Guild Wars 2

My two cents is that, AoE system which encourages people to stand as closely together as possible is far from optimal.

Here are a few ideas on fixing this (or at the very least, improving the system), encouraging people to spread out and actually use different tactics when it comes to siege choices:

Note: These are alternatives, although some of them could be combined together. I’m not saying “implement them all”, I’m just throwing around few different approaches to improve the system. If you got better ideas, tell them

Ticket system
Instead of spreading out the AoE damage to random players, assign everyone a hidden number. 5 lowest numbers take all the AoE damage (and AoE heals). This way, you’re not combatting the entire healthpool of a zergball at once, but reduce the combat effectiveness of the zergball at a reasonable pace as the ball loses players. In order to avoid exploitation of the players knowing the order they die (and frankly, it’d be a tad bit unfair for the same people to always die first), reassign numbers every 5 minutes.

Commander dies first
Commander can be a huge boon to the zerg. Discourage the ball behavior by prioritizing people with active commander tags, then passive commander tags and lastly people with no commander tags.

Siege damaged always
Sometimes, the whole point of the zergball is to just sweep the enemy fort with an arrowcart, securing it by balling around it. Ensuring the siege always takes damage gives back some of the strategic abilities of few players defending towers and forts, forcing the zergball to rethink it’s approach.

//Less feasible suggestions:
Increase number of players damaged by AoE
Just an idea. I know, lots of calculations and probably not feasible.

Everyone takes reduced damage
As I understand, the reason the damage is limited to 5 players is because there are just too many calculations to handle. So, when AoE hits >5 players, do less calculations per damage. Like, half the incoming damage and apply it to everyone. Perhaps not the optimal solution, but some could argue it’s still an improvement to the current system.

Some other similar ideas:

Increase AoE damage with a % based on how many other players are in the AoE that won’t be hit because of the 5-Target-Limit. This would require a reduction of the base damage from AC.

Reverse the 5-Target-Limit, and let each player be hit by Max-5-Enemies at any given time. Against a competent and organized group this would neuter a zerg completely. You could very likely end up with a situation where 5 players slowly chews up and entire zerg.

I’m highly against zergs but 5 players should not be allowed to kill an entire zerg.

Before the stability changes a guild group made a good chance on hurting a zerg. But these days even guilds run in zerg mode, or worse, zerg size :/

One good idea would be remove aoe stability, aoe condi removal and aoe healing.

aspirine.6852:

Before the stability changes a guild group made a good chance on hurting a zerg. But these days even guilds run in zerg mode, or worse, zerg size :/

Kind of, but not necessarily. Most of that was because they had the crutch of stability to neuter CC of the other group.

To the OPs point, many other things contribute to a benefit of staying together, such as AoE cleanses and AoE boons.

Personally I find it completely illogical to want to come into a game mode designed around large scale combat and want to redesign it to add artificial concepts to create handicaps for large forces. If you dislike large force combat, go play PvP. I do not understand the concept of complaining about RvR or WvW combat having large forces and trying to artificially force players there to fight individually or in small groups. Particularly when there are other game modes already designed for thay style of combat.

Vermillion.4061:

I’m highly against zergs but 5 players should not be allowed to kill an entire zerg.

Actually, they should, if the zerg is stupid enough to tank all AoEs.

Iavra.8510:

Vermillion.4061:

I’m highly against zergs but 5 players should not be allowed to kill an entire zerg.

Actually, they should, if the zerg is stupid enough to tank all AoEs.

in eotm maybe but a full level 80 zone blob being wiped by 5 people? nope that should never happen, even if the blob is stacked together and in full zerker gear.

Absolutely not to the “Commander dies first” suggestion. Snipping is already too annoying as it is. Besides that though, tag doesn’t mean that a person’s going to have a zerg following or even be a commander. The tag could merely be being used as a way of showing where something is, so the actual zerg commander can plan accordingly.

Turning on friendly fire remain by far the best – and most hilarious – idea.

Come on. It will be glorious.

Ultimaistanza.4793:

Absolutely not to the “Commander dies first” suggestion. Snipping is already too annoying as it is. Besides that though, tag doesn’t mean that a person’s going to have a zerg following or even be a commander. The tag could merely be being used as a way of showing where something is, so the actual zerg commander can plan accordingly.

Why it matter if commander dies first? Don’t tell me that you still follow commander in fights?

Juganot.1509:

Iavra.8510:

Vermillion.4061:

I’m highly against zergs but 5 players should not be allowed to kill an entire zerg.

Actually, they should, if the zerg is stupid enough to tank all AoEs.

in eotm maybe but a full level 80 zone blob being wiped by 5 people? nope that should never happen, even if the blob is stacked together and in full zerker gear.

To be honest, I feel like if a zerg is going to be that absolutely oblivious to attackers and if this game’s countless number of passive retaliatory abilities don’t just instant blow them up, then the zerg deserves to wipe.

Dawdler.8521:

Turning on friendly fire remain by far the best – and most hilarious – idea.

Come on. It will be glorious.

This idea is terrible because it will garentee not melee fighting and extremely promote nothing but exclusively having a pirate ship style of combat.

Easiest way to break up a zerg is to have a few suicide into them while they’re stacking, to disable/interrupt the group buffs. Then your team comes in and wipes.

Jayne.9251:

Easiest way to break up a zerg is to have a few suicide into them while they’re stacking, to disable/interrupt the group buffs. Then your team comes in and wipes.

Well that kinda used to be where the melee train came in handy. You see more ranged chars than melee these days in wvw.

coglin.1867:

aspirine.6852:

Before the stability changes a guild group made a good chance on hurting a zerg. But these days even guilds run in zerg mode, or worse, zerg size :/

Kind of, but not necessarily. Most of that was because they had the crutch of stability to neuter CC of the other group.

To the OPs point, many other things contribute to a benefit of staying together, such as AoE cleanses and AoE boons.

Personally I find it completely illogical to want to come into a game mode designed around large scale combat and want to redesign it to add artificial concepts to create handicaps for large forces. If you dislike large force combat, go play PvP. I do not understand the concept of complaining about RvR or WvW combat having large forces and trying to artificially force players there to fight individually or in small groups. Particularly when there are other game modes already designed for thay style of combat.

I agree with most of that. It doesn’t make sense to discourage large fights in a world vs world fight, and the maps are large enough so that just doing a super blob is pretty inefficient. Blobbing is already penalized already; though certainly this assumes equal coverage.

Also, I have no idea why people seem to think AOE’s aren’t devastating enough against stacked people, considering how damage has been boosted lately (and there was a lot of cries about insta-death too). It’s not like meteors and immobilize-wells can’t already completely devastate people that just stay stacked and not mobile enough, given equal numbers, it’d still be a slaughter; and making AOE even stronger will just mean a pirate spaceship meta.

And organized groups can still destroy disorganized pugs very easily though I guess not as easily as before.

Jayne.9251:

Easiest way to break up a zerg is to have a few suicide into them while they’re stacking, to disable/interrupt the group buffs. Then your team comes in and wipes.

Problem with this is that it requires enough people to do so in the 1st place. So you have to basically blob to take out a blob. When you are in group of 15-20 vs 60-80 (or whatever the map cap is now), you just can’t afford those few suicides.

My idea is to reduce / eliminate a lot of the passive and AOE condi removal and replace is with individual active, more frequently available, condi removal. this will have a huge impact as follows:

1. The larger the blob the more stupid people are in it that deserve to die, they will either not be running or fail to use their active abilities, thus deservingly die/wipe to better skilled smaller groups that use their abilities appropriately.

2. It will help with condi balance in WvW in general, because small scale and 1v1 will be easier to cleanse for classes that have limited access, and be able to do so more frequently if they choose / build for it. While condis will no longer be so limited in large scale engagements due to the above mentioned, large numbers of stupid people that will no longer be able to hide in AOE cleansing spam.

its not a solution, but definetly an improvement.

Vermillion.4061:

I’m highly against zergs but 5 players should not be allowed to kill an entire zerg.

If 5 players manage to kill an entire zerg they deserve to die.

Tongku.5326:

Jayne.9251:

Easiest way to break up a zerg is to have a few suicide into them while they’re stacking, to disable/interrupt the group buffs. Then your team comes in and wipes.

Problem with this is that it requires enough people to do so in the 1st place. So you have to basically blob to take out a blob.

No you don’t dear These guys would run maybe 15 max at all times. Often just 10.

Drunk Vanz is hilarious. I recommend youtubing it It gives his scottish accent extra triple RRRRs on everything.

Tongku.5326:

Jayne.9251:

Easiest way to break up a zerg is to have a few suicide into them while they’re stacking, to disable/interrupt the group buffs. Then your team comes in and wipes.

Problem with this is that it requires enough people to do so in the 1st place. So you have to basically blob to take out a blob. When you are in group of 15-20 vs 60-80 (or whatever the map cap is now), you just can’t afford those few suicides.

My idea is to reduce / eliminate a lot of the passive and AOE condi removal and replace is with individual active, more frequently available, condi removal. this will have a huge impact as follows:

1. The larger the blob the more stupid people are in it that deserve to die, they will either not be running or fail to use their active abilities, thus deservingly die/wipe to better skilled smaller groups that use their abilities appropriately.

2. It will help with condi balance in WvW in general, because small scale and 1v1 will be easier to cleanse for classes that have limited access, and be able to do so more frequently if they choose / build for it. While condis will no longer be so limited in large scale engagements due to the above mentioned, large numbers of stupid people that will no longer be able to hide in AOE cleansing spam.

its not a solution, but definetly an improvement.

No, it is not an inprovment as I see it. You appear to confuse your subjective opinion with that of objective fact.

for example, you state “The larger the blob, the stupider the people are in it.” In my opinion, thay is a rude and uninformed assuption. It spreads a lot of light on your point of view. It suggest you base a fair amount of your statements on uninformed assumption.

The other problem appear to me to be the fact that your intent is to redesign a game mode designed for large scale WvW battles to suit small scale and 1v1. If you want that, go to PvP.

By the way, what skills are you declaring as “passive” condition removal?

Why would you want to remove AoE condition removal? In my opinion that only works if you remove the AoE condition application.

If you dislike large scale combat, your counterintuitivly trying to redesign the game mode designed for it. Which doesn’t strike me as reasonable.

Juganot.1509:

Iavra.8510:

Vermillion.4061:

I’m highly against zergs but 5 players should not be allowed to kill an entire zerg.

Actually, they should, if the zerg is stupid enough to tank all AoEs.

in eotm maybe but a full level 80 zone blob being wiped by 5 people? nope that should never happen, even if the blob is stacked together and in full zerker gear.

Why not?

If the blob does nothing to kill those 5, why should blob survive?

coglin.1867:

Dawdler.8521:

Turning on friendly fire remain by far the best – and most hilarious – idea.

Come on. It will be glorious.

This idea is terrible because it will garentee not melee fighting and extremely promote nothing but exclusively having a pirate ship style of combat.

Your argument is irrelevant, it would still be glorious.

It’s not like I care about the state of conditions in WvW zerge fights but

coglin.1867:

By the way, what skills are you declaring as “passive” condition removal?

Malandru + Poultry soup = -65% condition duration = Passive condition removal
Guardian Pure of Voice and Melandru runes can also be considered “passive” condition-removal because you do not time the shouts for cleansing condition rather cleansing come as a bonus of what they already do.

Purging Flames However is a “legit” AoE condition cleanse because it require coordination and thoughts to get the better of the skill.

coglin.1867:

Personally I find it completely illogical to want to come into a game mode designed around large scale combat and want to redesign it to add artificial concepts to create handicaps for large forces.

It’s not like there are degrees in size right.. All large groups are not necessarily blobs/zergs.

Personally I think blobbing should be discouraged for several reasons :

1- Lag. Clearly the servers cannot handle blobbing while providing a fluid gaming experience. The lag transform fights into button mashing battles it also affect people that do not blob and it is kind of unfair.

2- Competition. While it is true that playing with 3-4 groups + scouts can be more efficient than blobbing +scouts . Blobbing is by far easier to pull off in term of organization and coordination and still get away with a similar efficiency.
Blobbing also allow to cap structures far too easily when having the advantage of numbers witch in turn makes WvW even more population/coverage dependent.

3- WvW was not designed for large scale fights alone. So if optimal/semi-optimal strategies involve only plays with large groups (? blobs) it should indeed be redesigned.

if commander dies first.. whats the whole point of wvw and commander tags? the main idea is to lead in wvw and commander usually have deep insights on wvw. Unless they are pushing in, commanders are usually last to die. By making commanders dies first, its like chopping your hands off because you dont like them to be dirty while clearing thrash.

Well, I think the very problem is that there are varying degrees of scale, and balancing all of them is impractical. What defines a blob.

When you talk about a “skill” group of 15 getting blobbed by a group of 50, do they view the same thing when they themselves blob down a group of 5? And what about when the group of 5 runs down a solo player?

So how are people drawing this line, and making either a one size fits all fix, or something more dynamic?

Ultimately I think the problem is that the OP started putting out solutions before really defining the problems. So while I think some ideas are novel, such as siege always being hit by AOE which sort of makes sense, I think we need to know why and what is being solved.

Reducing AoE healing and increasing damage would possibly help. The problem is simply that huge numbers of players create large amounts of damage but also heal each other and strip conditions very effectively.

I’m not saying that a properly trained and prepared smaller group cannot destroy a blob, they often can. The problem is they really have to be prepared and on top of their game. The other side is if the blob is properly prepared too the smaller group are going to get rolled over no matter what they do.

Really anet created this problem when they limited AoE damage to 5 enemies. They made it worse when they put in WvW rank points. Now, as with other issues they seem totally incapable of coming up with a fix for it.

Serious.7083:

Reducing AoE healing and increasing damage would possibly help. The problem is simply that huge numbers of players create large amounts of damage but also heal each other and strip conditions very effectively.

I’m not saying that a properly trained and prepared smaller group cannot destroy a blob, they often can. The problem is they really have to be prepared and on top of their game. The other side is if the blob is properly prepared too the smaller group are going to get rolled over no matter what they do.

Really anet created this problem when they limited AoE damage to 5 enemies. They made it worse when they put in WvW rank points. Now, as with other issues they seem totally incapable of coming up with a fix for it.

I play games to have fun. The moment it becomes work is usually when I lose interest. None the less, my guild has tried multiple variations of builds and specs to overcome great numbers to no avail. There is simply nothing to do when you’re outnumbered 3:1 except run.

Anet can’t fix it now without upsetting people. Actually, no matter what they do players will be upset. If they erase the arbitrary distinctions of the servers EoTM style for full on 24/7 blob wars with equal continuous coverage, players will cry foul. If they debuff the server(s) fielding way way more players (or do the inverse), players will cry foul. If they merge servers, players will cry foul and be a tacit admission of a declining player base. Anet has painted itself into a corner with no easy escape and HoT’s new maps aren’t going to make it any easier with respect to the underlying fundamental problem WvW has: too few players for the number of servers playing.

Serious.7083:

Really anet created this problem when they limited AoE damage to 5 enemies.

Except that the reason zerging is so strong is because of the unlimited incoming AoE damage. That’s why zerg AoE bombing is effective. The limited outgoing AoE damage (what you are talking about) is a minor factor, most of the time you’ll barely be hitting 5 people even if its in the middle of a zerg.

Dawdler.8521:

Turning on friendly fire remain by far the best – and most hilarious – idea.

Come on. It will be glorious.

No . just no.

I came from another game that had friendly fire in World PvP zones, with only your 4 man party immune to your damage. It was a complete mess. You couldnt do any GvG and as the other poster said it basically encouraged everyone to go ranged. So Rangers and Mages reined supreme.

And no it was never glorious.

Fred Fargone.3127:

My two cents is that, AoE system which encourages people to stand as closely together as possible is far from optimal.

Here are a few ideas on fixing this (or at the very least, improving the system), encouraging people to spread out and actually use different tactics when it comes to siege choices:

Note: These are alternatives, although some of them could be combined together. I’m not saying “implement them all”, I’m just throwing around few different approaches to improve the system. If you got better ideas, tell them

Ticket system
Instead of spreading out the AoE damage to random players, assign everyone a hidden number. 5 lowest numbers take all the AoE damage (and AoE heals). This way, you’re not combatting the entire healthpool of a zergball at once, but reduce the combat effectiveness of the zergball at a reasonable pace as the ball loses players. In order to avoid exploitation of the players knowing the order they die (and frankly, it’d be a tad bit unfair for the same people to always die first), reassign numbers every 5 minutes.

Commander dies first
Commander can be a huge boon to the zerg. Discourage the ball behavior by prioritizing people with active commander tags, then passive commander tags and lastly people with no commander tags.

Siege damaged always
Sometimes, the whole point of the zergball is to just sweep the enemy fort with an arrowcart, securing it by balling around it. Ensuring the siege always takes damage gives back some of the strategic abilities of few players defending towers and forts, forcing the zergball to rethink it’s approach.

//Less feasible suggestions:
Increase number of players damaged by AoE
Just an idea. I know, lots of calculations and probably not feasible.

Everyone takes reduced damage
As I understand, the reason the damage is limited to 5 players is because there are just too many calculations to handle. So, when AoE hits >5 players, do less calculations per damage. Like, half the incoming damage and apply it to everyone. Perhaps not the optimal solution, but some could argue it’s still an improvement to the current system.

Very early in the game there was no AOE limit. The limits were done due to technical limitations of the actual hardware capabilities. And as you know, we are still pushing the very limits of that as is, just look at the lag at big battles.

Due to the above, none of it, or anything like this will be implimented. Additional “tickets” or whatever else you wanan call them, especially zerg wise, and this is about vs zergs, means a ton of additional calculations, which would go pass the limits.

So any idea, has to be within the scope and capability of the current hardware to handle. Sorry but, even if its good, it just can’t be done on current system due to additional calculations.

If only we had a way to damage more than 5 players in a single cast. Oh…

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meteor_Shower

I’d love each meteor to hit 20 people though. Wonder how the retaliation is going to feel like.

In all seriousness, there are already skills, (mostly lines) that can affect a ton of players. Maybe we could use more of those?

combating Zergs , new Desert boarder land , thin bridge or larva bridge .

Mobility CC Squad , Cripple/Chill/immobo 20-30 players , 10 player KD, Push squad = lemmings splat.

don’t worry it will get easier.

I think there are 2 decent ways you can combat zergballs (which by the way would make a great character name lol)

1) Add another trap that costs supple to drop. Have the trap affect 50 people and either do mass damage to all 50 people in say 2000 AoE (and ignores defense). Or just simply cut 50% of their hp in half in the same AoE range.

2) Have players attacks have a chance to chain to additional targets of up to maybe 10-15 additional people. Maybe make it a 10% chance. Using the ele’s chain lightning for example. Instead of it bouncing 3 times, it bounces 10 times. Or rangers rapid fire has a chance to chain to additional targets in the vicinity. It’s not AoE per say, just chances to bounce to additional targets.

DeadlySynz.3471:

1) Add another trap that costs supple to drop. Have the trap affect 50 people and either do mass damage to all 50 people in say 2000 AoE (and ignores defense). Or just simply cut 50% of their hp in half in the same AoE range.

There is already such a thing ingame. Its called an “arrowcart”. You should try it sometimes.

I think siege should always take damage from AoEs is a good point.

I’m not against zerging but at a certain point it should become discouraged. 30-40 is about right in my opinion. Seen map blobs building ACs to take out groups half their size and really I don’t think that type of behaviour should be propagated over straight up fighting.

On the subject of fighting, I wish there was more of that. To get a fight nowadays we have to attack their keeps with WPs and 8 superior ACs, even then the servers we’re fighting won’t fight till half of us are low.

I go to WvW for fights and taking objectives but it’s rapidly becoming a PPT k-train as my server gets higher up in silver/bottom gold.

apharma.3741:

I’m not against zerging but at a certain point it should become discouraged. 30-40 is about right in my opinion. Seen map blobs building ACs to take out groups half their size and really I don’t think that type of behaviour should be propagated over straight up fighting.

So how did you plan to “discourage” it without adding some ridiculus limitation, penalty or restriction?

Fact is, the reason GW2 WvW is popular is because we have made it our own. Players set the bar. Players play how they want to play. Nobody told us to zerg when the game launched, it happens because its the natural pack behaviour. Once you start enforcing certain ways to play the game because reasons and tell people that the way they play is wrong (I think zerging is bad and everybody should feel bad about it!), you will only make people unhappy. WvW is still very popular for a reason, zerging hasnt killed it these 3 years and it probably wont hurt it the next 3 years either.

Besides, at a certain point its already being “discouraged”. A 30 man zerg may not be able to wipe an 60 man zerg, but their time to cap is pretty much the same. 2x 30 man zergs cap more things, plain and simple. Coverage and population of course comes into play (2x 30 man is still less than 2x 60 man), but that has nothing to do with individual zerg behaviour. That is a much larger issue that need to be looked at from server and PPT scoring perspective.

TL;DR
You cant fix people.

You can discourage it with bottlenecks. A Zerg of 70 in a bottle neck will die to a group of 30 if they play well in which case there’s no reason to be having the extra 40 people there instead of going after another objective.

You can also make maps with the idea that traversing it as a large group is almost hazardous. Where as traveling in smaller tighter groups is as fast as always. This can be seen in some aspects of the new borderland map with the traps built into keeps where a large group can easily find itself divided where as a smaller co-ordinated group is more likely to stay together.

I’m not saying enforce, I’m saying discourage, there is a world of difference between the two. Which is what I said, it should be discouraged after a certain size where it may even take longer to do something with more people past a certain threshold.

To win from an blob in WvW, you need to have atleast these things.
1st: 20 people vs 60 is possible to win, but a lot of training with your guild is needed + the right classes needs to be played. same for 25 or 30 vs 70.
2nd: Play with the idea like, if we get 1 of them dead, 5 of us will res up.
This means that if you see somebody down, kill it instantly even the commander will tell the people to focus the downed directly. This will save you in most battles, cause the battle standard can be very very slow at times so also try to keep that in mind.
Nowadays things like reflect is also very important and like always try to focus their backline down first!

coglin.1867:

aspirine.6852:

Before the stability changes a guild group made a good chance on hurting a zerg. But these days even guilds run in zerg mode, or worse, zerg size :/

Kind of, but not necessarily. Most of that was because they had the crutch of stability to neuter CC of the other group.

To the OPs point, many other things contribute to a benefit of staying together, such as AoE cleanses and AoE boons.

Personally I find it completely illogical to want to come into a game mode designed around large scale combat and want to redesign it to add artificial concepts to create handicaps for large forces. If you dislike large force combat, go play PvP. I do not understand the concept of complaining about RvR or WvW combat having large forces and trying to artificially force players there to fight individually or in small groups. Particularly when there are other game modes already designed for thay style of combat.

What’s kinda funny is it’s the complaints of the zerg attackers that’s have wvw in the state it’s in now, along with most of the skill changes that’s been implemented in the past year or two.

It has caused the creation siege disablers, ac LOS decrease and additional cooldowns. The increase of AOE size to the point that they completely cover fort walls. Non-rezzing of lords and anyone remember no swords on structures and camps being attacked.

Lets talk about the skills that were nerfed due to complaints from zergers because they were mad cause someone manage to run thru their lines, or outran them trying not to die the death of 500 condi hits.

Yea there’s allot to say about handicapping large zerges but it seems some zergers are zerges worst enemy.

OH!!!! when most people are doing PVE and life story events who are the zerges fighting? Is not PVD the same as PVE?

Vermillion.4061:

I’m highly against zergs but 5 players should not be allowed to kill an entire zerg.

Actually yes they should. If you have 30 people dumb enough to stand in red circles for extended amounts of time they deserve to die, even to 1 person.

This whole “larger groups should not die to smaller groups” mentality is stupidity. How’s about we promote learning to play and get rid of brainless kitten ’ing out.

Once again if a zerg wiped to 5 people, it’s the zergs fault not the game mechanics.

Random.4691:

Vermillion.4061:

I’m highly against zergs but 5 players should not be allowed to kill an entire zerg.

Actually yes they should. If you have 30 people dumb enough to stand in red circles for extended amounts of time they deserve to die, even to 1 person.

This whole “larger groups should not die to smaller groups” mentality is stupidity. How’s about we promote learning to play and get rid of brainless kitten ’ing out.

Once again if a zerg wiped to 5 people, it’s the zergs fault not the game mechanics.

Random.. this is rite on the money. People should not rely on troll posts to constantly try to make things their way and learn to be adaptable.