Guild Wars 2

culling is a problem but i can agree with most that rezzing is a real issue. i dont think rezzing should be removed from the game but the system needs to be changed. too many times i have seen a zerg rez someone while ac’s and aoe are hitting the ground of the dead guy and of course the dead guy gets up and maybe you downed one or 2 but they are rez faster and then all your work into killing the guy is for nothing.

the downed state rez should be slower than it currrently is. ive downed people and fired a ballista shot at them while they were downed and before my next ballista shot hits they are rezzed by 1 person.

dead players should incur a death penalty where next time you die it takes longer to rez you and after so much death penalty you have to wp and DP cant be removed unless you wp. either that or make it so you can still deplete health of the dead. this way it makes it harder to rez them and you will have to think twice before just barging in to rez someone like most zergs do and most of the time succeed.

and team killer i saw the video and sorry to see that,, it is embarrassing. I would have to consider deleting my toon and starting over is i was part of that group of 30.

Teamkiller.4315:

This is incorrect. I have taken Dreaming Bay keep with 3 players before, a warrior, thief and mesmer

That’s not solo. Solo means one person. There’s a specific reason it’s incredibly difficult to downright impossible to take a keep or a tower with less than three people. I’ll let you figure that out.

You can get up any siege solo you just have to place it well and take your time.

Guards will respawn in the time it takes you to run supply can ruin what hard work you put into that ram. Not to mention you have to deal with regularly respawning veterans while you ram the gate, veteran archers attacking you from above, and even when you break in you have to solo a champion and more veterans.

That’s assuming that in those 15 minutes no player checks on those white swords in the tower. lol.

You said solo a tower and went on to say it takes 3 people to use a ram and 5 people to use a catapult. My reply was in response to the siege and to say that it is definitely possible to take a keep or tower using multiple catapults with less than 5 people. This was also in NA Tier 1 mind you, where nearly every objective has at least one player sentry and extremely fast response times. There is nothing to figure out. I’m yet to try to solo a keep, but a tower is cake if the opponent is otherwise occupied and there are people to divert attention from our wetwork.

Why is everyone complaining about people who complain about zergs?!?!?!!!

O:

You said solo a tower and went on to say it takes 3 people to use a ram and 5 people to use a catapult. My reply was in response to the siege and to say that it is definitely possible to take a keep or tower using multiple catapults with less than 5 people

I said it’s not likely you’re gonna solo an empty or otherwise tower, and you gave me an counterexample of you 3-manning a tower.

Do you not see the problem with your logic here?

Master of Timespace.2548:

I only complain about the downed state as it gives invulnerability to zergs but nothing to smaller groups. Currently zerg is like some mutated organism: it regenerates so fast that if you can’t destroy it at once, you can’t hurt it at all.

i would be hard pressed (or unable) to phrase that so well. excellent. i agree 100 %.

Teamkiller.4315:

OK, so you admit you made a hyperbole. In that case, I call logical fallacy on your argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

got one for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedantic

JemL.3501:

i dont complaint about zergs, i complaint about invisible zergs

+1

It’s my personal belief (and experience) that people don’t complain about zergs because it’s OP or whatever. Rather people complain about them because ANet designed WvW to (for the most part) highly encourage zergs.

As others have stated, the map design encourages zergs. The point placement on the map encourages zergs. But most importantly there are 3 things that encourage zergs the MOST:

1. Being able to see all enemy names (unless there is an object completely blocking your view of them AND their name or they are invisible due to culling or class ability) at just about any range. This rewards carelessness and thus encourages mindless zerging. No one has to really focus on locating or keeping track of an enemy as long as they are in the zerg and the enemy is on the outside of the zerg. Of course class abilities are an exception to this rule, but in realistic situations terrain always plays a HUGE role in ALL wars. Though terrain does have a somewhat large role in WvW, it would be much larger if you couldn’t just about always locate your enemy without any effort whatsoever.

2. The over abundance of open battle fields. This may be due to performance issues, but there is hardly any cover from attacks in WvW outside of keeps, and thus encourages zergs. If there was more cover in certain areas of the map, zergs would be less powerful overall and thus people would be discourage from always or nearly always rolling in a mindless zerg.

3. There is no way in game (that I know of anyways) to see your server rank in comparison to all of your region servers (and not just the other 2 your server is fighting). If your server rank was displayed on the WvW window for all players to see upon pressing (b), it would force lower ranked servers to ponder on why they are so low, and thus force them to come up with new and better tactics other than simply banding and roaming together mindlessly.

IMO these are the problems that encourage zerging the most, and simultaneously causes serious players to complain about zerging. There are a lot of things ANet can add or take out to make people less reliant on zergs, but IMO if these 3 things were fixed, we would more than likely see a dramatic decrease of zergs and an increase in strategy and tactics.

Teamkiller.4315:

If you’re not convinced, just watch any number of Red Guard’s videos. They wipe hundreds with a group of like 20 all the time.

hundredS ? i thought there was a cap of 166 per server per map.

a

Mike.7320:

Point #1 is as wrong as it gets. doing a 5v20 fight as a roaming guild, causing players to over extend is the way to wipe the zerg.

doing a retreating battle against superior numbers to spread them out and make people overextend simply doesn’t work cause it just gives the enemy the opportunity do bring everyone back up as you try to make people overextend.

Another ‘standard’ tactic that works perfectly ‘in that other mmo that people keep mentioning’ against superior numbers that the game mechanics here doesn’t allow to function.

Elthurien.8356:

Remove AoE cap. Problem solved.
I don’t want to see the removal of zergs, but I do want to see them take the full brunt of AoE. A good zerg will adapt, split force and converge on the AoE group. A bad zerg will charge through the AoE and come out the other side with much less zerg or they will panic, scatter and not be able to recover.

i think AoE cap is a blatantly stupid mechanic, but removing AoE cap without introducing AE-dropoff would be a disaster tbh.

Teamkiller.4315:

Nerfs to reviving and removing the revival of dead people during combat works as well.

making a ‘kill’ a forced despawn in w3 would work miracles … if you can’t bring a downed player back up before the enemy kills him, you lost him.

Zerging has its own advantages and disadvantages.

I’m always an advocate of dividing large groups into two smaller, more mobile groups that work together in order to strike the flanks of their opponents. It’s the most effective way to crush Zergs.

Teamkiller.4315:

I’d rather roam solo and get a few victories alone than have a lot of victories just by following a group wondering if I need to be carried.

you realize that you can’t really take a tower solo right? You need at least three people to get up one ram. Five people to get up a catapult, ten to get up a trebuchet, etc. etc.

A ginormous part of wvw is siege and assaults won’t succeed without large numbers of people.

during the night, it is possible to ‘solo’ (pve) a tower. with the tower in the left bottom of the map you can go to the part of wall with an arch over it, place a cata there, run back and forth enough to the camp to get supplies and build the cata, shoot down the wall, go in and take the lord out. i haven’t done it solo yet, but i have duo’d it. i’ll try and do it solo some day.

Teamkiller.4315:

that’s assuming that in those 15 minutes no player checks on those white swords in the tower. lol.

it’s prefectly possible to get in the lord room via legit tactics without getting swords untill you attack the lord. i’m talking about towers.

muylaetrix.2096:

Teamkiller.4315:

If you’re not convinced, just watch any number of Red Guard’s videos. They wipe hundreds with a group of like 20 all the time.

hundredS ? i thought there was a cap of 166 per server per map.

a

Thats 86 players MAXIMUM each fight. Now if we play numbers a bit, hehe. Let us assume HALF of those saw RG during the fight (rg play heavy culling folcused play), one fourth were organized and half of these again were level 80, 70% of these with excotic armour, thats RG wiping 7 people….im impressed.

Muylaetrix…

Why do you need to respond 8 times and stack your posts so?

I’m not responding to all that. I’ll first tell you thought that he did offer anecdotal evidence, and that is a fallacy. Telling me I’m being pedantic doesn’t change the fact that he’s wrong. Who cares honestly.

Hundreds is a hyperbole.

Also the cap is 500 per map, Killimandros. 166 per SIDE. Hundreds is a hyperbole, and is more in reference to the total number of SoS wiped in the video, not a reference to how many they wiped in one battle.

I also already listed the problems with running supply yourself to the tower trying to solo it. Please read.

Teamkiller.4315:

Guards will respawn in the time it takes you to run supply can ruin what hard work you put into that ram. Not to mention you have to deal with regularly respawning veterans while you ram the gate, veteran archers attacking you from above, and even when you break in you have to solo a champion and more veterans.

That’s assuming that in those 15 minutes no player checks on those white swords in the tower. lol.

I however use Superior Catapult over a Flame Ram for that very reason on every tower and keep there is a side or rear wall that the guards will not rush to defend when it gets attacked unless you aggro them to it.

Catapult for increased damage against walls and Superior because for 10 extra supply you get in a lot faster. Players are a problem however that is why you attack solo when they are distracted by something else. Ironically it normally works when they themselves are Zerging something else.

Teamkiller.4315:

Why do you need to respond 8 times and stack your posts so?

anything wrong with replying to 8 different posts ?

Teamkiller.4315:

I also already listed the problems with running supply yourself to the tower trying to solo it. Please read.

and i already explained that it can be done by placing a cata against a certain piece of wall under an arch where it is almost invisible to players unless they specifically check the ‘alley’, and that it doesn’t attract guards, which results in no swords showing, so you have all the time in the world to run back and forth to get supply, finnish you cata, blow down the wall, go to the lord, hit the lord, and only then, when you are hitting the lord, swords will show.

oh, you could also do it from long range.

.. and the poster above explained the same point.

And apparently you both think that no one on the other server is going to question WHITE swords showing up at their tower and dropping wall %? Cata shots create shockwave effects as well. Did you know?

Not to mention solo’ing the champ and four veterans doesn’t take a short amount of time.

You must play on t8 or something

And yes, you can use the edit button instead of 8 posts. It’s a bit annoying tbh

I will admit you can technically do it with catapults, but you’re going to be hard pressed to actually succeed. The chances are astronomical unless you’re playing on a dead map. (and i’m sure none of us want that)

OP, zerging isn’t about numbers, it’s about everyone on the map doing the same thing in one big group because the rewards.

As a zerg you:
- get more rewards than as a small group or solo (technically equal rewards but the zerg completes it faster)
- don’t need to display any skill or thought
- almost certainly contribute less to your team overall than if you were in a small group or solo.

So the reason for zerging is because of the reward system in WvW. Not anything about ‘superior numbers’.

So the problem with WvW is that, through its rewards, it promotes zerg play over roaming and small team engagements.

Teamkiller.4315:

And apparently you both think that no one on the other server is going to question WHITE swords showing up at their tower and dropping wall %? Cata shots create shockwave effects as well. Did you know?

did we mention there are places where a piece of wall can be taken down without alarming guards and hence no swords ??

Teamkiller.4315:

You must play on t8 or something

i think you can see in my tag what server and hence what tier i play in.

Teamkiller.4315:

And yes, you can use the edit button instead of 8 posts. It’s a bit annoying tbh

can’t be arsed copy pasting everything to a word processor to condence 8 posts into a single post (that would make an unreadable wall of text with too much different topics in one post imho), too much work and too inconvenient to do. i read a thread and if i find something worth replying i reply. if the thread has enough posts that (imho) are worth replying to that might result in a few consecutive post from me.

Teamkiller.4315:

I will admit you can technically do it with catapults, but you’re going to be hard pressed to actually succeed. The chances are astronomical unless you’re playing on a dead map. (and i’m sure none of us want that)

i think i did mention that that’s the sort of player versus doors/walls that has far more chance to succeed at night when there are very few players on the map who can accidentally stumble on you because it’s out of view.

during daylight hours, we have taken towers with more than just one or two players, where the swords only showed up a few seconds before the tower got taken. during daylight, speed is important, even if you do a ‘stealthy’ assault on such a piece of wall due to the large number of players who might accidentally check. at night, you can take your time to place a cata and run back 5 times for supply if noone bothers (or is present) to check the spots where you can attack some pieces of wall without arousing the guards and getting swords. lol, we have taken towers that way, that were defended by players who were not looking in that direction or were concentrating on the players hitting the gate. the defenders only realized we were also doing a ‘stealthy’ (or thought that hax had been used) attack against a piece of wall behind their back when the tower had fallen and the freshly spawned guards attacked them.

did we mention there are places where a piece of wall can be taken down without alarming guards and hence no swords ??

Did you know that trebs create white swords at SMC without anyone ever being near it? Guards are not hit or alerted. White swords show up when the tower takes damage.

i think you can see in my tag what server and hence what tier i play in.

again, it’s a hyperbole. notice how i picked the absolutely lowest tier to illustrate my point?

can’t be arsed copy pasting everything to a word processor to condence 8 posts into a single post (that would make an unreadable wall of text with too much different topics in one post imho), too much work and too inconvenient to do. i read a thread and if i find something worth replying i reply. if the thread has enough posts that (imho) are worth replying to that might result in a few consecutive post from me.

you replied like eight straight times and a good portion of those separated posts were to MY posts alone. Also, stop making excuses for being lazy please. The edit button is there for a reason. Use it. (you didn’t seem to have a problem use it this time)

i think i did mention that that’s the sort of player versus doors/walls that has far more chance to succeed at night when there are very few players on the map who can accidentally stumble on you because it’s out of view.

you mean gasp where no zergs are present? It’s almost like there’s no army there to stop you. It’s almost like, y’know, PVE.

during daylight, speed is important, even if you do a ‘stealthy’ assault on such a piece of wall due to the large number of players who might accidentally check.

Five catapults take down a tower’s wall faster than one, which a zerg can field far more easily than one person or even an entire party. Also, if you’re going to attack fortified towers, you have practically no chance of breaching the wall with one person in time to do jack squat (of course, assuming the map isn’t dead). I can tell you that we’ve had 20 people fail to take a fortified tower with four catapults because it took too long to breach the reinforced wall (not even fortified), even though our main zerg had their main zerg occupied elsewhere. One person inside can out-repair your catapult easily.

at night, you can take your time to place a cata and run back 5 times for supply if noone bothers…

wvw is a pvp zone, not a pve zone. If no one bothers, then it’s practically a dead map and you’re not taking towers away from actual people. sorry, but you’re not going to make a convincing case about one-three people being effective in battlefield in taking fortified structures. Not unless there’s no enemy of which to speak of.

And also, one person can defend a tower successfully from three. Easily.

For me, i dont mind dying to a GOOD zerg but thats rarely the case, it comes down to Culling issues most of the time.

Teamkiller.4315:

Did you know that trebs create white swords at SMC without anyone ever being near it? Guards are not hit or alerted. White swords show up when the tower takes damage.

how can you be certain that noone else (even from another server) is hitting something outside of your view, which might cause sword to apear ? ‘some’ pieces of wall (from some structures, maybe not every structure has such a piece of wall, can’ tell for sure) can be taken down without hitting and attracting guards. hitting a wall with less than 4 attackers does NOT trigger swords afaik.

Teamkiller.4315:

you mean gasp where no zergs are present? It’s almost like there’s no army there to stop you. It’s almost like, y’know, PVE.

i did mention that soloing or duoing a tower will take an amount of time that is unlikely to be available during peek hours. i did mention it’s basically PVE to do something like that.

how can you be certain that noone else (even from another server) is hitting something outside of your view, which might cause sword to apear ? ‘some’ pieces of wall (from some structures, maybe not every structure has such a piece of wall, can’ tell for sure) can be taken down without hitting and attracting guards. hitting a wall with less than 4 attackers does NOT trigger swords afaik.

there are two kinds of swords. The orange swords are the ones you’re describing. The white ones are caused by any sort of attack at all.

people DO check white swords. It’s what makes a waypoint contested (towers dont have waypoints, but try attacking the watergate of a keep sometime. You’ll see for yourself what I’m talking about)

i did mention that soloing or duoing a tower will take an amount of time that is unlikely to be available during peek hours. i did mention it’s basically PVE to do something like that.

So are you admitting that small man groups have little place in a structural assault when there’s a zerg present?

muylaetrix.2096:

i love to zerg like there is no tomorrow, but in this game, zerging is the only game in town.

in other games, superior skill and game play can beat superior numbers to various degree. in this game it’s vitually impossible to beat 3 times your own number in open field. people get rezzed / self rezz faster than you can bring them down/finnish them. coupled with the fact that a killed bunny can instantly get up a bucketload of players again and fighting superior numbers becomes all but impossible.

no other game rewards numbers over skill as much as GW2.

I usually fight larger groups than my own, and usually win. I’ve even won out 1v20 while defending. Last night I fought off 4 invaders from taking a supply camp as a level 26 mesmer because I distracted them with clones and NPCs while I used the supply to quickly make a ballista to shoot them down. Numbers have a lot of power, but skill has more, and if you think otherwise, you need more practice.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

muylaetrix.2096:

i love to zerg like there is no tomorrow, but in this game, zerging is the only game in town.

in other games, superior skill and game play can beat superior numbers to various degree. in this game it’s vitually impossible to beat 3 times your own number in open field. people get rezzed / self rezz faster than you can bring them down/finnish them. coupled with the fact that a killed bunny can instantly get up a bucketload of players again and fighting superior numbers becomes all but impossible.

no other game rewards numbers over skill as much as GW2.

I usually fight larger groups than my own, and usually win. I’ve even won out 1v20 while defending. Last night I fought off 4 invaders from taking a supply camp as a level 26 mesmer because I distracted them with clones and NPCs while I used the supply to quickly make a ballista to shoot them down. Numbers have a lot of power, but skill has more, and if you think otherwise, you need more practice.

Wrong, the enemies you’re fighting do.

Let me get this straight. You’re going up against a group of 4 who let you:

- Put down a ballista
- Build it 1x, 2x, 3x all the while running back and forth
- Fight and create clones in the meantime

And you don’t think THESE are the players that need skills? 4 players don’t even constitute a zerg ESPECIALLY when your force is bolstered by 5 NPC’s (who have blinds, snares, roots, knockdowns and a massive conal AoE), not counting 1 or 2 dolyaks.

You really should not post acting as if you did something extraordinary when it’s very clear the players you went up against were absolute scrubs. Numbers beat skill in this game, especially when the zerg isn’t full of scrubs.

Eclipses.7152:

Numbers beat skill in this game, especially when the zerg isn’t full of scrubs.

That’s exactly how it should be.

Teamkiller.4315:

Eclipses.7152:

Numbers beat skill in this game, especially when the zerg isn’t full of scrubs.

That’s exactly how it should be.

Not saying it shouldn’t, but zergs shoudn’t be the only game in town.

Teamkiller.4315:

there are two kinds of swords. The orange swords are the ones you’re describing. The white ones are caused by any sort of attack at all.

people DO check white swords. It’s what makes a waypoint contested (towers dont have waypoints, but try attacking the watergate of a keep sometime. You’ll see for yourself what I’m talking about)

hm, ok, i admit i’m not 100 % about the difference between white and orange swords.

almost anything i said applies to towers and might not apply to keeps and garissons.

you can’t really attack a garisson watergate without killing ANY guards.

and how can you attack a waypoint without attacking the guard ?

my whole point is about attacking a piece of wall from a tower in a way/place that doesn’t trigger guards.

Teamkiller.4315:

So are you admitting that small man groups have little place in a structural assault when there’s a zerg present?

ofc ! unless you (example) use the zerg to attack a gate and draw all the attention to it while a few (usually a guild group on voice com) tries to ‘stealth’ take down a piece of wall from a spot that is out of view unless specifically checked.

the 1 or 2 person take of a tower that i discribe, will only work if very few people are on the map to defend or accidentally stumble on you. that’s the whole point, remaining ‘stealthy’ (not as in the ability from thieves or mesmers, but as in remaining hidden and undetected while doing so) and taking down a wall unless accidentally discovered.

the bad guild group see their own random / casual / zerg players as useless (and in the case of DAoc and Warhammer all too often as competition for ‘the’ resource (arpeeeees) :/ ). the great guild groups ‘use’ their own realm’s zerg to occupy the enemy zerg and draw the focus of the enemy while hitting somewhere else or flanking the enemy zerg and comming down upon it like a hammer blow to the back of the skull. the great guild groups ‘use’ the zerg in a symbiotic way and coordinate their actions with the chaotic zerg that has no idea about (an) guild group(s) checking how they are doing and acting upon it. (or at least that is my opinion).

a small (guild) group can also hide in the zerg to (creating an imagine) enrich the iron (zerg) with carbon (the guild group) to create steel. in a way that a few knights between the militia (during the middle ages) could turn the militia into a formidable weapon instead of just armed peasants likely to panic, flee or get slaughtered outright.

…

i’m happy this argument is rising above the level of ‘kitten fight’ for which i claim my share of responsability for letting it deteriorate to that.

Eclipses.7152:

Not saying it shouldn’t, but zergs shoudn’t be the only game in town.

They aren’t.

Guild groups are far more powerful than any zerg, unless guild groups suddenly count as a zerg. A properly coordinated guild group, even with randoms (like myself), will be able to hold choke points and use terrain to their advantage to beat superior numbers even with disparagingly large player ratios. Blackgate did this tonight, on a bridge (amongst other places, but the bridge was a glorious moment), for ten minutes, against both other servers’ zergs in EBG.

Why does this, a fairly regular activity for BG and its coordinated guilds, not count? This is purely skill + coordination, beating superior numbers. Is that not what everyone is crying about?