Guild Wars 2

does anyone know if there is a limit to the amount of damage sources? if so whats the number? seems like that would be a good place to balance the game mode. hot brought so much more damage, and servers have gotten much more polarized. if there is no cap, perhaps putting one at 30 people could help smaller groups (and possibly lag by a huge margin). I’m pretty sure it would only benefit the smaller group. thoughts?

Presuming this is wvw only I like this idea. However I can’t shake the feeling that this would cause major exploits. But I wouldn’t mind trying it out for a week

I have long been saying that the unlimited incoming damage is the reason zergs are abundant as opposed to limited outgoing damage. 1 peep can only hit 5 peeps but 1 peep can be hit by 50 peeps. Thats why 50 peeps bombing on a small area is OP.

Thats also why stability fell apart and created the pirate ship meta, Anet had to fix the unlimited incoming disables.

Unfortunely if you where to change this now, as is… oh boy the condis. Condis everywhere.

Also, if the number is too low, it would create some other weird situations. For example max 5 people can deal damage to 1 at the same time, and I know a few roamers that would take on plenty of zergs solo. Even 10 might be too little if the 10 aren’t very good etc.

It would be a tricky number to get right.

joneirikb.7506:

Also, if the number is too low, it would create some other weird situations. For example max 5 people can deal damage to 1 at the same time, and I know a few roamers that would take on plenty of zergs solo. Even 10 might be too little if the 10 aren’t very good etc.

It would be a tricky number to get right.

The number isnt a problem. As I said I am all for the idea bu the problem is how do you even implement something like this and keep it fair and neutral?

To give an example, lets say that you have rule that says you can only be hit by 5 attacks in 1s. For simplicity, we have a scenario where 6 peeps attack 1 and they all do 1 attack each during that second.

Now… Who is not going to be able to hit? Who’s gonna get “missed!”. The tanky druid that shot a 300 damage arrow from 1800 range, due to being furthest away of the 6? The zerker thief that did a 10K backstab last of all at .9s? The condi necro that fumbled everything and only added 1 bleed stack?

Sure you could go by pure time and say “thief: kitten you!” But would that be fair? How was the thief supposed to know he hit last in that completely invisible timeframe?

If you go by distance, then you’re saying kitten you to all ranged in the entire game instead.

So how do you decide who that unlucky 6th person is?

@Dawdler.8521

Definitively agree on how awkward that would get, but I don’t think it could work any other way than “first kittens”, anything else would likely turn into a even larger mess.

That way an organized group could at least focus fire with their heavy hitters etc. But it would completely wreck pug zergs in some situations.

It’s an interesting concept, though. So play it forward… what if incoming damage sources are limited in some way? Does that break up blobs? What’s the projected actual impact both on skilled and less skilled groups? How does it impact player behavior?

Does it really matter whether your combat log shows hits from 20 berserkers or one necro with 40 stacks of bleed?

Nah. The idea puts forward exclusion. WvW needs to be inclusive (even if that means omni blobs…) mainly because it’s bleeding out new players. You may get people calling out others for being low level, and doing minimal damage. That lowbee’s presence essentially blocks out damage. After all, GW2 was founded on people joining up and helping each other.

At best they should copy GW1 in regards to hard CC (Gw1 only had Knockdown). Meaning while you have a specific CC you are immune to that specific CC for the duration (to prevent perma lockdowns).

I understand that people wish to hamper the omni blob behavior. The best, but costly, would usually come down to map design. Most other ideas have been artificial number changes. I also suspect incoming damage cap increases server load because it adds that additional step of denial (sort of like DDOS).

Chinchilla.1785:

I also suspect incoming damage cap increases server load because it adds that additional step of denial (sort of like DDOS).

What if we hit two birds with one stone and made a new condition called Ponderance that acted like skill lag. Stacks would increase the number of milliseconds between skills firing. “I have 14 stacks of Ponderance, I can’t fire anything off.” Surely spacing out skills being fired would lessen the server load? After all there’s nothing Anet likes more than releasing new conditions.

msalakka.4653:

Chinchilla.1785:

I also suspect incoming damage cap increases server load because it adds that additional step of denial (sort of like DDOS).

What if we hit two birds with one stone and made a new condition called Ponderance that acted like skill lag. Stacks would increase the number of milliseconds between skills firing. “I have 14 stacks of Ponderance, I can’t fire anything off.” Surely spacing out skills being fired would lessen the server load? After all there’s nothing Anet likes more than releasing new conditions.

Not sure if troll but… Ew. Cluncky as hell combat. People got mad over few seconds of additional CD on lava font… Even worse when skills just won’t fire in 3 way fights. Imaging having this stuff..

joneirikb.7506:

@Dawdler.8521

Definitively agree on how awkward that would get, but I don’t think it could work any other way than “first kittens”, anything else would likely turn into a even larger mess.

That way an organized group could at least focus fire with their heavy hitters etc. But it would completely wreck pug zergs in some situations.

Yeah but you still have that arbitrary end of the chain. How do you even know if your gonna “overhit” someone? For zerging sure everyone spam skills, if 2 out 38 players miss no one cares and those 2 probably dont even notice. But for smallscale, getting a skill on cd at the wrong time could mean death.

My example with the thief is probably the best to show the unfair nature of it. Yeah so he missed a 10K hit this second – no cd, he just do it again the next second.

But what if someone missed a 30s cd skill due to overhit?

It would open up such a can of worms favoring classes and builds… So even though I want it, its just not feasable.

You would probably have better luck giving everyone 4 dodges or something to simply avoid wide AoE bursts.

msalakka.4653:

Chinchilla.1785:

I also suspect incoming damage cap increases server load because it adds that additional step of denial (sort of like DDOS).

What if we hit two birds with one stone and made a new condition called Ponderance that acted like skill lag. Stacks would increase the number of milliseconds between skills firing. “I have 14 stacks of Ponderance, I can’t fire anything off.” Surely spacing out skills being fired would lessen the server load? After all there’s nothing Anet likes more than releasing new conditions.

I feel like that’s exactly what this game needs

this is a joke rigth?

this is a very very stupid “solution” if its true…

Stand The Wall.6987:

does anyone know if there is a limit to the amount of damage sources? if so whats the number? seems like that would be a good place to balance the game mode. hot brought so much more damage, and servers have gotten much more polarized. if there is no cap, perhaps putting one at 30 people could help smaller groups (and possibly lag by a huge margin). I’m pretty sure it would only benefit the smaller group. thoughts?

That won’t do what you think it will.

First off damage caps would increase server load, because every time someone is hit with a attack the server would have to check to see if they are capped.

Secondly it won’t help smaller groups at all. The reason small mans can’t take on Omni blobs is because this game is built around active defenses, and you can’t dodge stuff from 20 different people, especially when your client doesn’t even render half the skills.

Moreover it would make blob v blob fights take forever because how much more effective group healing would be with a damage cap.

Stand The Wall.6987:

does anyone know if there is a limit to the amount of damage sources? if so whats the number? seems like that would be a good place to balance the game mode. hot brought so much more damage, and servers have gotten much more polarized. if there is no cap, perhaps putting one at 30 people could help smaller groups (and possibly lag by a huge margin). I’m pretty sure it would only benefit the smaller group. thoughts?

No, there is not a cap… No, this suggestion will not do anything meaningful for wvw… No, the devs will not implement such an idea…

The answer you are looking for is… better heal and nonheal support designs, roles, skills, support friendly UI options… so smaller groups can function and perform better with quality support “stuff” behind them.

Stand The Wall.6987:

does anyone know if there is a limit to the amount of damage sources? if so whats the number? seems like that would be a good place to balance the game mode. hot brought so much more damage, and servers have gotten much more polarized. if there is no cap, perhaps putting one at 30 people could help smaller groups (and possibly lag by a huge margin). I’m pretty sure it would only benefit the smaller group. thoughts?

The incoming target damage source cap seems incredibly unlikely to be a thing – it seems to make resolving attacks much more complicated and without much, if any, payoff.

How would the game communicate to me as an attacker whether the target is already at the damage source cap?
How would conditions be considered? Does an attacker get to apply multiple condis (both by type and stacks) and hence get to bypass the 30 cap in a way that direct damage attackers cannot?
Would situations be created where a bunch of very small damage packets are taking up potential damage slots for bigger hits?
Would damage packets be lost/nullified if the target was at 30 already, or pass to the next sub 30 target?

As a general rule of thumb, players are very good at identifying something that doesn’t work or feel fun/good, or iterating and potentially overly powerful combinations. Players are generally awful at proposing solutions to those same issues.

A better approach would be to identify what exactly is the ‘problem’ and have a discussion around the specifics of that problem.

Frost.5017:

Stand The Wall.6987:

does anyone know if there is a limit to the amount of damage sources? if so whats the number? seems like that would be a good place to balance the game mode. hot brought so much more damage, and servers have gotten much more polarized. if there is no cap, perhaps putting one at 30 people could help smaller groups (and possibly lag by a huge margin). I’m pretty sure it would only benefit the smaller group. thoughts?

The incoming target damage source cap seems incredibly unlikely to be a thing – it seems to make resolving attacks much more complicated and without much, if any, payoff.

How would the game communicate to me as an attacker whether the target is already at the damage source cap?
How would conditions be considered? Does an attacker get to apply multiple condis (both by type and stacks) and hence get to bypass the 30 cap in a way that direct damage attackers cannot?
Would situations be created where a bunch of very small damage packets are taking up potential damage slots for bigger hits?
Would damage packets be lost/nullified if the target was at 30 already, or pass to the next sub 30 target?

As a general rule of thumb, players are very good at identifying something that doesn’t work or feel fun/good, or iterating and potentially overly powerful combinations. Players are generally awful at proposing solutions to those same issues.

A better approach would be to identify what exactly is the ‘problem’ and have a discussion around the specifics of that problem.

This is the problem with GW2…

http://tap-repeatedly.com/2011/06/exclusive-interview-arenanets-jon-peters-and-jonathan-sharp/

“Jon P: The whole game is built very offensively on purpose. You see a lot of sports that are defensive, like American and European football, and you see that defence wins all the time and that defence is often the best offence. We’ve developed a system where, hopefully, offence is the best defence. That you don’t want to say “what are they doing, how can I counter them?” instead you want to say “I’m doing something and I’m doing it well enough that they have to counter me.” I think that’s a much more interesting approach, as it’s then not about reacting but becomes that the best players are trying to make others react to what they are doing, which creates a more dynamic environment.”

The devs completely butchered heal and non heal support designs in exchange for a “whole game is built very offensively on purpose” because they felt it “creates a more dynamic environment.”… and they were wrong.

Also, the devs knew that various players like to have various support roles to play, like healer, but they cut those out intentionally and made a meager attempt with HoT to change course…

“Jon P: When we actually made the decision to not have healers, it wasn’t my job to talk to others about it directly, so I’m unsure how heavily other people were consulted. I know some were skeptical and were worried. A lot of people like to play healers and liked to play monks in Guild Wars 1. That being said, it’s not a secret around the office that I do not like to play healers, so I wasn’t too sad to see them go!”

So, in relation to the OP, this game is still all about the damage spam with light support. Until this “offensively” designed game changes to a “balanced” design game , nothing will change to help smaller teams function better.

Stand The Wall.6987:

[snip]hot brought so much more damage, and servers have gotten much more polarized. if there is no cap, perhaps putting one at 30 people could help smaller groups[snip]

I also very much miss the days of pre-HoT and pre-stab nerfs. During those times, smaller but highly organized groups were able to take on vastly superior numbers and come out on top. Fast forward and in comes a steaming pile of HoT which gave each class and elite specialization which instead of offering a new way to play your class, just piled on a stack of ‘fixes’ for most of a core class’ baked in weaknesses. Take necro for example. Pre-HoT necros were run as absolute glass canons, capable of decimating enemy targets but they also had very poor mobility and were very susceptible to CC. It was those baked in weaknesses that made for interesting play: somone had to provide the with stability, someone had to maintain their swiftness uptime, the necro had to be more careful with their own positioning to avoid getting hard CC’ed or separated from the group by soft CC. Now necros have access to a leap on a very short cd, access to pulsing stability, passive movement speed buff and incoming soft CC reduction and hence removed the need to rely on organized teammates as much as they did pre HoT to maximize their potential. It’s not just necro; only taking it as an example.

The real issue, imo, is that HoT removed or ‘fixed’ a lot of those baked in class weaknesses and in doing so massively reduced the power level of organized groups over the unorganized. Pre-HoT how big a group you could take on was largely based on the skill level and level of organization of a group. Post-HoT its much more often a ‘who has more numbers’ check.

As zergs can’t get busted down by organized groups nearly as well as they could pre-HoT there have been two side effects that further ecourage blobbing even harder:
- no amazing out numbered zerg busting videos and community to inspire players to join or run their own organized group and emulate this play style
- has become even safer to run in a blob; hence blobbing provides the highest rewards, with both the lowest effort and lowest risk of dying

Personally, I’d like to see much of the HoT trash deleted entirely, but most importantly I want the design philosophy that spawned HoT be purged. Unfortunately, Anet has stated that they won’t be touching old systems and instead focussing on making new stuff. This means that not only will the HoT trash remain in the game, but HoT 2.0 will undoubtedly further powercreep up again (keep in mind you can only pick a single elite specialization at a time) to secure sales. ):

Dawdler.8521:

Now… Who is not going to be able to hit?

my guess is the first however many.

Sarika.3756:

It’s an interesting concept, though. So play it forward… what if incoming damage sources are limited in some way? Does that break up blobs? What’s the projected actual impact both on skilled and less skilled groups? How does it impact player behavior?

I like your questions as its why I created the thread but I cant answer them without testing it out.

Crinn.7864:

snipples

youre saying 50 players and all their calculations for stats/traits/buffs vs 30 is better? if it is I really don’t get how this works lol. as for how it would effect fights, I cant agree to anything unless I tested it out myself.

Chinchilla.1785:

You may get people calling out others for being low level, and doing minimal damage.

pretty sure most of the low levels are in eotm. regardless, if you get hit by 20 people repeatedly you are going down.

Swagger.1459:

snipples

since you cherry picked that quote, I cant take your argument seriously.

come on people use the brains, it is pretty simple to design an algorithm to manage “caps” in incoming damage, but i’ll not repeat myself again.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Dawdler.8521:

Now… Who is not going to be able to hit?

my guess is the first however many.

Sarika.3756:

It’s an interesting concept, though. So play it forward… what if incoming damage sources are limited in some way? Does that break up blobs? What’s the projected actual impact both on skilled and less skilled groups? How does it impact player behavior?

I like your questions as its why I created the thread but I cant answer them without testing it out.

Crinn.7864:

snipples

youre saying 50 players and all their calculations for stats/traits/buffs vs 30 is better? if it is I really don’t get how this works lol. as for how it would effect fights, I cant agree to anything unless I tested it out myself.

Chinchilla.1785:

You may get people calling out others for being low level, and doing minimal damage.

pretty sure most of the low levels are in eotm. regardless, if you get hit by 20 people repeatedly you are going down.

Swagger.1459:

snipples

since you cherry picked that quote, I cant take your argument seriously.

I didn’t cherry pick anything, those were very clear statements made by an anet employee on the design philosophy of professions and combat for the entire game. You should put more thought into what I’m saying and come up with some constructive responses instead of deflecting.

You obviously didn’t put much thought into your suggestion, and it also shows your limited understanding of the game.

I appreciate the fact you are thinking outside the box. It would be away to close the gap between giant groups and smaller ones.

It would make combat even more restricted feeling though. Its like adding an extra invulnerability state to each character like they get upon being downed. It feels tacky and gimmicky and subtracts from the immersion and makes the gamemode feel arcadey in nature. Second problem is that zergs would just match this to how they fight. They would simply have more people focus on healing and support rather than direct damage, and their attacks would still be “melee charge and run over people all the time” but with more focus on “moving” and charging multiple times if needed. Its really no different than it is now, except they would be even tankier and create much longer fights….and fights are too long already.

Removing the downed state and boon share cheese is a much easier way to balance it out. If you can down parts of an enemy zerg as a lesser force….you should be able to capitalize on it, atm you can’t in most situations.

And it is absolutely ludicrous that some of you think that HoT ruined the gameplay with increased damage stats. Hot DID increase damage stats, but they increased DEFENSE AND TANK MANY MANY MANY MANY times more!!!! It doesn’t take much research to see that is the case in the food….the boonshare…..the evade/stealth/port/invulnerability/kite/regen abilities thrown onto alot of classses. Damage increases pale in comparison to this defense increase, especially of a zerg. The defenses of a zerg are insanely stronger than pre Hot.

Cerby.1069:

Removing the downed state and boon share cheese is a much easier way to balance it out. If you can down parts of an enemy zerg as a lesser force….you should be able to capitalize on it, atm you can’t in most situations.

Damage increases pale in comparison to this defense increase, especially of a zerg. The defenses of a zerg are insanely stronger than pre Hot.

downed state removal and boonshare are definitely 2 big changes that could go either way. I doubt they will ever touch downed state, as its an integral part of the game and they already made some changes to it.

as for damage vs defense, damage is definitely a lot stronger then defense now. sure hot gave us druids, heal revs (insanely strong healers but you don’t see much of them), and heal eles. in contrast, dh has a strong trap, wars are using their bursts in a 1/3 of the time (theyre really strong compared to regular bursts), rev hammer is still top lol, no one care about medium armor damage (except staff thief), reaper is insanely strong with both condi and power, and double grav well mes is a very strong addition.

if you compare the length of fights back in the day to the ones we have now, the old fights took 100% longer. there were a couple changes unrelated to hot (water blasts and some skills no longer unlimited target) that contributed to this, but if you told a player back in the day the changes to the amount of damage output, he would have a heart attack.

Maybe “Players can only take 33% of maximum health as damage per sec from condition damage” So a player would die in 2-3 sec from condi stacking, compared to right now with more like a 1-2 sec time gap to cleanse your 67 stacks of bleed, am just throwing ideas around

Removal of downed state is never going to happen, Anet would never make such a drastic change between game modes, they barely want to change skills between PvP and PvE so I doubt they would remove downed state in WvW. Even if it proved effective they wouldn’t, since they don’t want the feel of the game to change in between game modes

I tend to feel like the simplest way to reduce blobbing (without changing the base game design) would be to reduce the efficacy of all skills—damage, heals, boons, conditions, whatever—as the number of allies in the neighborhood grows. For example, 20 people in 1500 radius would be full power, 20-40 would be 75% power, at 40 would be 50% power, etc. But not effect the design of skills themselves, CD’s, number of targets, etc. Not sure what would need to happen with CC skills.

You’d need an indicator, and the server would have to be calculating when to apply the state constantly. OTOH, if it actually reduced large numbers, it would be calculating a lot less other stuff.

Not saying it should happen, just that it seems like the simplest way.

some sort of cap needs to be put on condis.

I’m not looking to reduce blobbing or punish bigger numbers, I’m wanting to give smaller groups a better chance.

Bridget Morrigan.1752:

I tend to feel like the simplest way to reduce blobbing (without changing the base game design) would be to reduce the efficacy of all skills—damage, heals, boons, conditions, whatever—as the number of allies in the neighborhood grows. For example, 20 people in 1500 radius would be full power, 20-40 would be 75% power, at 40 would be 50% power, etc. But not effect the design of skills themselves, CD’s, number of targets, etc. Not sure what would need to happen with CC skills.

You’d need an indicator, and the server would have to be calculating when to apply the state constantly. OTOH, if it actually reduced large numbers, it would be calculating a lot less other stuff.

Not saying it should happen, just that it seems like the simplest way.

So you’re basicly saying if two 19 man optimised to the teeth guilds are GvGing, I can just go in and go “lololololyou’renowazerglolololol” and cut the guilds offensive power by a quarter?

If we could control players, your idea works.

We cant, so it doesnt.

A change that will inevitable lead to someone yelling “GTFO out of WvW!” is not a good change.

If stopping condis is the issue, I have a much better idea – cap it just like when PvE mobs hit 100 stacks. On players, that would be… say 10 stacks on damaging conditions (torment, confusion, bleed, burning, poision, dont know if I missed any).

It’s simple and only affect those focusing on either one condition, zerging or trying to condibomb single targets. For small scale yeah bursts from a say 15+ confusion stack mesmer will be weaker. A burst from 2 mesmers even weaker. Small scale should easily be able to spread out their targets. Condi has always been about attrition so I dont really see the issue there.

Dawdler.8521:

So you’re basicly saying if two 19 man optimised to the teeth guilds are GvGing, I can just go in and go “lololololyou’renowazerglolololol” and cut the guilds offensive power by a quarter?

If we could control players, your idea works.

We cant, so it doesnt.

A change that will inevitable lead to someone yelling “GTFO out of WvW!” is not a good change.

If stopping condis is the issue, I have a much better idea – cap it just like when PvE mobs hit 100 stacks. On players, that would be… say 10 stacks on damaging conditions (torment, confusion, bleed, burning, poision, dont know if I missed any).

It’s simple and only affect those focusing on either one condition, zerging or trying to condibomb single targets. For small scale yeah bursts from a say 15+ confusion stack mesmer will be weaker. A burst from 2 mesmers even weaker. Small scale should easily be able to spread out their targets. Condi has always been about attrition so I dont really see the issue there.

The numbers could be figured differently—that was just an example, it doesn’t have to be straight to 75% at 20 people—but overall I’d agree with you. But I think generally that’s going to be the problem with any of these suggestions: when you punish large groups, there’s going to be a chance for people to tip the scales, purposely or not, in a direction that doesn’t benefit the larger group (or themselves), and that’s going to make people angry and isolate players.

The condi suggestion is interesting, but I don’t think it’d go far enough to fix the overall problem. People would just change builds and still run en masse.

Whole idea misses the point that ANet designed the entire game mode around huge battles between large numbers of players. To quote from the description of WvW on the main, official site:

“Join World vs. World (WvW)for … pitched battles between hundreds of players.”

Zergs and blobs are what was always intended to be the main attraction of WvW. The entire direction of development (such as it is) over five years supports that concept.

What they need is an engine that can support it properly, not a way to make the fights smaller.

you’ve missed my point, which ive made repeatedly.

I’m not looking to make fights smaller. I’m looking to give smaller groups a better chance.

Chinchilla.1785:

I understand that people wish to hamper the omni blob behavior. The best, but costly, would usually come down to map design. Most other ideas have been artificial number changes. I also suspect incoming damage cap increases server load because it adds that additional step of denial (sort of like DDOS).

This was why they designed the desert borderland the way they did when it first came out. Blobs didn’t like it because it hampered the blob lifestyle, however when the blobs went to eternal most of the fight groups had to follow because they had few blobs to fight on the desert maps…anyways we saw what most of the community thought of the desert borderlands when they were 1st designed to reduce blob effectiveness.

Dinas Dragonbane.2978:

Chinchilla.1785:

I understand that people wish to hamper the omni blob behavior. The best, but costly, would usually come down to map design. Most other ideas have been artificial number changes. I also suspect incoming damage cap increases server load because it adds that additional step of denial (sort of like DDOS).

This was why they designed the desert borderland the way they did when it first came out. Blobs didn’t like it because it hampered the blob lifestyle, however when the blobs went to eternal most of the fight groups had to follow because they had few blobs to fight on the desert maps…anyways we saw what most of the community thought of the desert borderlands when they were 1st designed to reduce blob effectiveness.

I thought it was the roamers, and solos that didn’t like it at first? Like the barricades…

It’s speculative to say what ANET really designed DBL for. Supposedly for more strategy? Vagueness is what I usually felt. TBH, I hate all map designs for 1v1v1.