Guild Wars 2

I am a new player about to migrate from another MMO. I’ve been looking at GW2 for some time now, tried playing for a couple hours here and there, things looked fine.

But.

My main interest is WWW and, being a curious pup, I watched quite a number of streams (over the last few weeks, so not just the current holiday) to see what it looks like. In 90% of the cases all I saw was zergs – a big ball of people rolling from one location to another killing what little resistance they met with no visible strategy. Sometimes one big ball collided with another big ball, making for some chaos, but again – no visible strategy.

I know how zergs work in other MMOs (pretty mindless) so this is a huge turn off. My questions are:

Was I unlucky or is WWW for the most part really just a zerg? Can you have an interesting game playing WWW solo (I am not against small parties, but let’s keep it simple and insist on solo)?

Thanks.

WvW are only zergs and blobs. Or GuildvsGuild.
Playing solo or in small party is not an option, because there will always be 20 man zerg ready for you.

Haha, that’s not true. I spend 90% of my time solo roaming/scouting, and that’s usually when I find my lovely 1v1’s and 2v1s

To the OP: WvW is whatever you want to make it. Yes, there are significant blobs everywhere, because for some players it’s easier — and that’s style of play they want. For others, you can find multi-layers of things to do that will challenge you — but it takes time in WvW to suss that out for yourself.

Zerging is rewarded in this game, therefore it is done a lot on most servers. Currently the mechanics work against being a smaller force engaging the zerg.

Many guilds have taken up “zerg busting”, but even then it is a bit of irony because you are talking about 15-20 people (some would consider 20 folks a “zerg”) on average going against 30-50man zergs. (and all of those numbers fluctuate depending on what tier(s) you are speaking of)

I spend most of my time in wvw solo roaming and get plenty of action doing so (1v1 1v2 1v3). You do have to run from zergs a bit but it is not a massive issue. I would recommend a lower tier server to avoid the really big zergs.

EDIT: Loot is crap solo but I don’t need shiny things to win a fight.
Gear with the best stat numbers is available through wvw…it just look crap.

And LOL if you can’t avoid 20 man zerg wtf……

My guild has about 5 semi-active players in it and we have a blast whenever everyone is on.

The real answer to your question though is it depends. The higher the tier the harder it is to roam/skirmish. T5 and lower has some great skirmishing. Above T5 particularly during prime time avoiding a zerg can be difficult but still doable.

The thing that makes WvW in GW2 so fun is how dynamic the combat is. 5 players call targeting with complimentary builds to each other can decimate 2x, 3x or more their numbers. I have seen 10 man teams push back big zergs and 20 man teams outright destroy four times their number. Teamwork in this game is more important than any other MMO I have tried. Even in the zergs, strategy of a player may not be as important but leader strategy certainly is.

wvw is garbage.
Yes its zerg. vs. zerg.

Nothing else.

The people that talk about 1v1, or 1v2-3 only gets fights once every 45 minutes or so. (and thats being very lenient)

even when that is the case, theres a 99% chance that the person that you are fighting against is a very mobile class that will reset/flee the fight at any chance of loss.

There is no strat to this game for wvw or pvp. If you play a non mobile class for the solo game play and pretend being a scout means something then you are screwed. And just by the way, you add nothing to the wvw.

So if you have no interest in zerging, you have come to the wrong game.

Martolly.2576:

wvw is garbage.
Yes its zerg. vs. zerg.

Nothing else.

The people that talk about 1v1, or 1v2-3 only gets fights once every 45 minutes or so. (and thats being very lenient)

even when that is the case, theres a 99% chance that the person that you are fighting against is a very mobile class that will reset/flee the fight at any chance of loss.

There is no strat to this game for wvw or pvp. If you play a non mobile class for the solo game play and pretend being a scout means something then you are screwed. And just by the way, you add nothing to the wvw.

So if you have no interest in zerging, you have come to the wrong game.

Ignore this guys post…total bs.

Apart from the ocasional skill lag/normal lag, zerg vs zerg doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no skill involved. In my server a PUG group remotely organized (around a commander) can frequently defeat enemy PUG zergs and challenge guild groups. How? Because they know what to do, we have many WvW guilds so many of them have plenty of fighting experience
Smart people don’t just press 1 in a fight, they use their skills, they dodge, they stick together, they regroup, they heal and support eachother, they survive, they kill the enemy, they win
A PUG group doesn’t necessarily mean a group of untrained monkeys running behind a blue commander tag. Usually it means that in lower tiers, and that is part of the reason why they are in lower tiers (coverage plays a big role too)
Vabbi can make a 30 man group, but SFR’s 15 man group can easily wipe them if they are PvE scrubs used to only autoattacking mobs and facesmashing their keyboards
And it’s not just SFR, there are plenty of servers like that

There’s also more to do in WvW. Join a guild and get those small/mid-scale goods fights where everyone is (hopefully) coordinated, roam, scout or defend

You can do small scale I often do it to cut off reinforcements. Or large scale it has more to offer than it seems. Some times for like a t3 keep A retracted siege takes a ton of supply so the more people you have the better, but even in these large groups there is micro play buffing, healing stealth, curing and so on. It really depends on what server your on numbers/tactics/vigor If I were you I would go to TC they have a great mix of everything and fight very hard in wvw.

Creo.8750:

I am a new player about to migrate from another MMO. I’ve been looking at GW2 for some time now, tried playing for a couple hours here and there, things looked fine.

But.

My main interest is WWW and, being a curious pup, I watched quite a number of streams (over the last few weeks, so not just the current holiday) to see what it looks like. In 90% of the cases all I saw was zergs – a big ball of people rolling from one location to another killing what little resistance they met with no visible strategy. Sometimes one big ball collided with another big ball, making for some chaos, but again – no visible strategy.

I know how zergs work in other MMOs (pretty mindless) so this is a huge turn off. My questions are:

Was I unlucky or is WWW for the most part really just a zerg? Can you have an interesting game playing WWW solo (I am not against small parties, but let’s keep it simple and insist on solo)?

Thanks.

You would have to go to the lower “tiers” which is a strange thing now that everything’s kind of mixed up. But servers like FC ET SF GOM HOD NSP AR will have a lot of small man play (5-10 ppl) then moving up to mid tiers such as CD SoS IoJ DR DH KN BP YB etc will be about 20-40 ppl depending on timezone. Anything ranked 6-4 will be about the 40-50 people. 3-1 will be about massive fights 60+ almost in every bl.

http://mos.millenium.org/na/

you can use that as a reference, though I wouldn’t base it on the “tier” since they’re kinda shuffled around in different places – but as long as you pick a server ranked 15 and lower you should see very reasonable fights but due to RnG you might occasionally fight a server with 3x your numbers.

Good luck.

If you’re on a lower pop/tier server there’s a lot less ZvZ and a lot more skirmishing.

Sagramor.7395:

If you’re on a lower pop/tier server there’s a lot less ZvZ and a lot more skirmishing.

^^^This. I suggest you transfer to Ferguson’s Crossing. At any given reasonable hour usually 1 map will have a zerg, another map will have a modest group maybe 5-15, and the other 2 maps will be pretty much just roamers. You can find about any style of play you’re looking for. You will never see 4 maps full of zergs.

PM me if interested we have some fantastic guilds that would be more than welcoming.

kingcragus.6810:

Martolly.2576:

wvw is garbage.
Yes its zerg. vs. zerg.

Nothing else.

The people that talk about 1v1, or 1v2-3 only gets fights once every 45 minutes or so. (and thats being very lenient)

even when that is the case, theres a 99% chance that the person that you are fighting against is a very mobile class that will reset/flee the fight at any chance of loss.

There is no strat to this game for wvw or pvp. If you play a non mobile class for the solo game play and pretend being a scout means something then you are screwed. And just by the way, you add nothing to the wvw.

So if you have no interest in zerging, you have come to the wrong game.

Ignore this guys post…total bs.

You literally are lying by calling this “bull sh—”

Scouts honestly serve no purpose what-so-ever. This is a fact. I’m not sure what you are trying to sell here. But you do not need to lie to the guy. He came here for the truth of what actually happens.

The majority of the people on my server simply aren’t pvping this week especially because its only a zerg. vs. zerg.

Why would you tell a new person anything different than the truth. What purpose does that serve? As soon as they get to WvW they will see what actually happens. Clumps of terrible players taking battle objectives, “battle objective humping” as other games have previously coined the term.
There is no skill involved what-so-ever. Period. To say otherwise is nothing but a blatant lie in an attempt to preserve what ever type of false mentality you are trying to pose on the community.

If you are looking to solo, or small man, 90% of your time will be spent looking for an even fight that simply won’t happen more than once an hour. As i stated previously, One even small man vs. small man fight, or 1v2, or so on, is few, far and between.

You hit the nail on the direct head, mr. original post.

This game not only promotes zerging, it disables and hinders anyone not zerging.

These are just facts.

And if you want to call it ‘bull sh—" show me the server, any server. With a 30 minutes fraps/video of you or anyone doing small man, with out ’clipped’ streams i mean from walking out of base to the fights. Of more than 3 fights of even to near even odds, yes even if its a 5v10 sure, why not.

You won’t, you can’t unless its already rigged and you have already pre set up the video.
Hell you do that, ill personally give you 1000g in game gold.

But you won’t, because you can’t not on any server.

Period.

P.S. That’s a real challenge. Do it i dare you, show me! Please! Prove me wrong!
I want you to prove me wrong! I need you to prove me wrong, so that there is hope for this game!

Yes WvW is a giant zergfest with side skirmishes with mainly d/p theives. Goodluck roaming and doing a 1v1 or 1v2 etc you will just be rolled over by a smaller zerg of 15 people midway through your little skirmish

Yes it is unfortunately about zerging (though an extremely coordinated large group spreading out can be more productive). I have noticed a number of factors that contribute to this…

-The 5 target aoe limit: There is power in zergs because it is often not possible to reliably deal damage to a large group as your Area damage is capped at 5 targets (many in the zerg may not even take damage).

-The commander tag: Players tend to flock to any commanders on the map, forming zergballs around them. This is thanks to the poor grouping tools available- cant group more than 5, bad LFG system, poor group management/coordination tools all lead to balling around commanders. And commander costs 100g…im not sure why this is justified beyond $$$ for Arenanet or ensuring that all commanders can farm gold.

-People in large groups tend to get more loot because there are more people/npcs being killed and objectives being completed.

-It takes multiple people to siege anything except a supply camp (ok very good/motivated players can run back and forth for supply and solo cap a tower).

-Lots of lame roaming ganker types to deal with if not following zerg. Thieves, for example, can sneak up on many players and kill them very quickly and easily (or run away and stealth indefinitely). It can become rather frustrating.

-They do not want to be alone vs. the zerg that will inevitably roll them over

Etc.

WvW still needs significant development attention (re-development in my opinion) as it has not really had any changes over the past year, besides a ‘fix’ (removal of player culling) and the somewhat boring self-progression of world xp.

My first MMORPG was Shadowbane, a free for all pvp game with a big focus on siege warfare (but those were player built cities that would often take hours to win a siege against-or to lose, unlike here where it happens in a matter of minutes, 24/7). I loved that and it remains my favorite game model (the graphics, lag, bugs were bad) but I rarely play WvW because I think it is really lackluster now.

(ps there is also no point in winning/losing a week of WvW, besides the new opponent matchup)

Martolly.2576:

And if you want to call it ‘bull sh—" show me the server, any server. With a 30 minutes fraps/video of you or anyone doing small man, with out ’clipped’ streams i mean from walking out of base to the fights. Of more than 3 fights of even to near even odds, yes even if its a 5v10 sure, why not.

You won’t, you can’t unless its already rigged and you have already pre set up the video.
Hell you do that, ill personally give you 1000g in game gold.

But you won’t, because you can’t not on any server.

Period.

P.S. That’s a real challenge. Do it i dare you, show me! Please! Prove me wrong!
I want you to prove me wrong! I need you to prove me wrong, so that there is hope for this game!

:S I wonder what I’ve been doing almost every time I play WvW, then. I run with a guild group of 4 – 8 players, and almost every fight that we encounter is against even numbers. We rarely encounter “zergs”, that we don’t think we can’t handle amongst ourselves. I’ll upload a 30 minute video as soon as I get home tonight, and you can fund me my legendary.

Note: I also solo roam a lot, and I very, very rarely have problems with the zerg. Perhaps you should leave EB once in a while.

I roll with 4-8 in wvw all the time and rarely merge with the zerg. To all of the people talking about getting steamrolled by the enemy zerg you either 1. Didn’t see the sea of red names coming to kill you 2.Refuse to use speed buffs/skills to your own detriment 3. #’s one and two.

Martolly.2576:

/snip

Thank you for your insights on the relevant topic, and your superb criticism. Perhaps the video that I’ll upload later will convince you otherwise?

EDIT: Actually, I’ve just found a video that one of my colleagues on IoJ uploaded. His name is Shikamaru X, and I’ve rarely seen him run with our zerg.

Also, to the OP, I play on IoJ. The servers we face range from T5 and below. Whilst you do see the blob on occasion, it’s definitely not difficult to avoid, and small-man escapades are definitely there. In fact, the most prominent scenarios that I find myself facing are solo players, with one or two more joining the fray soon after either of us have initiated combat. I think my 1v1’s and 2’s have only been interrupted by the zerg on very, very rare occasions.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

I roll with 4-8 in wvw all the time and rarely merge with the zerg. To all of the people talking about getting steamrolled by the enemy zerg you either 1. Didn’t see the sea of red names coming to kill you 2.Refuse to use speed buffs/skills to your own detriment 3. #’s one and two.

And what happens when you are in combat fighting already and a zerg comes in with out of combat speed and sprint up? Other than that, yes… a zerg is easy to avoid if you aren’t stuck in combat.

Even on the T1 servers the zerg play is mostly first part of the week and can always be played around. I play on black gate and do almost only small scale stuff when my guild is running I play a scout thief/ranger and pick off groups of 2/3 when I can kill yaks and call out when I do see a zerg. The last half the the weeks are filled with small groups and solo yakers at this time I sit at the sentry near and enemy garrison and kill people that try to take it.

Oozo.7856:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

I roll with 4-8 in wvw all the time and rarely merge with the zerg. To all of the people talking about getting steamrolled by the enemy zerg you either 1. Didn’t see the sea of red names coming to kill you 2.Refuse to use speed buffs/skills to your own detriment 3. #’s one and two.

And what happens when you are in combat fighting already and a zerg comes in with out of combat speed and sprint up? Other than that, yes… a zerg is easy to avoid if you aren’t stuck in combat.

Even if you are in combat you have a better than 50% chance to get away if you are rolling with a group that works together buffing each other. 1 or two people might get caught but not all of you.

Martolly.2576:

kingcragus.6810:

Martolly.2576:

wvw is garbage.
Yes its zerg. vs. zerg.

Nothing else.

The people that talk about 1v1, or 1v2-3 only gets fights once every 45 minutes or so. (and thats being very lenient)

even when that is the case, theres a 99% chance that the person that you are fighting against is a very mobile class that will reset/flee the fight at any chance of loss.

There is no strat to this game for wvw or pvp. If you play a non mobile class for the solo game play and pretend being a scout means something then you are screwed. And just by the way, you add nothing to the wvw.

So if you have no interest in zerging, you have come to the wrong game.

Ignore this guys post…total bs.

You literally are lying by calling this “bull sh—”

Scouts honestly serve no purpose what-so-ever. This is a fact. I’m not sure what you are trying to sell here. But you do not need to lie to the guy. He came here for the truth of what actually happens.

The majority of the people on my server simply aren’t pvping this week especially because its only a zerg. vs. zerg.

Why would you tell a new person anything different than the truth. What purpose does that serve? As soon as they get to WvW they will see what actually happens. Clumps of terrible players taking battle objectives, “battle objective humping” as other games have previously coined the term.
There is no skill involved what-so-ever. Period. To say otherwise is nothing but a blatant lie in an attempt to preserve what ever type of false mentality you are trying to pose on the community.

If you are looking to solo, or small man, 90% of your time will be spent looking for an even fight that simply won’t happen more than once an hour. As i stated previously, One even small man vs. small man fight, or 1v2, or so on, is few, far and between.

You hit the nail on the direct head, mr. original post.

This game not only promotes zerging, it disables and hinders anyone not zerging.

These are just facts.

And if you want to call it ‘bull sh—" show me the server, any server. With a 30 minutes fraps/video of you or anyone doing small man, with out ’clipped’ streams i mean from walking out of base to the fights. Of more than 3 fights of even to near even odds, yes even if its a 5v10 sure, why not.

You won’t, you can’t unless its already rigged and you have already pre set up the video.
Hell you do that, ill personally give you 1000g in game gold.

But you won’t, because you can’t not on any server.

Period.

P.S. That’s a real challenge. Do it i dare you, show me! Please! Prove me wrong!
I want you to prove me wrong! I need you to prove me wrong, so that there is hope for this game!

Ignore Martrolly, It’s all BS

Edit: Not Hard to avoid a zerg in small groups if you pay attention to the map and /map chat reports of enemy movements but im sure its hard for the guy above to read the WvW chat in LA

One thing no one’s mentioned so far, is that many (probably all) servers have a public VoIP (teamspeak, mumble, whatever) that many guilds and commanders use to coordinate with pugs and smaller guilds. I can’t speak for all servers, but Jade Quarry has a great community, and most commanders are helpful for guild and rando alike. Knowledge is power, so if on your solo/small group adventures you can shout out enemy movements and whatnot you’ll be helping the server as a whole. Plus, you’ll be getting feedback from them, and know where to avoid, as keeping an eye on enemy zergs is generally a map-wide concern. The whole WvW experience goes from seemingly mindless to very interesting when you’re on your server’s VoIP.

Nah Martolly does have a point. On my server FOW/Vabbi/Whiteside there are indeed small fights and they absolutly are fun to do. But when there are a few commanders on the map there is one or maybe more than one zerg from sm to a contested point.
It can be fun when you are on the winning team but for vabbi and/or wsr it must be very frustrating sometimes that the server with the biggest zerg stomps you.

Thanks a lot for the responses.

What I took from your answers is: yes, there are zergs, but one can play “around” them, and being on a lower tier server helps. If I got that right, everyone agrees on that and it is just that some say that with zergs being so predominant, if you want to play around them, you spend so much time trying to avoid them and looking for a more or less fair fight, that it is not worth playing like that, the actual fights will just be too rare — and others shrug and say that on small servers (which are zerged less) and with some teammates (which expands the range of fights you can call ‘fair’), it works fine, the ratio of time spent fighting / time spent running around looking for fights improves to acceptable levels.

OK.

This has been helpful. The movie from nyckolag has been very inspiring too, thanks a lot for that. It wasn’t a straight up capture from a stream with no delays like others asked, so I guess it doesn’t clear it up on the ratio of fighting / running front, but it did show the kind of non-zerg combat I am after, so at least I know it does happen sometime!

After some thinking, I decided that if the key question is whether or not the ratio of fighting / running works for me, maybe an experiment will help. I rolled a character on GH (#15 on EU — while we are on that, thanks a lot for all the invites, US folks, I am not in your region, unfortunately), leveled a bit and spent some time running on WvW maps as a green arrow. I didn’t care if I’d be stomped on, I was just running around trying to look for small battles or small groups of enemies which I’d try to take on as a geared level 80.

The results so far have not been very encouraging: in two hours I spent running switching between different maps, I only saw 2 small groups of enemies and 1 battle (3v5). I had to run from zergs, both ours and enemy’s, 8 times (I kept notes). I did saw about 20 people, both ours and enemy’s, running solo, but they ran in the direction of a zerg, so I guess they weren’t roamers.

I will keep looking, but, just in case, could someone set my expectations straight on that? Suppose I am roaming, small server, solo = no team. How many 1v1 / 1v2-4 fights would be reasonable to expect to get, on average? One in an hour? Three? Enough to fight 75% of the time? I know the answer is “every day is different”, but what’s it like on average? How many fights are you getting?

Thanks again. I have to say, whatever the state of WvW might be, these forums are great.

Just go to one of the top 4 eu or us servers trust me its better to have to many than to few players to play with or against. I have been in wvw all day and have seen one zerg and took bay with them. They are easy to avoid for the most part and there are a ton of 2-5 men groups running around everywhere. I have never been in an mmo where go to a low pop server was good advice.

I hate to say it, but if small scale combat is really your thing to the exclusion of all else, that’s what sPvP is for. It’s a blast, and on a much more level playing field.

Creo.8750:

I will keep looking, but, just in case, could someone set my expectations straight on that? Suppose I am roaming, small server, solo = no team. How many 1v1 / 1v2-4 fights would be reasonable to expect to get, on average? One in an hour? Three? Enough to fight 75% of the time? I know the answer is “every day is different”, but what’s it like on average? How many fights are you getting?

I solo roam/small group roam and never zerg. If you are prepared and know your escape routes it is a lot of fun. I get enough pvp during an hour to statisfy my needs, I stream it ussually daily if you are interested to check it out. @twitch.tv/sir_koroshi . You can also do crazy stuff like trying to solo cap towers/small group tower captures, here is a video for example that I had streamed yesterday:

we capped the tower with 3-4, one of us actually dc’ed mid capture.

Here is the bottom line:

Running with a group (big or small) is rewarding. If you get over 15 people on TeamSpeak, you can take down objectives relatively quickly = more $$/exp/karma/ppt/etc. It’s fun, promotes friendship, and makes you better at WvW.

If you like big groups to do this with: go with an upper level tier. Very few PvErs, and most of the server lives for the community that WvW provides.

If you like smaller groups: go with a lower level tier. Mainly PvErs that dabble in WvW every now and then, but it is rewarding to take a garrison or SMC with 10 people.

And most important: don’t listen to Martolly; he’s either clueless or just trolling.

Thanks a lot for the replies, folks. Thanks a lot for the stream and video, koroshi. After all the good responses, I thought I owe it to the community to dig more into this and publish the results of my analysis.

I have watched through more videos, streams, and stream recordings (including all of yours, koroshi, good stuff), fast-forwarding with a step of 1 minute and keeping notes, plus have roamed a bit more on a low-level. This accounted for about 30 hours of gameplay, both on low-tier and high-tier servers.

The sum total of this is:

Zergs happen everywhere (that’s just a trivia at this point), and the majority of people participate in zergs, regardless of the server. Roaming with a small team (3-5) is going to get you some fights, although you will spend a significant proportion of time looking for these fights and another significant proportion of time running away from zergs.

According to my notes, your time is going to be split something like that: 40% running away from zergs, 40% running looking around for fights, 20% fighting (about half of that is fighting PVE mobs or chasing someone trying to get away from you, so some mix of fighting and running, really). Again, that’s from analyzing about 30 hours of roamed WvW gameplay from stream recordings and otherwise.

Whether or not that’s enough fighting is up to personal taste. In my case, I really, really hope Anet does something to make zergs much less attractive and roaming much more attractive, because, as it stands now, WvW in zerg mode is skilless, brainless and boring and WvW in non-zerg mode is hard to enjoy for all but the most loyal players who are willing to spend the majority of their time jumping through hoops just so they can get several good fights per evening.

Cheers.

I would suggest rolling on a server of tier 3 or lower. In those tiers you can be very effective in a small group.

I will share my new experience with you guys.
RoF is currently rank 22. We fight Dzagonur rank 20 and Arborstone rank 23.
Last night we tried to do “small scale”.
Our guild with 7 active members capped Briar at Arborstone borderland. In 10 minutes there were: 25 Arborstones and 30 Dzagonurs fighting in front and also attacking wall/gate.
Yes, everyone have a different definition of zerging, but for me, this is zerging.

I mostly do small group stuff and it is very fun with some of your friends. Their tends to be more small groups in T1/T2. In t1 their is a high chance of running into another small group at the first camps you go to. If you watch the camp counter in the WvW ppt it is easy to tell which server has the most small groups active.

I am starting to enjoy playing off peak for the smaller battles.I would say max 20 v 20 can still feel like a battle where you can use your brain and have fun.But anything much bigger than that you might as well be a bot going through the motions.

Klawlyt.6507:

I hate to say it, but if small scale combat is really your thing to the exclusion of all else, that’s what sPvP is for. It’s a blast, and on a much more level playing field.

spvp people would stomp me pretty kitten good. Most wvw players are no match for the pvp players. Of course there are some that can do both.