Guild Wars 2

..and I’m not the only one thinking this. It’s become a complete zerg fest and is nowhere near what it was made out to be.

Scenario #1:

Group A of 5 players attacks a tower with a single ram. Group B with 25 players sees orange swords at tower and swiftly gets there. Group B wipes Group A with ease, where as Group A barely did 10% damage to the door.

Scenario #2:

Group C of 30 players quickly builds 3 catapults on the side of a tower aiming to the wall and start to attack. Group E of 5 players is trying to defend said tower and while heading there the tower already flips. Group C heads to supply camp before Group E even makes it to tower. If Group E attacks tower, see Scenario #1.

Those are common scenarios, but without the semi complexities of setting up a single Mesmer who does a portal drop 50yrd out, sets up group/self stealth, and then rushes into the middle of a group of siege defenders and pops the exit portal. All of a sudden you go from defending it with a few arrow carts and Ballistic (an easy tactic to stall the enemy, though not slaughter them), to a pointless defense that gets wiped in 30sec or less.

Anti-zerg mechanics such as AOE is not really AOE at all…because of a lock on 5 players. You can’t make people scatter when you hit only 5 of them out of the 30 there; it just doesn’t happen. Siege isn’t scary at all unless you have a bunch of it…but you have no time to set it up before the zerg rolls over the place.

Things need changes. Zergs need to …die.

Anet would have to do a total redesign of the maps to fix this, and I don’t see that happening.
You can not travel 5 caster range lengths without running into some sort of castle/keep/or objective. Maps are to cluttered and this hurts roaming…so zerg v zerg is the way to go.
Secondly, you want karma/exp/coin/drops? Zerg and farm objectives and towers all night—-this is where people get rewarded.

I don’t know what you would expect to happen in either of those scenarios.

Ok scenario 3 in your opinion OP
server A got 160 players , server b got 160 players
server a – add 70 ppls on eternal and 30 each border
server b go with 160 players on home border – cap all map and leave 5 players to defend … and same on and remain with 145 player at EB
Or scenario 4 : server c got 600 players on WvW and server D got 120 players on WvW… you want fair chances for server D ? you espect same points ?

World vs World is one of the best PvP gaming experiences to ever come out, you need to look at the bigger picture, there is so much more to this then just zerging. 10 organized people defending against a 30 man zerg, = roasted zerg, even when that zerg is organized. It’s all about tactics and strategy. There is a way to counter those 3 catapults with even just 1 person defending. That’s right, 1 person can stagnate a 30 man zerg.

I think one of the major problems of WvW is that most people haven’t dug deep enough to truly understand it and instead choose to point out the things that they didn’t like and demand change when most of these things are there for a reason, for every problem there is a solution.

so… your idea of good pvp is where 5 people can beat 30? There is no way that works out where it makes sense. Even if the 30 weren’t running a zerg, your scenerios would backfire.

Maybe those 5 people take a tower because the other team isn’t running in a zerg. Well, guess what? If the other server has a grp fo 30 people and they all split into 5 man grps and take towers, you just got 1 and they got 6. You still lose even without a zerg running into you.

5<30 That’s just simple math and no game is going to be fun if 30 people can’t beat 5.

I started to play wvw recently, but a thing I noticed in an instant was the big difference between attacking and defending even with the same amount of players. Maybe I have too little experience but attacking a tower seems too easy: I can move in open field to evade, I can aoe walls and hit enemies with no great efforts for example, or build sieges in no time that are outside the range of the tower’s defences. When I defend a tower instead I find a lot of problems, as I said in another thread, the walls obstruct my attacks, I can’t use practically all of my active skill even under my position (out of range or line of sight problems) if I want to place at least a weapon’s skill aoe I have to jump on the border of the wall: this is time breaking and also make me an elephant-size-red-flashing target (as I am a really big norn). Sieges are always a pain in the purse, I try to place them always in good places but if I want to see at least 1/10 of the zerg attacking that ‘good place’ will always be an easy target. When I think of ‘attacking a tower’ I feel it has to be a difficult task, on the other side when I think of ‘defending’ I think it should be an advantaged status. Am I wrong?

Defending is stupid atm. Attackers have more of an advantage than defenders… Attackers can actually hit people!

Siphaed.9235:

..and I’m not the only one thinking this. It’s become a complete zerg fest and is nowhere near what it was made out to be.

Scenario #1:

Group A of 5 players attacks a tower with a single ram. Group B with 25 players sees orange swords at tower and swiftly gets there. Group B wipes Group A with ease, where as Group A barely did 10% damage to the door.

Scenario #2:

Group C of 30 players quickly builds 3 catapults on the side of a tower aiming to the wall and start to attack. Group E of 5 players is trying to defend said tower and while heading there the tower already flips. Group C heads to supply camp before Group E even makes it to tower. If Group E attacks tower, see Scenario #1.

Those are common scenarios, but without the semi complexities of setting up a single Mesmer who does a portal drop 50yrd out, sets up group/self stealth, and then rushes into the middle of a group of siege defenders and pops the exit portal. All of a sudden you go from defending it with a few arrow carts and Ballistic (an easy tactic to stall the enemy, though not slaughter them), to a pointless defense that gets wiped in 30sec or less.

Anti-zerg mechanics such as AOE is not really AOE at all…because of a lock on 5 players. You can’t make people scatter when you hit only 5 of them out of the 30 there; it just doesn’t happen. Siege isn’t scary at all unless you have a bunch of it…but you have no time to set it up before the zerg rolls over the place.

Things need changes. Zergs need to …die.

You need to play sPvP and stop crying about large scale siege warfare.

That’s what WORLD v. WORLD is. If you don’t coordinate with a skilled world v. world guild, and you don’t participate in a voice chat for your server, then yeah you will be the first one in here crying about the kitten “zergs” screwing up your little few-man rolling groups.

However, if you have those things, you’ll discover that on good WvW servers, there IS NO ZERG. However, there ARE large coordinated, strategic armies following commanders, dividing into teams and tactically seiging objectives and defending territory against other large scale coordinated enemy forces.

That is EXACTLY what WvW is supposed to be about. This from a fanatic Dark Age RvR player.

There is room for “gank” or “ninja” teams, for small guilds fielding 10-15 on the battlefield, even if they for some reason do not want to participate in server wvw chat or run with tactical commanders. But small groups will always – and should always – be at risk from the main armies. That’s what large-scale siege warfare is all about.

Get rid of your so-called “zerg?” That’s why ANET made different styles of PvP. So my “fun” doesn’t have to get “screwed” by your fun and vice versa. In addition to the myriad of actually places for successful small squad play in WvW, there is also sPvP and Tourney play, for those who can stand any scenario in which their 5-10 people might run into 25-40 and get killed.

As far as WvW goes, welcome to the battlefield, son. Quit crying and start coordinating.

What happens in WvW says a lot about the game. Hasn’t anyone noticed that there are no real battles going on? There’s just swiftness buffed zergs steamrolling around and “PvDoor” (a term someone here coined which I had to steal).
Outside of fortifications I’m either in a zerg that totally wins or in a zerg that totally loses, the outcome of battles is decided by sheer numbers and loading times of characters. I never thought I would say this, but in WoW mass PvP was never so bad because the game provides/provided enough opportunity to play good. In GW2 there is very little of that… yet.

Cirus.5748:

World vs World is one of the best PvP gaming experiences to ever come out, you need to look at the bigger picture, there is so much more to this then just zerging. 10 organized people defending against a 30 man zerg, = roasted zerg, even when that zerg is organized. It’s all about tactics and strategy. There is a way to counter those 3 catapults with even just 1 person defending. That’s right, 1 person can stagnate a 30 man zerg.

I think one of the major problems of WvW is that most people haven’t dug deep enough to truly understand it and instead choose to point out the things that they didn’t like and demand change when most of these things are there for a reason, for every problem there is a solution.

Oh Please Oh Please great one show me this 1vs30 way I must learn.!!!!

Cirus.5748:

World vs World is one of the best PvP gaming experiences to ever come out, you need to look at the bigger picture, there is so much more to this then just zerging. 10 organized people defending against a 30 man zerg, = roasted zerg, even when that zerg is organized. It’s all about tactics and strategy. There is a way to counter those 3 catapults with even just 1 person defending. That’s right, 1 person can stagnate a 30 man zerg.

I think one of the major problems of WvW is that most people haven’t dug deep enough to truly understand it and instead choose to point out the things that they didn’t like and demand change when most of these things are there for a reason, for every problem there is a solution.

And that’s because most of them roll in, are not members of a WvW guild community or alliance, do not coordinate with commanders and tacticians in a server’s voice coms (or possibly worse, in lower tiers may not even have a server wide voice comm), and run around without a play or ANY sense of the bigger picture of what’s happening, then run right toward an enemy army (so-called “zerg”) that they would have KNOWN about had they been in voice chat or in a good guild with scouts.

Then they come to the boards and cry about WvW being a “mindless zerg fest.”

Sorry, but its not the “zerg” that’s mindless.

I see nothing wrong with the situations that OP gave.

If you want fair and balanced PvP, there is sPvP.

Selwynn.2758:

Siphaed.9235:

..and I’m not the only one thinking this. It’s become a complete zerg fest and is nowhere near what it was made out to be.

Scenario #1:

Group A of 5 players attacks a tower with a single ram. Group B with 25 players sees orange swords at tower and swiftly gets there. Group B wipes Group A with ease, where as Group A barely did 10% damage to the door.

Scenario #2:

Group C of 30 players quickly builds 3 catapults on the side of a tower aiming to the wall and start to attack. Group E of 5 players is trying to defend said tower and while heading there the tower already flips. Group C heads to supply camp before Group E even makes it to tower. If Group E attacks tower, see Scenario #1.

Those are common scenarios, but without the semi complexities of setting up a single Mesmer who does a portal drop 50yrd out, sets up group/self stealth, and then rushes into the middle of a group of siege defenders and pops the exit portal. All of a sudden you go from defending it with a few arrow carts and Ballistic (an easy tactic to stall the enemy, though not slaughter them), to a pointless defense that gets wiped in 30sec or less.

Anti-zerg mechanics such as AOE is not really AOE at all…because of a lock on 5 players. You can’t make people scatter when you hit only 5 of them out of the 30 there; it just doesn’t happen. Siege isn’t scary at all unless you have a bunch of it…but you have no time to set it up before the zerg rolls over the place.

Things need changes. Zergs need to …die.

You need to play sPvP and stop crying about large scale siege warfare.

That’s what WORLD v. WORLD is. If you don’t coordinate with a skilled world v. world guild, and you don’t participate in a voice chat for your server, then yeah you will be the first one in here crying about the kitten “zergs” screwing up your little few-man rolling groups.

However, if you have those things, you’ll discover that on good WvW servers, there IS NO ZERG. However, there ARE large coordinated, strategic armies following commanders, dividing into teams and tactically seiging objectives and defending territory against other large scale coordinated enemy forces.

That is EXACTLY what WvW is supposed to be about. This from a fanatic Dark Age RvR player.

There is room for “gank” or “ninja” teams, for small guilds fielding 10-15 on the battlefield, even if they for some reason do not want to participate in server wvw chat or run with tactical commanders. But small groups will always – and should always – be at risk from the main armies. That’s what large-scale siege warfare is all about.

Get rid of your so-called “zerg?” That’s why ANET made different styles of PvP. So my “fun” doesn’t have to get “screwed” by your fun and vice versa. In addition to the myriad of actually places for successful small squad play in WvW, there is also sPvP and Tourney play, for those who can stand any scenario in which their 5-10 people might run into 25-40 and get killed.

As far as WvW goes, welcome to the battlefield, son. Quit crying and start coordinating.

That would be true if you did not have guilds with large number of members moving from low ranking sever to low ranking sever just to get there WvW titles with out any real resistance. You can voice chat zerg what ever you want but when you are out numbered 5 to 1 not much fun.

Xolo.3580:

What happens in WvW says a lot about the game. Hasn’t anyone noticed that there are no real battles going on? There’s just swiftness buffed zergs steamrolling around and “PvDoor” (a term someone here coined which I had to steal).
Outside of fortifications I’m either in a zerg that totally wins or in a zerg that totally loses, the outcome of battles is decided by sheer numbers and loading times of characters. I never thought I would say this, but in WoW mass PvP was never so bad because the game provides/provided enough opportunity to play good. In GW2 there is very little of that… yet.

What we need to figure out is how the WvW experience differs depending on what Tier you are in.

Because in Tier 1, there’s no PvDoor. This is what I mean when I say that, there is never a time when the enemy servers in T1 are all “asleep” so that we can just go pound gates and take with reckless abandon.

Instead, even at 3am PST, there are enough people on that you have to force them to commit player resources to certain maps, and, if you are able to do this and coordinate your own team well enough, you just might then be able to go speed-cap some territory on another map. This often fails, and sometimes works.

In these instances, even in US off-hours, there is battle. Some of the strategy becomes more about trying to coordinate well enough to take a keep so fast that the enemy cannot respond in time, but it sure as hell is not that there’s no fighting or no one to fight.

However, once again, if you’re not in a solid WvW guild or you refuse to use voice comms, you won’t know any of this bigger picture. So any time you happen to take a door without the whole enemy force being there, you’re more likely to go “waaaa PvDoor” instead of having a clue what’s actually going on.

Yes, WvW includes sometimes jamming the enemy up elsewhere for the purpose of assaulting a point while they are distracted. That’s not PvDoor. That’s siege tactics.

But on a different tier, you may find that everyone really does go to bed and so you do nothing but bang on doors without any response all night long. I’m sorry if that’s your case, but that is a problem with YOUR server, not a design problem with WvW.

Vendal.8697:

Selwynn.2758:

Siphaed.9235:

..and I’m not the only one thinking this. It’s become a complete zerg fest and is nowhere near what it was made out to be.

Scenario #1:

Group A of 5 players attacks a tower with a single ram. Group B with 25 players sees orange swords at tower and swiftly gets there. Group B wipes Group A with ease, where as Group A barely did 10% damage to the door.

Scenario #2:

Group C of 30 players quickly builds 3 catapults on the side of a tower aiming to the wall and start to attack. Group E of 5 players is trying to defend said tower and while heading there the tower already flips. Group C heads to supply camp before Group E even makes it to tower. If Group E attacks tower, see Scenario #1.

Those are common scenarios, but without the semi complexities of setting up a single Mesmer who does a portal drop 50yrd out, sets up group/self stealth, and then rushes into the middle of a group of siege defenders and pops the exit portal. All of a sudden you go from defending it with a few arrow carts and Ballistic (an easy tactic to stall the enemy, though not slaughter them), to a pointless defense that gets wiped in 30sec or less.

Anti-zerg mechanics such as AOE is not really AOE at all…because of a lock on 5 players. You can’t make people scatter when you hit only 5 of them out of the 30 there; it just doesn’t happen. Siege isn’t scary at all unless you have a bunch of it…but you have no time to set it up before the zerg rolls over the place.

Things need changes. Zergs need to …die.

You need to play sPvP and stop crying about large scale siege warfare.

That’s what WORLD v. WORLD is. If you don’t coordinate with a skilled world v. world guild, and you don’t participate in a voice chat for your server, then yeah you will be the first one in here crying about the kitten “zergs” screwing up your little few-man rolling groups.

However, if you have those things, you’ll discover that on good WvW servers, there IS NO ZERG. However, there ARE large coordinated, strategic armies following commanders, dividing into teams and tactically seiging objectives and defending territory against other large scale coordinated enemy forces.

That is EXACTLY what WvW is supposed to be about. This from a fanatic Dark Age RvR player.

There is room for “gank” or “ninja” teams, for small guilds fielding 10-15 on the battlefield, even if they for some reason do not want to participate in server wvw chat or run with tactical commanders. But small groups will always – and should always – be at risk from the main armies. That’s what large-scale siege warfare is all about.

Get rid of your so-called “zerg?” That’s why ANET made different styles of PvP. So my “fun” doesn’t have to get “screwed” by your fun and vice versa. In addition to the myriad of actually places for successful small squad play in WvW, there is also sPvP and Tourney play, for those who can stand any scenario in which their 5-10 people might run into 25-40 and get killed.

As far as WvW goes, welcome to the battlefield, son. Quit crying and start coordinating.

That would be true if you did not have guilds with large number of members moving from low ranking sever to low ranking sever just to get there WvW titles with out any real resistance. You can voice chat zerg what ever you want but when you are out numbered 5 to 1 not much fun.

Actually its plenty of fun, as we have the outmanned buff regularly. Having it be fun requires you to work with other players, communicate and listen to strategy and coordinate with others on your server. You have to care about the big picture of what is happening on all four maps at once, and you have to want to work together with other guilds to coordinate simulaneous efforts in every zone. If your server can’t do this, that’s a server problem, not a wvw problem. I don’t want Anet catering to your kittene server and screwing the competition up for those of us in T1 who devote nearly 100% of our game time to wvw

Vendal.8697:

Cirus.5748:

World vs World is one of the best PvP gaming experiences to ever come out, you need to look at the bigger picture, there is so much more to this then just zerging. 10 organized people defending against a 30 man zerg, = roasted zerg, even when that zerg is organized. It’s all about tactics and strategy. There is a way to counter those 3 catapults with even just 1 person defending. That’s right, 1 person can stagnate a 30 man zerg.

I think one of the major problems of WvW is that most people haven’t dug deep enough to truly understand it and instead choose to point out the things that they didn’t like and demand change when most of these things are there for a reason, for every problem there is a solution.

Oh Please Oh Please great one show me this 1vs30 way I must learn.!!!!

Okay :) , to defeat 3 enemy catapults, you build your own catapult or trebuchet inside the tower before it gets attacked. When they put their catapults up, you can kill them by manning that catapult/treb all by yourself.

Genius, I know :)

While those 30 people are outside the walls and can’t get in, they will not hurt you and it should give your allies enough time to save the tower.

Peetee.9406:

I see nothing wrong with the situations that OP gave.

If you want fair and balanced PvP, there is sPvP.

EXACTLY.

I play sPvP too, and enjoy it. It is designed around balanced matches of small teams where individual skill really stands out. Identical gear, balanced teams (i.e. an auto-balance mechanic) small number skirmishes.

Please don’t walk in here and demand that a different kind of pvp game be turned into the same kind of pvp game as spvp. I’ve been waiting 10+ years since the early days of DAOC for WvW like this, and I’ll be kitten if I want people crying about large scale siege warfare screwing that up.

You have every right to want even team, balanced pvp matches. That’s why ANET made “structured” and “competitive” pvp, or Spvp.

I have every right to want large scale, large army siege warfare, and that’s why ANET also created WvWvW.

Defending is a complete joke in this game , i’m not sure what can be done , but it will be the down fall of wvw , I don’t remember DAoC towers going down so so easy

Mirage.2597:

Defending is a complete joke in this game , i’m not sure what can be done , but it will be the down fall of wvw , I don’t remember DAoC towers going down so so easy

The biggest problem with defending is that people don’t defend.

If you aren’t willing to defend a location, then you deserve to lose it. This includes upgrades, yakk running, defensive siege and people inside keeping watch letting everyone know the situation in /team chat.

If your team reacts to a location that under attack and it’s doors are 50% down and there are 3 rams down, it’s too late to react to that.

You’ve got to be proactive and be able to identify what the enemy is doing before they even put their first construction site down and even then the siege defense should be able to counter siege and slow them down if not stop them.

If your team is determined not to lose something, you can hold it all day.

Comparing WvW to RvR is a joke. The tiny copy and paste maps make the game boring and repetitive. Knowing the different realms maps was key. I remember relic raids being an all weekend thing and finding out the hard way, the guard paths in OF so you sneak behind energy territory and not give away your position. Something that also makes wvw less fun is the lack of diversity. There’s only a handful of classes with a small pol of abilities. In DAoC you had 30+ abilities easily, not including pots and /use on gear.

I have to accept that mmos have changed. WoW set a mold that most companies aren’t going to break, even though they sell their games with that claim. Catering to the mindless zerg.

buki.3108:

Defending is stupid atm. Attackers have more of an advantage than defenders… Attackers can actually hit people!

Well, maybe that’s it. It’s that attacking trumps defending and it’s becoming nothing more than a circle-flip. Raids, zergs, or whatever you want to call massive blobs of players keep going in circles capping points and going to the next and so on and so forth.

Nobody defends much unless the point is fully upgraded, because that seems to be an obstacle that slows down the enemy (basically added hit points to doors and walls). Mortar upgrades are junk on towers as it’s a single mortar shot that never has the right position to hit the door (i.e. rams). Oil hasn’t been useful since week 1 because everyone and their grandmothers know to range attack an oil before dropping a ram or pulling up a Golem to the door (only every once in a great while will newbies get slammed by forgetting this golden rule).

There are a few suggestions that might make this a bit better for defending, as well as counter zerg-balls:

1) As said in the OP, the cap on AOE is a BAD THING! That should be removed. I know this counters it by saying that a group of 30 will most likely have more AOE than a group of 5….but, that group of 5 will still be able make the ball spread out, get them to move about,….it’ll change tactics on the field.

2) Wall outcroppings. Think of a half-circle section about 2x the width of your average Norn hanging out 2ft off the edge of a tower or keep wall (every 6-12ft spaced). Yes they’re just as vulnerable to enemy attack as current walls are, but they have the added benefit of giving defenders a position to attack from.

3) More keep and tower arrow slits. A select few keeps and towers have arrow slits near their gates. These act as line-of-sight gateways for people to do attacks from. This again is something that is lacking in quite a few areas of WvWvW.

4) Raised siege towers + ladders. Somewhat of a stretch here, but think of a tower that is single mounted siege, 4-10ft higher than a wall, reachable by a ladder, and pulled back into the courtyard of a keep/tower. One to put either a single ballista or a catapult that would reach part of the outside sectors of the fortress it resides in (now, I say part because pressed against a wall and a small cascade out beyond it will still be out of LoS).

Something needs to change to make defending more appealing and have people actually do it. What this game is turning into is a ring-around-the-rosy that Warhammer Online was all about (flipping and flipping more behind the enemy).

Cirus.5748:

World vs World is one of the best PvP gaming experiences to ever come out, you need to look at the bigger picture, there is so much more to this then just zerging. 10 organized people defending against a 30 man zerg, = roasted zerg, even when that zerg is organized. It’s all about tactics and strategy. There is a way to counter those 3 catapults with even just 1 person defending. That’s right, 1 person can stagnate a 30 man zerg.

I think one of the major problems of WvW is that most people haven’t dug deep enough to truly understand it and instead choose to point out the things that they didn’t like and demand change when most of these things are there for a reason, for every problem there is a solution.

Such bullkitten. The WVW currently is in a pitiful state, zerg wins and no skill involved essentially.

Losing it is fun? Did you mean its fun? Your statement makes it look like you feel losing is fun…

Maybe the guilds on the tier 1/2 servers can make some videos showing the sort of WvW gameplay they see there.

With some commentary and editing, it would be entertaining and instructive to see what WvW is like when a server plays it “properly”.

Ok so im a guild with a very good aliance that is on tier 2 europe, if this counts for anything that im going to say ( for low tiers), anyway….

So when i saw GW2 WvW i imediatly bought the game, i saw what Anet were saying about this type of gameplay and i git really exited about it because of STRATEGY…

Anyone that says that WvW is now fun can only not know what an open world ( WvW is kinda of that) is meant to be…

There is no strategy right now, there arent tactital moves all you need is someone with the map open saying enemie attacking here, attacking there and you get there in less than a minute with a group around 15 ppl.

How can it exist strategy when:

- You are with your guild and your alliance , lots of guilds organized and on same TS that make weekly meetings about strategy and enemies and everything ( kitten we are very well organized) and then you see 5 invaders, cool lets attack its on the way to the tower anyway and they spotted us so…
then…
you are at waypoint remembering you spent 5m aoing the ground or runing bashing your sword/ greatsword/hammer/ whatever into the air and numbers start to appear…

Omg im soooo good theres like 10 of them on the ground dead, yeah nice and bam the other 50 that you couldnt see pop out of rendering issue and youre dead at the waypoint and this is just a bad memorie because what you are really doing in WvW in killing ghosts..

You cant have a strategy when you never know the enemies real numbers.

Me being a commander of my guild cant say, hey how many atacking Bay, im gonna send 20 ppl and i go get the Hills wanna know why?

To get a real answer on their numbers, someone needs to get REAL close and wait a bit to see their numbers, if they had like 4 rams on the gate you wont get there in time and towers, wtv is lost.

So unless they solve the rendering issue this is Mass Ghostbusters championship…

This only speaking o tech issues, lets see gameplay…

So now what everyone is doing is zerg vs zerg cause its only to survive whatever is there that you cant see, but anyway even if you do and a mass fight starts where you are, you starting doing aoe and only 5 ppl get hitted in the middle of 40 or 50 ppl? I mean cmon why would this be like this? I can tell you why imo:

-Anet tought of what would be the organiztion needed to play WvW properly and so if youre a comander and you have a zerg to survive against another zerg timing is the key.

You need to time your zerg heals and boons so that the stacked players can endure the dmg, this requires coordination defensly speaking.

Now on the attack note is ridiculos especially when for example an elementalist that plays staff has a build that makes staff aoe areas larger and to this i say loool… larger area to dmg 5 ppl… anyway

If you do Aoe in an area it should dmg everyone there cause the question now is who gets hitted?

Theres a low health thief or ele in their zerg we doing aoe vs aoe he goes low, he gets out of the aoe area, another player starts getting the dmg and know the poor little thief can do the dmg he wants because the rain of fire and arrows that is dropping from the sky will for sure not hit him…

If Anet changed this and Aoe become a real Aoe zerg would need to move, choke points would be choke points instead of being just a delay of the ghostbuster hunting…

I cant tell all of you that lots and lots of ppl already left the game cause WvW is in this shape and for sure more will leave due to this.

I am sure that all of them would return if things changed, but the real problem now is:

- We are not in 1990s there are a whole lot of other games…

Please Anet finish whatever you need to do in Spvp and get your attention to WvW, remember that WvW was the big announce that made GW2 the new era of MMO shouldnt it have more attetion?

Rieselle.5079:

Maybe the guilds on the tier 1/2 servers can make some videos showing the sort of WvW gameplay they see there.

With some commentary and editing, it would be entertaining and instructive to see what WvW is like when a server plays it “properly”.

Which is even more amusing considering top tiers are considered the zergiest servers (JQ?) No offence meant, just saying really. You get it everywhere.

Zergs don’t need to die, that’s like saying that open field battles never happened and two zergs clashing is a good way to replicate that along with the chaos that comes with it. That said, I have a preference for being out of the zerg and moving either solo or in small groups for other objectives or stealth capping towers, there needs to be more introduced to either help smaller groups or make it tougher on large group zergs – seriously, is there really any point upgrading caravan guards, supply guards, veterans etc when the zerg can just steamroll them like an after thought?

I want to see things like siege towers and removal of siege AoE cap – only hitting 5 people? where’s the fear in that?

I am starting to get tired of wvw myself. It’s the same thing over and over again. If you’re not zerging, you’re defending from a zerg. It gets tiresome.

Cirus.5748:

That’s right, 1 person can stagnate a 30 man zerg.

Whatever you’re taking, I would like some please.

Another scenario:
Group of 30 farming spawns, but there is nothing there cuz nobody on the other 2 servers is even bothering playing wvw cuz the servers r pretty much dead.

Here is something cool. Depending how outmatch The server is, they can optionally play as a legendary spawn. Number of legendary on team depends on the disadvantage of server to server with timer & cool down.

ankdarkwolf.1487:

I started to play wvw recently, but a thing I noticed in an instant was the big difference between attacking and defending even with the same amount of players. Maybe I have too little experience but attacking a tower seems too easy: I can move in open field to evade, I can aoe walls and hit enemies with no great efforts for example, or build sieges in no time that are outside the range of the tower’s defences. When I defend a tower instead I find a lot of problems, as I said in another thread, the walls obstruct my attacks, I can’t use practically all of my active skill even under my position (out of range or line of sight problems) if I want to place at least a weapon’s skill aoe I have to jump on the border of the wall: this is time breaking and also make me an elephant-size-red-flashing target (as I am a really big norn). Sieges are always a pain in the purse, I try to place them always in good places but if I want to see at least 1/10 of the zerg attacking that ‘good place’ will always be an easy target. When I think of ‘attacking a tower’ I feel it has to be a difficult task, on the other side when I think of ‘defending’ I think it should be an advantaged status. Am I wrong?

I share your view and I have expressed it somewhere else. I think that not having an advantage being on high ground is one of the main reasons why this game has so little strategy. Characters in high ground, and over walls should have longer skill ranges. A smaller number of characters in high ground should do better than an incoming bigger number of players. It would be good that the characters were also slower while climbing a hill and faster down a hill. In the current state of the game high ground plays a roll for falling damage and for paths, as for skills’ range and movement the world seems to be flat.
And, yes, characters on battlements should have better line of sight (less obstruction and to miss less often) than their target characters. (Think characters and rams next to a gate should not receive any damage through the gate.)

The problem with defending is that it’s terribly boring and gets you nothing other than the occasional repair build.

There’s a person manning a treb in SM aimed at Durios. For the entire duration that player will recieve no exp, no karma, no badges and he will bored out of mind. The defenders can setup a 2 man swirling winds chain to stop the treb but will reciee no exp, no karma, no badges and will be bored out of their mind.

This is how WvW is won right now. Whichever side is willing to subject themselves to to boredom the longest will win whether it be trebbing, escorting, scouting, or camping.

awkward.2198:

- You are with your guild and your alliance , lots of guilds organized and on same TS that make weekly meetings about strategy and enemies and everything ( kitten we are very well organized) and then you see 5 invaders, cool lets attack its on the way to the tower anyway and they spotted us so…
then…
you are at waypoint remembering you spent 5m aoing the ground or runing bashing your sword/ greatsword/hammer/ whatever into the air and numbers start to appear…

Omg im soooo good theres like 10 of them on the ground dead, yeah nice and bam the other 50 that you couldnt see pop out of rendering issue and youre dead at the waypoint and this is just a bad memorie because what you are really doing in WvW in killing ghosts..

You cant have a strategy when you never know the enemies real numbers.

Me being a commander of my guild cant say, hey how many atacking Bay, im gonna send 20 ppl and i go get the Hills wanna know why?

To get a real answer on their numbers, someone needs to get REAL close and wait a bit to see their numbers, if they had like 4 rams on the gate you wont get there in time and towers, wtv is lost.

So unless they solve the rendering issue this is Mass Ghostbusters championship…

I share your view, think I am not an expert nor a commander the rendering affects anyone. I do not know whether that technical problem can be solved, nevertheless, we know it is possible to make enemy characters to be visible in the map as -say- red dots, the red dots could be restricted to know about nearby enemies or enemies from a distance than makes it possible to go around the rendering issue.

I also would like that the name plates of enemy characters were shorter, dropping the “invader”/“defender” label and abbreviating the World’s name so that all the name plates of a group do not mix together in the screen and it is easier to distinguish the number of individuals.

(By the way, I also would like that all ally characters where visible on the map and not just commanders and party members.)

Such bullkitten. The WVW currently is in a pitiful state, zerg wins and no skill involved essentially.

Not sure what server you’re on, but sounds like defensive siege isn’t used properly. 1 catapult behind door = no meleeing door and no rams can be built. Couple arrowcarts on the walls and a cat or treb in a place they can’t hit it with regular attacks means 4 people can stop an extremely large force unless they are super effective at flash-dropping and aiming siege. Yes they will eventually take the keep, but with good defensive siege, there should be plenty of time for reinforcements.

In the end the force with superior numbers has the advantage. And if both sides play smart of course they’ll win. That doesn’t make it a zerg. It makes it a large scale battle.

Disagree entirely. The reason the Zerg wins is because of the lack of foresight and preparation by the other teams.

How many times does a Zerg arrive at your tower, and you have at best 1 arrow cart set up?
How many times do you begin a siege with about 15 people, and not set up defensive siege around your rams/catapults to ensure its success?
How many times do you even see siege in a supply camp?
How many times do you see open field siege to obstruct a passage to your area of the map? Key example could be team red defending the tunnel into the dredge. Anzalis can defend the bridge. That blocks off the main routes to Speldan.

Lets move away from siege though. How often do you see Ranger tracks setup in an organised fashion to defend your position?
How often do Guardians group together to put their walls down properly (staff 5, hammer 5, wall of reflection), one after another, to buy as much time as possible?
How often do you get Elementalists using the swirling winds tactic outside of an organised guild?
How often do Mesmer’s chain portal people to the front line for fast reinforcement of a position?
How often do Necromancer’s place mark of fear together at the opportune moment to prevent the Zerg pushing forward, and thus making them run back because you have that defensive siege previously discussed?
How often do you get an organised volley of Thief cluster bombs or Ranger volleys?
How often do you get Engineer turrets set up as a front to slow the Zerg again?

You get the picture.

It isn’t Zerging that is the problem, it’s peoples complacency and lack of innovation. We have the tools to stop the Zerg.

Don’t let anyone fool you. Tier 1 difference is a more organized zerg with more “all around the clock” forces. That’s it. There is no grand scale tactics because having the best “ball of death” with a few left behind(to upgrade) is the best option. Some sprinkled supply camp harassers in the mix.

Playing Planetside 2 and it’s great how just zerging of any type is easily countered. Land has bottlenecks to prevent massive Tank zerging on a facility. Makes them easily blown up if infantry, Air, and turrets are not being focused on as well. Air is countered by other Air or all the AA. Infantry can’t just ignore all the bullets, so that stops that lol. It requires solid tactics to take key facilities. Even then territory can be “cut off” preventing you from gaining resources from your isolated(and possibly valuable) land you spent hours trying to take. Your new territory must be able to “connect” back to your Warpgate(Main base) for your faction to gain the resources. So just running across the map mindlessly gaining territory could make all your hard work moot.

Yes, that’s a MMOFPS so the variables are different. However, the point remains the same. Zerging is not frowned upon enough by current mechanics in WvW. It’s not “hardcore” enough in my opinion. You queue up, get in, and join “ball of death” with little outside the box thinking involved. It’s either MOAR ZERGLINGS!!! or MOAR SIEGE!!!!

I think land is overturned too easily. There needs to be more of an approximate time it would take to overtake a certain type of settlement. Among other things.

1)Increase tier 2 and 3 leveled fortification hp.

2)Make settlements maintain the effects of how you chose to take
it. If you knock down all the walls then they should continue to stay down until repaired.

3) Cap the amount of certain siege equipment that can affect a settlement door/wall.

4)SM should have multiple “stages” to over take it. SM feels too much like a regular keep battle. I found it more fun when you had to work your way upstairs to the lord, before the cheating of course… SM should also affect more besides central location on EB and a +10 point bonus more than a regular keep. It should have an effect on all maps for the holding world.

5) Only allow points for each territory to add to your score if they connect to your home point. Those cut off is not counted. Supply Camps are not included. They are already valued enough to try and keep but don’t add much to the score.

6) Cap the amount of siege that can affect a settlement door/wall.

7) Make keeps give benefits to the holding world for that map only.

8) Give previous orb buffs to outmanned players. May need to increase buff.

1-7 are how more “hardcore” aspects could be included. Rendering wouldn’t be bad if the zerg toned down, but currently there is no reason to stop reinforcing it. Throwing numbers at something is way too effective and easy. Be it players or siege( like golem rushes).

I will also add it would be great if WvW received its own “mini expansion”. It needs to replace 2 BL maps with completely new and unique ones. For an effective 4 maps in total, not the 2/4 we have now with 3 being the same. It should follow more of an EB type design. EB keeps offer some cool ways to attacking the keep besides using the front or back door.

Also, give jumping puzzle players their own instance. They clog up queues and do nothing for WvW. Being in “control” of it is not important. All players in WvW should have different goals that effectively lead to the same result. Victory!

How do you get bored, you’re in WvW to kill players in the open world, and conquer territory for the glory of your homeland. If that isn’t all the motivation and entertainment you require, you’re not cut out to be a Mist Warrior.

wuvwuv has lost its “fun” a long time ago

sad but true

arenanet has completely dropped the ball here and what makes it worse is that we players have turned wuvwuv into something arenanet themselves never intended it to be: ENDGAME

arenanet made WvWvW as something casual. for casual players and casual play. “Play as you want to” remember?? it was built for people to jump into, get into a few battles, get some kills, log off.

it was never meant to be what it has become: endgame. and you wonder why arenanet has turned a complete utter blind eye to wuvwuv? that is why

they already built what they wanted and intended it to be.. in their eyes, no more work needs to be done to it

that is the most painful truth of all

I see a lot of people wanting to remove the AoE cap of 5, as if this would magically solve everything.
Imagine a “blob” of 30 people, with me (guardian) in it. % enemy players drop their AoE that will hit all of those 30. Naturally I will pop my “Stand Your Ground”, giving retaliation to the entire blob. Those 5 AoE’rs will go down in a matter of seconds, same as before.

Or, is the AoE cap just gonna be removed for damaging abilities, in which case it seems a bit biased towards casters and rangers.

Just a general observation, but it doesn’t seem like any of the game designers/developers are engaged in the WvW forum. A quick check over at the sPvP forums show multiple responses from Anet on a variety of subjects. Seems rather odd since WvW was a major selling point of the game.

5 people creating orange x’s? learn to stealth ops a bit better. I have taken towers with 2 other people and created no x’s. Learn as you go?

Get a server TS to get more organized like we have at the upper tiers……

Your server is just disorganized and probably dont know good siege placement to effectively defend against zergs… 2 people can hold off a huge zerg with a cart behind the door and a cata on top of supply shed till reinforcements get there.

buki.3108:

Defending is stupid atm. Attackers have more of an advantage than defenders… Attackers can actually hit people!

lolwut?

I have most of my 1500ish kills from buttz0ring attackers from inside a tower.

Aurust.8961:

Get a server TS to get more organized like we have at the upper tiers……

Your server is just disorganized and probably dont know good siege placement to effectively defend against zergs… 2 people can hold off a huge zerg with a cart behind the door and a cata on top of supply shed till reinforcements get there.

Eh, numbers matter brah. When half your server logs out at 12-2am and another server prides themselves on their Oceanic population… your server is gonna get buttz0red.

Siege can be countered.

Aurust.8961:

Get a server TS to get more organized like we have at the upper tiers……

Your server is just disorganized …

Quoted for truth.

I am on TC (fighting FA and YB)

this has been a nonstop tactical wvw battle and it is a lot of fun.

There are a lot of problems with WvW.
There are some good things too.

But items is my biggest concern…. The item cost for standard exotics is too high. And there should be a better evaluation on character skills.

Capture rewards for targets needs token rewards…. because if only kills gets tokens, then you might as well put us in an open field with sticks.

@ OP

I run a 5-10m strike team. We use the our and our enemy’s zerg to our advantage. We ninja keeps, towers and camps. We also defend such.

I’ll give you example from last night. (not revealing all tactics, just overview of strat)
We ran an 8m team. Our zerg were having difficulty with Darkhaven zerg roffle stomping up the west side of our BL. I took my team deep to the south and started assualting their tower, Brier. At first only a few came to deal with us, but before long there were 25+ inside that tower. We kewpt them locked down in this area for over an hour. This allowed our zerg to push back down the west side of the map.

Another example from 2 weeks ago. (again, overall strat not tactics)
1…thats right 1 guildie held Hills for about 3 hours against serveral assualts. More started logging on and we eventually have 5m team. We set up defencive siege and held out for another 9 hours. At one point our zerg came to Hills and I had to ask them to leave because they were less effective then the 5 of us. We almost lost it till they left. Everytime we got swords on our location the commander on the field would pst me asking numbers and telling me they were coming. I would tell him 20+, but to keep working west side of map, we got this.

Zergs sever a purpose, but to say you are ineffective unless your in a zerg; Just says your not thinking outside of the box. I suggest you watch and find out who the strike teams are on your server and run with them to learn some small team tactics.

Another thing that totally encourages zerging is the fact that it takes so long to get to fights. Nobody wants to run minutes across the map and then get into a situation where chances are high that you die, forcing you to wait for ress or do the runaround all over again. I like smaller skirmishes and playing the ranged game, because IMO managing range and position is one of the most fun and essential things to master in PvP. Yet, it’s almost impossible to kite in this game, so any encounter with a stronger army will result in certain death if you are outnumbered period.
Of course you cannot let people instantly respawn 20 feet away from the last fight, but the current situation isn’t satisfactory either.