Guild Wars 2

When you look at the situation in WvW and the most critical issues – blobbing and lag – then look again at the WvW maps, something that was in-your-face since the start becomes clear.

At some point in the future, ANet will do the inevitable, and only reasonable fix for both of the problems.

1. They will finally agree that the maps they made are small, too small for the number of people on them.
2. They will finally agree that they can’t do anything about the blobbing because that is the best way to get most of the rewards.
3. They will finally agree they can’t spend millions on new server hardware to fix the skill lag.

What they will do then is pretty clear.

A. They will introduce Layers to all 4 WvW maps.
B. They will cut down the total number of people per map to about 60-90, about 20-30 per server, per map. That’s about the correct number for the tiny maps we got.
C. The excess people will be put in other layers. So there will be EB#1, EB#2, EB#3…
D. Lag will disappear, blobs will disappear, queues will disappear, defending will be more realistic, no 100-golem rush problems.. and so on.

That is the meta, everything will lead to this eventually, it’s inevitable. ANet could as well do it ASAP and focus on solving the new issues (scoring across layers, guilds wanting to stay together in 1 layer) the new mechanics will bring.

PS. Did I mention that layers are the solution for GvG matches?

layers are not the salution tho
the only thing i can think of that would fix skill lag is larger maps and/or new servers

I hate this idea.

I think the maps are a little small, yes. A blob with swiftness can cross the map to defend a keep faster than a small group can secure it. That’s the reason blobbing is effective. So if a small group could take an objective faster than a zerg on the other side of the map could come to save it, blobbing would quickly become ineffective.

What you need is for 2 groups of 20 to be able to take objectives faster than a group of 40 can take them both out. Splitting forces across the map would become necessary to hold everything down.

So how?

Either you increase the speed at which small groups can ram down gates (especially wooden ones) by giving them a way to increase supply capacity or boost ram damage; or, you try to stretch out the maps (if they dont want to put alot of work into this I’d juat keep all the proportions similar but just scale everything up rather than add big stretches of boring land).

To get rid of the blob/zerg is easy. How about actually giving us an in-game grouping system that ISN’T a zerg. We only have one way to group over 5 people and that is the current commander and squad system. Pin goes up and invites everyone in the zone to flock to it and cannot be made private.

Give us a way to create private squads and you’ll have more medium sized forces running around the zones instead of one massive zerg.

You can already CTL T your commander and all organised groups use TS so while I’d like a better grouping system I don’t think it’d change much in this regard.

shadowraith.9124:

You can already CTL T your commander and all organised groups use TS so while I’d like a better grouping system I don’t think it’d change much in this regard.

MMO’s that came out 6 years ago have 20x the grouping functions the commander and squad system has. A third party voice program is not a decent substitute for lack of in game grouping and organizing tools. We use TS and Ventrilo because we HAVE too, it’s pretty much impossible to organize properly using what is given to us in game.

They need to grab some devs away from the living story content for a week and let’s fix all the UI bugs in WvW and give us some BASIC functionality to group in-game.

Overflow is not the solution. Because how will you distribute points?
We fight Gandara and MS which both of them have tripple of our population. So we would be only in first map, maybe in overflow if big attack. But Gandara would have 4 overflows controlled. Without any chance for our server to even join those overflows.

There is much simplier solution to blobs and zergs = better grouping options.
Right now if you have say 30 people, you will pop up commander tag, because it is the only way how to manage this numbers. And it will attract pugs on map. And here you got a blob.
But with private commanders, or much larger groups, you dont need to pop up commander tag and do pugs will follow you= no blob but guild group.

Don’t agree. It’s not hard to have an organised group without a commander tag atm. We do it all the time. True, there should be better grouping in-game but the people who want to run organised smaller groups without tagging up already are doing.

The problem is that blobing is currently more effective than not doing.

Taking devs away from living story to work on the core gameplay and existing issues? Signed. Signed a million times. Who actually cares about living story? All the achievements are so painfully repetitive that everyone I know who participates in living story view it as a ‘necessary evil’.

Splitting into other layers won’t work. You’ll end up with people on other layers all from 1 side and therefore will be 100% PVD. The only ways to minimize the blobs and lags and increase competition is to decrease the size of the people allowed into WvW. Only allow similar numbers from each side into the battlefield. Notice I said similar and not exact. If the cap is 60 on map but the 2 other servers can only field 20-30, then the 60 cap must be reduced to 36 or so. They should not be allowed more than 20%. Others will be in the queue waiting. If they don’t want queue, they shouldn’t be stacking on that server in the first place. Open up free transfers to lower tiers and say, move over there for competition and stop blobbing/PVD your way to victory. This game will remain a stacking wars until something is implemented. Boosting arrow carts was no zerg buster as was claim. Outnumbered “Outmanned” did nothing to make people want to do WvW. Only the players can fix it and rebalance the game. Apply the mechanics into the system and we’ll see more equal fights and eventually less blobbing and lagging.

As long as down state exist defending will be pointless.

I don’t think layers will happen, too messy and inconsistent with the direction ANET has said they want to take the game. Despite how much I may disagree with their approach on things in WvW sometimes, they do tend to stick with their vision and for that I have to give them credit.

They can’t make bigger maps, I am pretty sure they’ve run into a limitation there already and then there is the danger of making more maps for the worlds that already can’t fill the ones they have. I would say one new map is all it would take to alleviate a lot of the tension, a map that does not have traditional objectives that count towards the score and has more open space for roaming, ganking and GvGers. The EB jumping puzzle could be pulled completely out and put into the new map as the underground component and replaced in EB with more underground tunnel access between keeps and towers with some traps and fun sneaky ways for out manned opponents to accomplish things.

Then maybe they would find they need to tweak the borderland maps a bit, maybe even make them a bit smaller with fewer keeps and towers and much lower population caps so the battles taking place there actually feel like they have an impact. I’d be in complete favor of those kitten lakes drying up as well. >< Hate water fights in WvW. Instances of WvW is just not the best answers of all the many ways they could address these issues.

There already is a solution to blob and lag. Anet has given you 24 servers to play on. Why don’t you use them? They went to the trouble to make sure there are enough servers to support the North American player population. So don’t expect them to shed tears because everyone bandwagoned onto just a couple of those servers.

If anything, they should make the lag worse so people actually transfer to the lower tier servers and make WvW as a whole more interesting as opposed to a rehash of the same fights over and over again.

Aeros.2046:

There already is a solution to blob and lag. Anet has given you 24 servers to play on. Why don’t you use them? They went to the trouble to make sure there are enough servers to support the North American player population. So don’t expect them to shed tears because everyone bandwagoned onto just a couple of those servers.

How many people will be willing to pay so much to transfer into servers that aren’t winning? Anet needs to make it free to transfer between servers that aren’t in the top 6. Until more Anet figures out how to rebalance the game, this game will eventually have WvW collapse and end. Remember “Alliance Battles” from GW1? It was awesome and all when it first came out. The queues were rediculous. Over a period of time, it became “Ghost Battles”. WvW is a remaking of AB from what I can tell. You do noticed that many guilds/players that was once in the top ranked servers already quit and left the game. It’s only a matter of time that most who are strictly into WvW will quit and or leave game. Anet went through the trouble of the 24 or so servers is because they lack the space to accomodate too many players in a few servers. It gets full so they need to make room to prevent their servers from crashing.

Remove AOE caps. Zerging provides too many advantages beyond numbers, making it the inevitable response.

Remove the downstate and have a speed debuff on the location of a large group of players when out of combat called march (because when did large armies zipping around become a thing?).

As long as I can’t go anywhere without getting ganked by thieves, I refuse to do anything without a zerg

Ahmrill.7512:

To get rid of the blob/zerg is easy. How about actually giving us an in-game grouping system that ISN’T a zerg. We only have one way to group over 5 people and that is the current commander and squad system. Pin goes up and invites everyone in the zone to flock to it and cannot be made private.

Give us a way to create private squads and you’ll have more medium sized forces running around the zones instead of one massive zerg.

I see this as a reasonable and viable start to an anti zerg system.

Players could enter the map and select from a list of active commanders to join. Once they reach the cap of 20 no one else can join unless some leaves and so on.

I think the creative players will find ways to still maintain the full on zerg though. The use of Voip, party target commands and such will still allow for players to group up informally if they choose but it would certainly force those groups to step up co-ordination if the wanted to put 80 people on the same objective.

Map conversation is already being minimized by the use of Voip to co-ordinate the dedicated players. The introduction of a proper squad system could drastically improve the overall game play or it could break it if the casual players don’t play along with it.

LOCK a MAP if you leave it, you cannot hop back for atleast 2-3 hrs. If a zerg wants to run as a zerg, let them do it on one map and one map alone. Not to map hop at the last moment to save a keep and negate the hard work of the few who put the effort into the siege.

shadowraith.9124:

The problem is that blobing is currently more effective than not doing.

Maybe an AoE debuff as a group grows in size? As the group (defined simply by the number of people in a certain radius) expands beyond 20, for example, then the debuff increases significantly, nullifying the blob benefits?

Ezeriel.9574:

As long as I can’t go anywhere without getting ganked by thieves, I refuse to do anything without a zerg

I do solo roaming most of the time in WvWvW, generally as an engineer, but I have used all the professions. I generally don’t have trouble with 1 vs 1, but I know this is one of the reasons why so many players prefer to run in a group.

A thief can be traited to steal (teleport + dmg, also often inflicts poison) from 1500 range, become stealthed upon stealing, thus giving the thief a head start in the combat unless the player is always fully aware of all surroundings. A full glass thief with perfect gear + consumables + 25 stacks of bloodlust can crit 20k backstab against 2.5k armor. Full bunkers can survive this burst, but even their health pool will take a serious dent. Full bunkers lack the burst to take down a good thief, thus it is just surviving. If a thief fails the ganking attempt it can always use stealth, shadowstepping + high mobility to reset the fight, remove conditions and heal in stealth. Low risk combined with excessive burst and repeated stealth is a broken combination for WvWvW.

I think the best play to reduce the blobs would be tone down some of the major benefits of zerging:

1) combo fields
Currently some of the combo fields are way too strong: water, fire, smoke and lightning. Many guild groups fun with big might stacks, swiftness, area healing, condition removal (and sometimes also retaliation) from combo fields. They allow the zerg to heal away damage from siege fire, move very fast, inflict massive damage, area retaliation. Reduce the effectiveness of these by 30-50% for WvWvW

2) rewards
Dividing WXP rewards and loot per number of players would lead to some player hate (“go away, you’re halving my reward when killing dolyak”), but they could use some middle road, like this:
E.g. 3 players get full reward from capturing a supply camp, but more than 3 players get reduced rewards e.g. 1-3 = full reward, 4-6 = 75% reward, 7-15 = 50% reward, 16- = 25% = reward
same thing for all objectives, but the bigger the objective the larger the limits e.g. for keep it might be 20 players, 10 for tower and 30 for castle