup at all?

First point about numbers and blobbing,
It all depends on the server you are on. I have seen and also done many huge blobs with our 25-30 man blob. It all depends how organized that blob is. blobs get to shred with 25-30 man groups if they know what they are doing. It all depends on your commander.

Making cap points stronger,
Supply camps are suppose to be taken easily there is nothing to hold in them, unless you really want it you will have to defend it with appropriate numbers. You have probably not met servers that use bunker tactics to defend their caps. The siege is set in a way that you can not break in without 10-15 golems. Nothing else works. If towers, keeps are made to be stronger than what they are right now then infact there will be no more small roaming groups left and the need to blob more will be there which your whole post is intended to be against.

Elusive.9481:

(…)

Things flip too easily and frequently. This is good right now since the achievements are based on this principle. But honestly, it shouldn’t be like this. Structures should be sturdier, and something should counter the zerg.
(…)

Becouse game is all about achievements and Anet is trying to make the game a litle easier on how the player get titles and achievments, “forcing” them or atracting them to their ideal of gw2 game model.
I guess the only thing this game lacks atm is the post titles on facebook to show off even more, would be amazing your friends know ur making titles like those facebook games? ….

RISK vs REWARD

The reward vs Risk for zerging is too great.

I can get several ranks in a game session zerging – and i dont even have to contribute. . . . its EASY.
Roaming takes a lot longer to get ranks (no high wxp from castle/keeps)

SIMPLE ANSWER:
Divide the wxp between the number of people that earned those points

A lot (not all) of people will not zerg if the personal reward is not there… someone somewhere has nearly 3000 ranks? . . . well you can bet they got that by zerging.

Surely the FAIR way is to split the reward (wxp) between everyone involved?
Duo’d towers and trio’d keeps, surely the rewards (wxp) for that should be FAR greater than 50+ people taking towers/keeps?

I also would love to see a -1% mf per person in a radius from the player ( 50 people in a 900 (? just for example) radius from the player results in a -50% mf for that player) –
How can you find a good magic item when there’s 50 other people trampling and looting?

Zerging for server points and achievements will still happen – But zerging for personal reward will no longer be viable – BANG the zerg is disbanded- in fact you might even find people transferring from the zerging servers to the less populated servers.

Elusive.9481:

WvW is all about number of players. Nothing can counter a large zerg except another large zerg. It doesn’t matter how upgraded a location is or how much seige is built inside, the zerg will win, especially against a tower or supply camp.

Things flip too easily and frequently. This is good right now since the achievements are based on this principle. But honestly, it shouldn’t be like this. Structures should be sturdier, and something should counter the zerg.

One simple correction could be that the “legendary” defenders and guards scale to the number of enemies in proximity to it. If you don’t like getting one-shot, make them have nasty AOE attacks. Anet certainly doesn’t hold back when it comes to the Nightmare content.

Force strategy: How many times have I been in or near a zerg that busts easily through a fully-upgraded tower only to drain its supply and move on with no intention of upgrading? I propose that towers specificly award no points for ownership until a new, gold-free, but supply-required upgrade is completed. This would force a server to take a supply camp first and hold the structure until enough yaks supplied the tower with this basic upgrade. Towers and Keep should be stragetic strongholds. How many towers, keeps, and SM itself have trebs built on the supply depot? That is ridiculous. The only strategic place to put a treb in most towers is on the supply depot so that it can still hit things, but forces an opponent to actually take the tower to destroy it. The outer area of SM is a huge EMPTY area with trebs build on the various supply depots. Anet, I think you can design something better than that.

Personally, I think Keeps should have more than 1 level, with a gate in-between. Have permanent traps fall from above, triggered by players. The defending server should have the advantage — by a lot. The borderland Garrison has 5 outer gates to baby-sit. Why does it take more effort to defend it than to overtake it? Why build a tower if you’re not going to put a mass weapon on top of it? For the view? It should be a strategic structure. What castle doesn’t have dozens of guards defending it?

If the structures remain basically useless besides awarding points, the answer will always be numbers. Why have the matchup at all?

disagree 28 pugs in eb(sfr) fought and won against 60+ jade sea at klovan couple days ago was best moments this week.

its all about invidually skills mastering your class and how good you are to stick on commander its also how the commander play where he go how he engage the enemy and what skill set up he use communication between the zerg too.

Zanshin.5379:

Fomby.4295:

Zanshin.5379:

Anet could just put a lot more objectives on the map and force zergs to separate into smaller groups.

They wouldn’t separate though. They would just clump together to take down these objectives faster one by one so everybody gets credit.

They wouldn’t be able to do that if there were too many objectives and far away from each other.

If there are enough objectives, while the enemy zerg is taking one of yours, you’re taking 5 of theirs. They try to take one back, you take 5 more. Ultimately, they would either need to divide or lose the whole map.

Right now, when the enemy realizes that one of their keep is getting attacked, they have all the time in the world to come defend. If you make the objectives so far apart that when they are all the way in the west they can’t get to the east fast enough to defend, they would have to divide and leave a team in the east for defense.

So make the maps way bigger and add a lot more tower/keeps. That’s it.
Of course, that’s not gonna happen because Anet’s servers are too flimsy.

That just creates a WvE situation where there are too few fights going on. the problem with spreading everyone out over a huge map is that, well, everyone is spread out. You need a high enough density of players for there to be actual PVP

aspirine.6852:

Chuck Zitto.2367:

Man I would love to see downed state completely removed. Or if anet refuses to remove it completely atleast get rid of all the interrupts, mists and teleports basically every #2 skill.

Downed state is fine, how else are you going to get stomps? It’s the combat and instarez that hurts more imo.

Because if a 5 man teams hit the back of a 30 man zerg and manages to down a few players, the zerg can just turn around and AoE everyone downed to prevent them from being stomped. The downed state completely throws small scale groups out the window.

A simple temporary solution imo… would be to greatly increase PPT value of smaller objectives and decrease the value of larger ones.

Something like Sm 30, Keep 20, Tower, 15, Supplycamp 10, Sentrues 5 ppt?

This will split up the zerg to want to defend smaller objectives that can be flipped easily like camps as now 2 camps are worth the same as a keep. Numbers above are just examples of course.

The greatly outmanned force will still dominate of course, but say two huge even forces are on the map will split instead of blob.

MagiKarp.8201:

^ That,

Strategy > Numbers, you might not know this but clashing a small group into a zerg isn’t how you win.

Hit north bay, run away once scouted, zerg comes, go hit north hills, rinse repeat. Can’t count the number of times on SoS / BG I have been outnumbered on a map but been on the offensive simply because you break into diff locations over and over eventually taking them when the bigger force gets tired of chasing you.

Strategy is knowing your numbers and their limitations, often you can have a full map but still be no match for the other force on the map as it may be a full queue of guilds vs 1 pug blob, play smart, don’t rely on numbers.

Try this against vizunah square and you’ll fail. They have 1 scout + tons of arrow carts in every important building.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

MagiKarp.8201:

^ That,

Strategy > Numbers, you might not know this but clashing a small group into a zerg isn’t how you win.

Hit north bay, run away once scouted, zerg comes, go hit north hills, rinse repeat. Can’t count the number of times on SoS / BG I have been outnumbered on a map but been on the offensive simply because you break into diff locations over and over eventually taking them when the bigger force gets tired of chasing you.

Strategy is knowing your numbers and their limitations, often you can have a full map but still be no match for the other force on the map as it may be a full queue of guilds vs 1 pug blob, play smart, don’t rely on numbers.

Try this against vizunah square and you’ll fail. They have 1 scout + tons of arrow carts in every important building.

Wow and this scout is an octupus?

Soilder.3607:

aspirine.6852:

Chuck Zitto.2367:

Man I would love to see downed state completely removed. Or if anet refuses to remove it completely atleast get rid of all the interrupts, mists and teleports basically every #2 skill.

Downed state is fine, how else are you going to get stomps? It’s the combat and instarez that hurts more imo.

Because if a 5 man teams hit the back of a 30 man zerg and manages to down a few players, the zerg can just turn around and AoE everyone downed to prevent them from being stomped. The downed state completely throws small scale groups out the window.

I don’t mind the downed state. It’s just part of the game, and in some ways it makes sense. Strategy must be formed around the downed state (good or bad I’m not sure.) for instance, if we got rid of downed, warrior banner elite would be almost worthless. Rezzing a downed clump with a banner is very important and is a strategy(even if you don’t like the strategy).

I don’t think removing downed state would be that terrible, but at the same time, it would remove a few tactics from the game, which would suck.

Mighty Assasin.3816:

Zergs are encoruaged by this game, it might be different if :
1. the AOE cap was increased/removed.
2. Downed state removed.
3. Rally has a small player cap. (2 player max)
4. An adjustment to supply

There is yet another issue that encourages stacking. Boons and heals are generally ranged based and the best way to get these things from allies is to cluster close to each other so that when boons and heals are triggered, you get the benefit. This is one of the main problems that Rangers face in WvW. If a longbow ranger stands back to use their longbow from a distance, they don’t get the boons or healing being provided by the main cluster of players for each other.

To fix that, ANet would need to change the way boons and possibly heals are ranged and allocated, making them effective over a longer distance, perhaps only to party members or squad members or something like that.

One way ANet should be able to increase the AoE limit without melting their servers is to make more AoEs work like Barrage and do their damage in pulses over time, perhaps making sure different opponents get hit on various pulses. The way Barrage currently works is that it does 12 hits on 5 targets at 0.6 second intervals and picks a new target if one target dies. Suppose barrage did 12 hits on 5 targets at 0.6 second intervals in “A” and “B” sets (each not including a target in the other) each doing twice as much damage. The first set of 5 nearest targets becomes that “A” set and takes the first set of hits. The next set of 5 skips the first 5 and becomes the “B” set and takes the second set of hits 0.6 second later (if there aren’t 5, then those hits are lost). Then back to the “A” set in 0.6 seconds. Then to the “B” set. And so on until it’s run its course. That would allow barrage to hit twice as many targets without significantly more computation per pulse except for the calculation of the next five nearest targets on the “B” pulse. Increase to 15 maximum targets with a “C” set. I believe other AoEs work in a similar way (Meteor Shower?).

The maps aren’t designed in a way to really make much use of strategy. The classes aren’t designed in a way to make use of strategy either. The only thing that matters in this game is hard CC (stuns, knocback, etc.. you know Warrior/Necro or bust CC), and AE. Both of which ANet did a horrendous job of making sure was spread out evenly among the classes.

We then have a map where strategy doesn’t get you anything. Choke points are few and far between. The hard CC that can be used to aid outnumbered zergs is completely countered by stability which is given around enmass. Soft CC like cripples don’t account for anything since no kiting exists in this game. Certainly not on a large scale. In DaoC and SB you could have a small group of 10 completely tear apart a zerg because they could kite them, split zergs, or hold them down for backup.

This game just doesn’t have any depth or synergy to exploit to make strategy/placement mean much of anything. The only realistic strategy that works is zerging and the whole buffing/healing aspect only encourages it.

We’ll need a completely different ruleset for WvW, a completely different map layout, and nearly half of the classes will need to be buffed/changed while the other half would need to be gutted.

Best move on to another game imo. Shadowbane Emulator is almost done I hear.

The should make it so the zerg can’t DPS the gates down. What use is siege when you can just gather 80 people to auto attack the gate.

I doubt this game will ever not favor the zerg. Waiting for CU myself.

Atherakhia.4086:

This game just doesn’t have any depth or synergy to exploit to make strategy/placement mean much of anything. The only realistic strategy that works is zerging and the whole buffing/healing aspect only encourages it.

Spoken like a true zergling. The difference between a group that has no synergy or placement is night and day. It’s the difference between seeing 20 guys go down in the first push or 0.

Get rid of rally in WvW, change the WXP rewards to be divided into the number of folks involved in earning it, problem solved.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

MagiKarp.8201:

^ That,

Strategy > Numbers, you might not know this but clashing a small group into a zerg isn’t how you win.

Hit north bay, run away once scouted, zerg comes, go hit north hills, rinse repeat. Can’t count the number of times on SoS / BG I have been outnumbered on a map but been on the offensive simply because you break into diff locations over and over eventually taking them when the bigger force gets tired of chasing you.

Strategy is knowing your numbers and their limitations, often you can have a full map but still be no match for the other force on the map as it may be a full queue of guilds vs 1 pug blob, play smart, don’t rely on numbers.

Try this against vizunah square and you’ll fail. They have 1 scout + tons of arrow carts in every important building.

Play NA Tier 1.

Every server has that.

What I mentioned was speed is the key, not surprise, damaging multiple objectives using supply available to you wasting theirs on repair.

WvW is basically one big game of chess, if you know what you are doing you can force the other team to make every move you want them to, taking keeps properly is much more than just wiping the enemy force.

Just throwing this out there. But here is one video I have found of strategy > zerg. In case you missed the part where it said strategy, yea I can say that my guild small groups can hold a zerg back if we bottleneck them right but the minute a small group goes up against a zerg it is all about delaying them so our forces can get there or until they have to back off. It happens all the time with my guild on t1 servers. It is not about killing a zerg with a small group. It is being that small group or lesser force that can hold a zerg off a point or make a zerg think twice before attacking that camp again. it is all strategic points and placement of your people. Taking a zerg head on with a lesser force is impossible, so maybe fighting them on the high ground or using you stealth and damage controls at the right times is the problem not the fact that the small groups are underpowered.

Keep in mind… chances are a lesser force will not kill a zerg, but obliterating them is not victory. If you are the ones who are making the zerg turn on its tail then you are the true victor because they are on the run, and you still have what you are fighting for.

Oh and that video… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-919RMwyfnk

I don’t think you guys realize that a small group can wipe the blob of whichever server they are fighting as long as they use the correct strategy, and methods and clever movement etc. I would love to come over to NA servers and show you how to do this.

14v60? No problem

Elusive.9481:

I propose that towers specificly award no points for ownership until a new, gold-free, but supply-required upgrade is completed.

Very good suggestion, this would stop the karma train scene, award players for defending and upgrading on the large scale, and help spread players out of zergs.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Terrahero.9358:

Ross Biddle.2367:

If this were true, BG blobs wouldn’t constantly be running/avoiding SoR counter (albiet much smaller) forces. But I can agree with your sentiment that there should be more counters to blobs.

How about a new trap that hits 60 players, and multiplies its damage based on the number of enemies it hits. So it’ll land a nice instant 500 damage vs 1 target.

2500 vs 5 man

5000 vs 10 men

10,000 vs 20 men

20,000 vs 40 men

30,000 vs 60 man blob. Insta counter. No longer safe to run blobs., and super costly prior to that.

Crazy idea but no more crazy than blobs?

For balance sake, trap could only trigger on 40+. Players can still blob, but there’s always that risk that the enemy has set an ambush.

This idea is brilliant! I’ll just log on my Thief, run into your zerg (in stealth ofcourse so you wont know im there) and just instakill a whole zerg.

That sounds entirely reasonable and above all fun. Right?

Or in a zerg on zerg fight, ill run into your clusterkitten and pop stability and just blow you all up with this trap. That sounds balanced right?

Because what this game needs is even more instagib mechanics that you dont see comming. Especially in WvW.

1) Yes. Finally a job for thieves. That said, if you’d ever placed a trap recently you’d know you can’t drop them in stealth. Good luck running into an enemy blob and doing a 4 second channel as a thief.

2) Yes, in general, it does sound reasonable. And fun!

3) Yes. But then again, are you suggesting you and your server are stupid enough to cluster up in the first place? Because surely you know and have heard about these new traps right? I mean sure, I’ll be reasonable, you probably pushed your luck a few, 5, 6, 7, ..10 times. But eventually you learned the new “dont blob you kittening idiot” meta.

4) But hey, if you cant look around and see 59 other players and think "I probably shouldn’t be standing here, I guess there really is no hope for you to ever see anything coming.

I guess I could do this on my warrior theoretically I could live for 5 seconds taking no damage, condis or being knocked/stunned/dazed.

There really needs to be more risk involved with zerging, just feels to me that you should have to sacrifice something when deciding to run around in mass numbers. Only thing I could think of was tying the PPT to defending. If objectives are left undefended your server receives no PPT for those objectives, so you basically need to leave “x” amount of players behind to defend, upgrade and siege up. If you need mass numbers to push for a major objective point like say SM, you would have to empty out several other capture points sacrificing your PPT in your attempt, same goes for defending, it would make it incredibly difficult maintaining PPT if you have majority of the map captured, you would then have to sacrifice PPT to get the numbers needed to defend other points. I know defending is boring and all, I personally enjoy it but it could really help add that risk/sacrifice desperately needed when it comes to zerging.

Defending is boring and sitting in tower and waiting for enemy is even more boring.

Cradorell.3941:

I don’t think you guys realize that a small group can wipe the blob of whichever server they are fighting as long as they use the correct strategy, and methods and clever movement etc. I would love to come over to NA servers and show you how to do this.

14v60? No problem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Kk6b7F6Mc

drakkar lake most of the vid? That is one giant pve blob isnt it?

Imperatora.7654:

That just creates a WvE situation where there are too few fights going on. the problem with spreading everyone out over a huge map is that, well, everyone is spread out. You need a high enough density of players for there to be actual PVP

You bring up a profound point that really made me think. It seems that it really boils down to the understanding of what WvW is supposed to be – for which I do not have an immediate answer.

Some people look a WvW as merely a larger scale of sPvP. In sPvP, you must watch your capture points; they don’t defend themselves. It is (at basic design) only players against players. Logical progression: 5v5, 8v8, WorldvWorld. You’re responsible for 24h coverage because it is a PVP map.

However, that logic breaks down very quickly upon inspection. A 5v5 match is not the same as an 8v8 match. The gameplay is different. The strengths and weaknesses are different, etc. Therefore, this same gameplay does not translate to 30v30 or 60v60. They are different. Also, matches aren’t set for 3v8 like some matches have been set in our beloved Season One.

But think about the sPvP maps. If it were really just PvP, ideally we’d just all be fighting in an open field, and some of the maps are like that. However, take the example of Temple of the Silent Storm (by far my favorite). If you ignore the events and structure of the map, you’re going to lose. It becomes more like chess: being strategically placed, stacking buffs for points, knowing when to distract and not be distracted. There is an example of a smaller number of players being able to completely dominate maybe twice their numbers if they were coordinated and understood the map and their enemy did not – because of the huge interplay of the environment. I knew when it was important to hold that point and when it was not and going to flip with you standing on it anyway. I won because I was where you should have been at the right time; I may never have fought you directly. Both of us go down; your team got 5 points, mine got 11.

That’s the kind of WvW map that I want to play on. One where the map, its dynamics, and its potential inescapably matter. Yes, that’s a lot of PvE involved, but it’s an environment I have to harness and use against other players while they are trying to do the same thing. A structure should be strategic and tip the scale a long way in a fight. There should be no reason a commander would lead a large group to cap a tower, drain its supply, and leave it with no intention of upgrading or adding seige because it is just going to be flipped again in 5 minutes so that commander can flip it again 5 minutes after that. It should be something worthwhile, something that would be stupid to not want to hold it. It should matter. It should supercede player skills in the long term matchup. Sure, we can fight it out on the field; player skill vs. player skill. But this is a week-long matchup. It should be a campaign against your world — digging in the trenches and taking ground. At the end of the week, how did the campaign end up? Where were the lines?

Instead, we have whole maps being flipped in 30 mins only to be flipped back in another 30 mins, and whichever server did it the most “won”.

In PvE, your successes are beneficial to players; they do not affect an opposing player force. I believe WvW would be phenomenal if it were a place that brought PvP and PvE together in this way.

Don’t take out the PvP; don’t take out the battles. Make it something more; somewhere everyone wants to be.

Fomby.4295:

Soilder.3607:

aspirine.6852:

Chuck Zitto.2367:

Man I would love to see downed state completely removed. Or if anet refuses to remove it completely atleast get rid of all the interrupts, mists and teleports basically every #2 skill.

Downed state is fine, how else are you going to get stomps? It’s the combat and instarez that hurts more imo.

Because if a 5 man teams hit the back of a 30 man zerg and manages to down a few players, the zerg can just turn around and AoE everyone downed to prevent them from being stomped. The downed state completely throws small scale groups out the window.

I don’t mind the downed state. It’s just part of the game, and in some ways it makes sense. Strategy must be formed around the downed state (good or bad I’m not sure.) for instance, if we got rid of downed, warrior banner elite would be almost worthless. Rezzing a downed clump with a banner is very important and is a strategy(even if you don’t like the strategy).

I don’t think removing downed state would be that terrible, but at the same time, it would remove a few tactics from the game, which would suck.

Perhaps downed state can remain, but unless you have a skill that can revive downed allies, you can’t just rally off of a NPC that died in WvW.

I really feel like this game is limited by the engine they used.

They cant:

Have all borderlands as one map
Cant handle large scale battles
Cant have more than a 5 AOE limit.

Options? There is a game coming out soon that. Or hang in till GW3.

Junkpile.7439:

Defending is boring and sitting in tower and waiting for enemy is even more boring.

Looks like you never did a 5-man defence against a zerg of 30. Your loss.