Guild Wars 2

The Lack of Bomb Groups, and Speed.

That can sum up most of GW2 WvW problems and why Zergs are so prevalent in this game.

Now you maybe wondering about the Speed part, and why I include that as a problem with this game.

Its really simple..Because like Real Life, Speed plays a part in how fast you can move an army across a set distance. In Real life, usually the larger the army you had the slower your army was. Its why you had scouting parties and smaller forces able to cover distances quicker

DAOC covered this with Skalds/Minstrels/Bards and to the lesser extent Caster Speed, This let groups move across the map very quickly, However when moving a Zerg across a map in DAOC, not every group had a skald/minstrel/bard, Hell most weren’t even grouped at all, This meant while you had the advantage of numbers as a Zerg, you lacked the speed to catch smaller groups and forces that actually had speed. This allowed Smaller population Realms to take objectives quicker then the zerg could react.

It also allowed Bomb Groups to be in the game. Which was a counter to Zergs, Moving a group in very quickly and broadsiding large numbers and blowing them up was how you dealt with these Massive Zergs. This made moving a Slow Moving zerg across a map much more dangerous then it is in this game.

Which is part of the problem with this game.

You have an AOE cap that limits bomb groups, and you had Swiftness available easily and readily to large number of people by simply throwing it down. This allow Zergs to move just as quickly as smaller groups across the map..Hell sometimes the zerg actually moves faster cause they have more Swiftness Available.

Throw in smaller issues like the Downed System/Rallying and the abundance of AOE buffs and you have the quagmire you have right now where Smaller Population Servers are always going to lose to larger population servers, and Zerging is the primary tactic and meta of World vs World as it yields the most reward with little to no negatives…

Anet talked about DAOC before GW2 was released, and how they took the fundamental idea of it and made World vs World, yet at the same time…They’ve failed so many times on the core basics of that game that honestly shouldn’t of been changed if you were trying to copy it. They worked in that game, Hell the game itself may have been a fluke by Mythic, but what they got right, they bloody got right..

Currently, small groups win against large groups through intelligent use of siege and terrain.

In DAoC, small groups won against large groups through intelligent use of lag, group composition, bursting tactics (when I played it was 3 PBAoE classes stacked on each other or 3 2-hander users focusing down one person at a time), buff bots, AoE CC, and stacking group-healers/endurance buffers to keep everything running quickly and smoothly.

GW2 removed most of that list, and pulled the teeth out of the rest of it. Bursting tactics don’t work as well because of the downed state and the AoE cap. AoE CC is far shorter in duration, and requires far more coordination. Healing is far more distributed and requires a lot more coordination and planning (so much that most people don’t bother).

What GW2 added was siege. They’ve tweaked it, and will continue to do so. Even so, what hasn’t changed is the idea that keeps, supply, and siege must be important in WvW. That was a huge failing in DAoC. Most of RvR consisted of roaming around Emain and fighting people to harvest points, with little consideration of what structures belonged to whom. Occasionally there’d be a keep siege just to shake things up, but it wasn’t a necessity. Less frequently there’d be a Relic Raid, but they took forever and didn’t really change much. Owning relics provided incredibly minor bonuses, so if you didn’t own them it didn’t really effect you all that much. The only siege engines that mattered were rams, for the most part.

ANet obviously determined that this was a huge failing on Mythic’s part, and endeavored to fix it. Most of the WvW rankings give you bonuses to siege, and none of them offer advantages to actually fighting people. Far more WXP is rewarded for taking or defending structures than for racking up kills. Unlike DAoC, properly placed siege often swings fights. Unlike DAoC, ownership of keeps is incredibly important and changes where people are fighting and who we’re fighting.

TL – DR Version:

In DAoC RvR was about getting kills as efficiently as possible. Keeps and siege were largely incidental, to the point where many players actively avoided keep warfare.

In GW2 WvW is about taking and defending strategic points using siege and supply.

Straegen.2938:

PinCushion.7390:

In DAoC, small groups won against large groups through intelligent use of lag, group composition, bursting tactics (when I played it was 3 PBAoE classes stacked on each other or 3 2-hander users focusing down one person at a time), buff bots, AoE CC, and stacking group-healers/endurance buffers to keep everything running quickly and smoothly.

In DAOC smaller groups won through effective use of control abilities. Stuns, dazes and the like had no limit so a big group could easily be at the mercy of a few well timed stuns. I think ANet should remove the target cap for stuns. I get why it is there for AoE, but stacking would become really dangerous with this change.

Until my old computer died, I had a screenshot saved of my group killing about 50 other people because we zoomed into them while they were huddled on top of each other (hooray for /follow). Our bard landed an amazing mez and we just AoEed them all to death in about 10 seconds. They couldn’t really react to us because of lag (we had stood on a hill watching them so all their models would load up in advance).

While that was a lot of fun for me, I can’t imagine it was a lot of fun for those 50 people. From my perspective we did all this planning, group makeup, and positioning. From their perspective they were trying to get into a keep, their computers froze for a second, and then they were dead. Honestly, I’m glad that gameplay is much harder to pull off in GW2.

PinCushion.7390:

Currently, small groups win against large groups through intelligent use of siege and terrain.

In DAoC, small groups won against large groups through intelligent use of lag, group composition, bursting tactics (when I played it was 3 PBAoE classes stacked on each other or 3 2-hander users focusing down one person at a time), buff bots, AoE CC, and stacking group-healers/endurance buffers to keep everything running quickly and smoothly.

GW2 removed most of that list, and pulled the teeth out of the rest of it. Bursting tactics don’t work as well because of the downed state and the AoE cap. AoE CC is far shorter in duration, and requires far more coordination. Healing is far more distributed and requires a lot more coordination and planning (so much that most people don’t bother).

What GW2 added was siege. They’ve tweaked it, and will continue to do so. Even so, what hasn’t changed is the idea that keeps, supply, and siege must be important in WvW. That was a huge failing in DAoC. Most of RvR consisted of roaming around Emain and fighting people to harvest points, with little consideration of what structures belonged to whom. Occasionally there’d be a keep siege just to shake things up, but it wasn’t a necessity. Less frequently there’d be a Relic Raid, but they took forever and didn’t really change much. Owning relics provided incredibly minor bonuses, so if you didn’t own them it didn’t really effect you all that much. The only siege engines that mattered were rams, for the most part.

ANet obviously determined that this was a huge failing on Mythic’s part, and endeavored to fix it. Most of the WvW rankings give you bonuses to siege, and none of them offer advantages to actually fighting people. Far more WXP is rewarded for taking or defending structures than for racking up kills. Unlike DAoC, properly placed siege often swings fights. Unlike DAoC, ownership of keeps is incredibly important and changes where people are fighting and who we’re fighting.

TL – DR Version:

In DAoC RvR was about getting kills as efficiently as possible. Keeps and siege were largely incidental, to the point where many players actively avoided keep warfare.

In GW2 WvW is about taking and defending strategic points using siege and supply.

Ehh, I played DAOC from the start, and I can tell you keep warfare wasn’t ignored at all because it was one of the best places to Farm Realm Points.

New Frontiers when it was released a prime example of farming for Low population servers, Midgard Merlin when dealing with the Larger populated Albion server would deal with it by taking a single tower in the Albion lands, Not a keep….not even a useful tower, We’d always take one that allowed the enemy to port. They out numbered us by quite a large amount….So the entire Zerg of Midgard that we had would sit in this tower, and wait for the Albion Response, and sure enough.. they’d show up… get farmed a couple times then rage quit and thats when we’d start taking other Structures in the area. I could rack up a large amount of Realm Points solo doing this as a DarkCarver Runemaster (My zerging toon)….Its about like Zerg Surfing in this game, Use Lots of AOE to target lots of people, At least in DAOC I actually had to do damage to get the most Realm Points.

As for roaming in Emain, That depends…If you were an 8 man it was about Roaming, however soloing and zerging in Emain tended to focus on controlling the 2 Main Keeps out there, Or Controlling a Milegate.

Relics didn’t provide minor bonus’s They provided 20% Melee Damage increase and 20% Magic Damage (Plus healing) increase if you had all 6, that was fairly major.

As for Siege, depends..Early on I agree that Rams only mattered, Catapults though could be quite nasty during New Frontier’s, Though I admit most people chose not to actually use them to their full effectiveness, But They were one of the ways I dealt with groups camping the bridges in NF time…..Hib groups were very prone to camping Bled Bridge for example, and the best way to deal with them was to build like 6 or 7 catapults outside the bridge ammo and load up a bunch of special ammo (fire or ice)…..300 damage isn’t alot in that game, 300 damage hitting you every few seconds by 6-7 catapults that can hit through walls though… is…

PinCushion.7390:

Straegen.2938:

PinCushion.7390:

In DAoC, small groups won against large groups through intelligent use of lag, group composition, bursting tactics (when I played it was 3 PBAoE classes stacked on each other or 3 2-hander users focusing down one person at a time), buff bots, AoE CC, and stacking group-healers/endurance buffers to keep everything running quickly and smoothly.

In DAOC smaller groups won through effective use of control abilities. Stuns, dazes and the like had no limit so a big group could easily be at the mercy of a few well timed stuns. I think ANet should remove the target cap for stuns. I get why it is there for AoE, but stacking would become really dangerous with this change.

Until my old computer died, I had a screenshot saved of my group killing about 50 other people because we zoomed into them while they were huddled on top of each other (hooray for /follow). Our bard landed an amazing mez and we just AoEed them all to death in about 10 seconds. They couldn’t really react to us because of lag (we had stood on a hill watching them so all their models would load up in advance).

While that was a lot of fun for me, I can’t imagine it was a lot of fun for those 50 people. From my perspective we did all this planning, group makeup, and positioning. From their perspective they were trying to get into a keep, their computers froze for a second, and then they were dead. Honestly, I’m glad that gameplay is much harder to pull off in GW2.

If you didn’t pan you deserved to get dive bombed in that game.

Hell this was even more stressed later on when they provided the zerg things like Speedwarp.

PinCushion.7390:

In GW2 WvW is about taking and defending strategic points using siege and supply.

Unfortunately true. That’s why WvW has been renamed ACvAC

style.6173:

PinCushion.7390:

In GW2 WvW is about taking and defending strategic points using siege and supply.

Unfortunately true. That’s why WvW has been renamed ACvAC

In daoc the players were the arrow carts

• Flatten the BL map
• Remove the lake
• Reduce the size of Citadels by 90%
• Relocate Citadels to the top north part of the map
• Turn Hills and Bay into towers (reduce size to the size of inner)
• Put two new towers at NW and NE corner of the map
• Move invader spawns slightly to in between SW Camp / Bay and SE Camp / Hills
• Remove all PvE events

EDIT: Just to show how much potential map space is going to waste at the moment.

EFWinters.5421:

• Flatten the BL map
• Remove the lake
• Reduce the size of Citadels by 90%
• Relocate Citadels to the top north part of the map
• Turn Hills and Bay into towers (reduce size to the size of inner)
• Put two new towers at NW and NE corner of the map
• Move invader spawns slightly to in between SW Camp / Bay and SE Camp / Hills
• Remove all PvE events

EDIT: Just to show how much potential map space is going to waste at the moment.

And have our aesthetically pleasing, beautiful borderlands look like a Minecraft flatworld spliced with the clutteredness of Eternal Battlegrounds? No thanks.