Guild Wars 2

Planetside and DAOC didn’t, that I recall, have as much problem with mismatches as GW2 is having.

Why is that?

DAOC
My theory here is that while DAOC did, actually, tend to have some bad matches but I think they were mitigated somewhat but the fact that NPCs were a lot more deadly and keeps were less of a pushover to take. This results in what I like to call “variable resistance” — a vital component of “realm vs realm” style PvP. As players begin to get outnumbered and begin to fall back to their keeps, the help from the NPC defenders and the keep itself starts to mount up to more and more resistance.

In GW2, that doesn’t happen because the NPCs are all pushovers. Even Supervisors with “immunity” go down pretty fast in the face of the zerg, and fully upgraded guards don’t even register as a speed bump in the face of 30 players. 30 players can steamroll a fully upgraded Keep in about….what?….5 minutes? The NPCs might as well not be there so unless at least 15 player defenders show up, those 30 players won’t even be slowed down. (Particularly true with retaliation damage eliminating the usefulness of defender AE on the door.)

I think GW2 would benefit from stronger doors, stronger guards, BETTER guards (more archers, more AE) more expensive rams (in terms of supply cost if not cash cost) and a serious rethinking of retaliation mechanics.

Outta time. Someone else talk about Planetside until I get back!

No Strenght of structures makes mismatches worse. Mismatch servers outnumbered servers have to always siege fully upgraded towers and keeps with full supples.

Daoc didint have server rankings and WvW had more indivial achievements.

Mismatches happen because even match servers do not divide by 3.

In DAOC, you could hear about a keep being attacked while you were in PvE and you’d have enough time to run out of PvE and all the way to the keep while it was still being attacked.

In GW2, you have less than 5 minutes. I’m pretty sure 20 unopposed people could sack a fully upgraded Stonemist Castle in 5 minutes without doing anything special. Consequently, once a team is outmanned, the time it takes to lose the entire map is VERY small.

In the current matchup, for example, my server is dominating. The other servers can push out in prime time and grab a few things but later on we’ll outnumber them again and their holdings will collapse in minutes, regardless of upgrades. Once you can bring about 20 more people to a fight than the other team can bring, you’re probably 30 minutes away from owning everything.

Another issue is “AE can only hit 5 targets”.

Why is that?

In DAOC, AE could hit everyone. One defender inside a keep could yell “SURPRISE!” and AE all 20 people at the door, potentially killing them all. GW2 prevents this and I’m not real clear on why.

Also, in DAOC, rams were expensive. You didn’t build 3 of them if you could possibly help it.

AE limited to 5 targets + retaliation damage + cheap rams = power to the zerg.

These all must seem like frivolous little details, but I think it’s the #1 reason we see bad balance happening so dramatically across so many matchups. In DAOC, having 15 more people present didn’t give you an automatic or quick victory. In GW2, because of these 3 things, it does.

DAOC had mismatches, they just didn’t show up in day-to-day scores as only relics “counted”. Holding keeps was pointless outside of relics and DF access. Scores were really kept individually, not as a realm or server.

It’s too early to make dire predictions for WvW yet. We need to allow time for players and servers sort themselves out before ANet should do anything.

One thing I will say so far is that all the issues boil down to player participation. Large-scale PvP is not for everyone, and a lot of the playerbase is starting to figure that out. Let them.

I guess you never played warhammer online if you think AOE without a target limit is a good thing.

The differnce comes from that thing people hate Crowrd Control.

DAoC Lived and died by that since a single attack would stop an attack animation of any caster in the game. CC stopped zergs of all sizes. It was the great equalizer.

Something to note, though i cant confirm this, ground placed fields can hit more than 5 targets. So something like a trap isnt going to stop slowing when it maxes out at 5 people, instead it will slow people that enter.

Mayama.1854:

I guess you never played warhammer online if you think AOE without a target limit is a good thing.

Target limits are horrible when you have a wall of people that cant be walked through to get to the people casting said spells with no method of interruption. Target limits for siege make sense as the damage out put on a single peice is so high it could easily be 10x force multiplier if used correctly (see arrow carts in BW1) Target limits for a game with limited to no AoE CC makes it harder to small organized groups to have a strong impact on the game. Like disrupting supply lines for extended periods of time before getting run over.

I would say removing it for players would help since most AoE has a huge wind up in this game as it is.

Melphina.9035:

Target limits are horrible when you have a wall of people that cant be walked through to get to the people casting said spells with no method of interruption. Target limits for siege make sense as the damage out put on a single peice is so high it could easily be 10x force multiplier if used correctly (see arrow carts in BW1) Target limits for a game with limited to no AoE CC makes it harder to small organized groups to have a strong impact on the game. Like disrupting supply lines for extended periods of time before getting run over.

I would say removing it for players would help since most AoE has a huge wind up in this game as it is.

In waronline one bright wizard at a chokepoint was enough to stop a zerg, its good that theirs a limit for aoe. Some aoes like meteor shower, epidemic or shatter dont have a target limit anyway.

I’ve taken groups of 5 stealthers in DAoC climbed the wall of keeps and took down the 2nd door to take the keep before responders could get their.

The guards didn’t pose much of a threat either, the keeplord was tougher but manageable.

Mayama.1854:

I guess you never played warhammer online if you think AOE without a target limit is a good thing.

war hammer was awesome for this reason. aoe [kitten] zergs, hard.

Allow me to comment on Planetside, as former supreme commander of the Vanu Sovereignty on Markov, High Council of Future Crew and Defender of the skies and therfore…everything.

Planetside worked because of the large map size and lattice system, when a faction became too dominant and controlled too much land they force themselves into a situation where they cut the other enemy’s off from each other forcing them to get hit on 2 fronts. it created a natural balance. Also because of the lattice system sometimes the 3rd faction would be nowhere to be seen on your map as they were locked out, so there was no feeling of been double teamed in your current fight.

Also they offered incentives to play the underpoped faction, something you could easily do on a traditional server setup.

In GW2 you have the the problem of servers like IOJ and SOS who are primarily oceanic timezone servers been faced against US realms, because they beat US realms on points even though they never fight eachother. this leads to massive discrepancies across the timezones with the US side dominating for 8 hours and then the oceanic following them. The oceanic are able to push ahead on total points because they will control the land in their primetime and then still maintain majorty control in US day, whereas the US realms against them would only have majority control in US primetime. putting them higher in the rankings.

Also part of the problem here to be blunt is people are just popping their 3 faction cherry, they dont understand the dynamics of it and why they’re been doubled teamed in their current situation, they also don’t get what makes it so much better than 2 faction. My advise for these people is: Pandas.