Guild Wars 2

I tried a game without aoe, it was amazing, there was 100 people but everyone was fighting in 1vs1.

Aoe is the main problem ! No more bus, just lot of fights !

wvw ( pvpve game ) and pve without aoe will force the game to rewritten from the start .

i think this will never happened

Lord.4270:

I tried a game without aoe, it was amazing, there was 100 people but everyone was fighting in 1vs1.

Aoe is the main problem ! No more bus, just lot of fights !

I love AOE, my elementalist like to put AOE to the stacked Zerg and see how they will die (few AOE skills have not 5 targets limit!).
So dont touch AOE plz.

And you can go and play to the game where 1vs1 fighting 100 times.
Something about scrolls I think

AoE as a primary attack system is a horrible design mechanic for any player wanting to focus on skilled play. A little AoE is a good thing such as a grenade in a shooter FPS but it should be rationed. GW2 is almost wall to wall AoE and there is every incentive to use it. Oddly this same mechanic is likely why WvW cannot scale beyond where it is today. Far too many targets per skill to track which likely creates a lot of CPU and bandwidth pressure.

Do not even get me started on auto targeting… uhhh.

Reborn.2934:

wvw ( pvpve game ) and pve without aoe will force the game to rewritten from the start .

i think this will never happened

Should be rather easy to set the AoE-limit to 1.

So technical reasons are not worth a debate.

But will WvW be better without AoE?

I don’t think, so, I only think some classes/waepons have to much AoE, given that others have much less. Resulting into AoE skills dealing in total around 4 times as much damage as single target skills. making a class like ranger quite useless in WvW.

The AoE, particularly the fields produced, are what give this game a unique combat mechanic over most other games. I run into various guilds, I won’t name names, but when it comes down to it the fighting is not pretty and its very disorganized when you get down to this skirmish style of play. AoE gives the combat structure and rewards organization. The downside is it also helps with blobbing.

AoE should be more about skill combos (field + finishers) as well as positioning, and less about trading survivability for AoE win damage.
Siege AoE is good, I like it. It takes time and resources to get siege equipment up in the right place and that should be rewarded.

nirvana.8245:

The AoE, particularly the fields produced, are what give this game a unique combat mechanic over most other games. I run into various guilds, I won’t name names, but when it comes down to it the fighting is not pretty and its very disorganized when you get down to this skirmish style of play. AoE gives the combat structure and rewards organization. The downside is it also helps with blobbing.

Fields are AoE but the damage component of raw AoE without fields is nearly skill-less. A monkey could spam AoE on many classes/builds and do well in this game. Fields and AoE in general should be more limited and not spamable. Having a field come up every kitten in a fight is far different than the non-stop spamfest that is currently fundamental WvW play.

These AoE skills also bog down the game engine making it so that fewer players can engage is massive combat.

Everyone will roll a pr0 Th1ef, if most have not done so already.

Yeah. Remove AoE from the game – PAINTRAINMETA FTW! GG!

Seriously: AoE is the only thing while there are other classes than warriros and guardains in WvW. AoE is fine as it is. Stop complaining.

Fasyx aoe is the only thing why wars and guards are so popular. If guard would not have aoe stability and aoe boons haring with aoe healing it would not be played.
If hammer stun will hit only one enemy it will be useless. If hammer 1 will hit only 1 enemy not aoe nobody would have warrior

AOE in general needs to be nerfed and single target needs to be buffed. AOE serves a purpose, but it is fairly skill-less and should therefore hit for less damage.

Fasyx.9347:

Yeah. Remove AoE from the game – PAINTRAINMETA FTW! GG!

Mealy does to much AoE as well! Swing a sword/hammer/ and hit 1 enemy not 5 with most skills.

Aoe destroys everything Ive been working towards. If only it didnt exist, people would recognize how good I am at clicking, and my time spent clicking would be validated by others who share my point of view.

If all skills were single target, wouldn’t it benefit larger numbers even more? I thought the argument was the AOE cap needed to be removed for better WvW, not eliminated completely.

Roe.3679:

If all skills were single target, wouldn’t it benefit larger numbers even more? I thought the argument was the AOE cap needed to be removed for better WvW, not eliminated completely.

Both are probably better for fights. But extending it to more than 5 is not possible due to performance reasons ANet said (-> skill lags).

As it is currently the blob is an defensive method against AoE.
If you are blobbing with 1-5 you are hit 100% of times by AoE. if you blob with 40 you are hit only 12.5% of the time. So blobbing reduces the damage you take from AoE by 87.5%.

This defensive reason for blobs would be invalidated, if AoE would be rare and not the main method of attacking.

Dayra.7405:

Roe.3679:

If all skills were single target, wouldn’t it benefit larger numbers even more? I thought the argument was the AOE cap needed to be removed for better WvW, not eliminated completely.

Both are probably better for fights. But extending it to more than 5 is not possible due to performance reasons ANet said (-> skill lags).

As it is currently the blob is an defensive method against AoE.
If you are blobbing with 1-5 you are hit 100% of times by AoE. if you blob with 40 you are hit only 12.5% of the time. So blobbing reduces the damage you take from AoE by 87.5%.

This defensive reason for blobs would be invalidated, if AoE would be rare and not the main method of attacking.

But, if people are blobbed up that is also where the focus of AOE goes. So while it does reduce the odds that you take damage from AoE, it increases the amount of AOE you’re dealing with, because where else would you put it?

I understand the sentiment and its an interesting idea, but I think that this very much assumes equal numbers. Fighting a small zerg with 10 people with all single target skills sounds like a nightmare. If anything, I would expect this to encourage more large group play, not less.

Roe.3679:

If all skills were single target, wouldn’t it benefit larger numbers even more? I thought the argument was the AOE cap needed to be removed for better WvW, not eliminated completely.

No. Currently the larger the blob the more non-targeted AoE output they produce causing a massive amount of group healing and perimeter damage. If most skills were single target, skill groups that effectively managed target acquisition would have a decided advantage even when heavily out numbered. Dodging and evasion would become even more important while stacking would be relatively ineffective.

A great benefit of this system is more players in a fight with less lag. Less lag also opens up more ability activation because really large fights often degenerate into spamming the base attack since nothing else is going off. We would also see pets and minions becoming useful in large scale fights again.

I am not for eliminating AoE, but I really believe it should be toned WAY down.

If you want to remove spell aoe, then you need to remove all aoe that includes cleave from melee, also aoe condition removals, aoe heals, and aoe fields because they are counters to aoe damage.

Then all you’re going to create is the /trainassist zerg. Great for roamer types I’m sure, but if you turn this into a single targeting game I might as well just load up call of duty.

Actually i want them to remove AoE CAP not AoE ^^
AoE is good, but should be restricted to only skills that you can’t cast instantly and has to be channeled.

I’ll take anything for a solution. :P

Just don’t do it without trying. Give us a closed test like it was for eotm, limited amount of players, see if it works.

Well the game you’ve been playing certainly isn’t GW2, because the AoE limit completely destroyed what little strategy World versus World once had. You contribute nothing to your team if you aren’t in an 80 man zerg clustered in to 10 square feet mindlessly spamming a few buffs and your fastest auto-attack. AoE used to prevent such zerging, not anymore.

WvWs potential as a massive combat mode will never be realized so long as the mode is fixed to where space means nothing. The AoE limit needs to be eased up on, something needs to be done about stacking.

As for improving smaller fights, WvW was designed specifically for large scale combat. It is literally three armies facing each other. If you want 1v1s, make a SPvP room.

Maybe allow only certain skills to breach the aoe cap, such as:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Frozen_Ground
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Darkness
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plague
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Frost_Trap
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Muddy_Terrain
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Caltrops

Etc., and any other aoe movement impairing skill. This would allow smaller groups to effectively kite larger ones, promoting smart play and punishing zerging. I think that conditions are much easier on the skill lag (big guess), so this would be a great step towards leveling out the playing field.

I’m a great fan of aoe. No aoe = no fun for me. Aoe nerfs = big dissapointment for me. I think the launch nerfs on most aoe’s were sufficient to make it less important. There’s enough ways to counter aoe’s. If anything, the thing that is most overpowered (imo) is immobalize. That’s basically a free pass for a zerg to kill the target as he cannot dodge. Very hard to escape that situation. However aoe’s (thus zergs in general and melee on top of it), is easy to avoid, if you know know how to position.

If aoe’s get nerfed, then warriors hp must get nerfed, guardians protection, etc etc. Well not 100% sure, but I’m just giving a hypothetical result of this.

I’ve been thinking ’what’s wrong with Anet balance of gw2’? and I can’t give a proper answer apart from to much nerfs. Why can’t i give a perfect answer? Because the game is so complex (so much skills, traits, stats), that perfection isnt obtainable. Surely when you rule in multiple VS multiple and 1 vs 1, or zerg vs zerg, pve vs wvw vs pvp, it surely is so complex, that perfection cannot be obtained. The only way is to make the game so simple that everything has it’s role perfectly outlined without the ability to trick an ability in doing something else. This would make a very boring game. Like sniper counters shotgun, shotgun counters, melee, melee counters sniper. (just an example). This you can balance. Gw2 you can only strive to do so. But in conclusion the 5 target aoe cap and the finetunings on aoe damage, and channel times (big punishment melee doesnt have), make aoe more then balanced imo. And above all, it’s fun, and should remain because of that in the game. It makes combat more vibrant, and chaotic, as i like it.

Only finetuning (small scale) is now the way to go with gw2 balance imo. Crazy changes are out of the question. They will kitten of more people then make them happy.

They will likely NEVER remove the AoE cap. Even increasing it on some skills would mean substantially more lag. Even if they technically could, increasing the effectiveness of AoE would make it even more powerful and dominant than it already is. Virtually every large scale combat build centers around AoE skills. Why would anyone want to vanilla up combat even more?

Straegen.2938:

They will likely NEVER remove the AoE cap. Even increasing it on some skills would mean substantially more lag. Even if they technically could, increasing the effectiveness of AoE would make it even more powerful and dominant than it already is. Virtually every large scale combat build centers around AoE skills. Why would anyone want to vanilla up combat even more?

Because nothing is more ‘vanilla’ than mindless zerging?

Let’s get it on Paper:

What are people complaining about:

• Blob fighting, low incentive for small groups
• AoE too strong compared to singletarget skills
• (from other thread) retaliation is too strong in a zerg

possible solution:

• nerf damage of big aoe
• increase number of players affected by aoe skills
• retaliation damage reduced

result
Pro:

• small groups will be harmed less by big aoe’s due to lower damage
• big groups will be punished by aoe the same way
• small groups get less damage by aoe
• users of big aoe will get punished by retaliation as much as they are now, due to lower retal damage but higher target cap

Con:

• retaliation damage is nerfed for small scale fights aswell
  (asuming it’s not possible to make retaliation damage based on the damage dealt)

^this is wrong.

• retaliation also affects quick attacking single target players.
• retaliation is already more than strong and promotes blobbing and zerging.

nerfing aoe’s would promote zerging, blobbing and the need of arrow carts even more.

AoE is not dominant in it’s current state; not by a long shot. It either does pathetic damage (even in full berserker gear), has too long of a cool down, far too easy to avoid, or negated due to retaliation or kitten forbid, a combination of the 4.

They won’t remove the AoE cap so the if they are going to do some tinkering to the AoE, they should address one of those 4 issues. It’d be nice if they doubled or tripled the area of effect and increased the frequency of the payload making it harder to avoid. This way, at least enough hits could get in to make up for the crap damage.

The only problem with AoE in it’s current state I think should be addressed is how easily people receive the retaliation boon, and the effectiveness of healing. Both are bit too over the top IMO.

Conncept.7638:

Because nothing is more ‘vanilla’ than mindless zerging?

The only reason zergs are mindless is because of AoE. This is how it currently works:

A: Get near blue tag
B: Press random AoE skill key
C: Press 1 (use AoE/multi-target weapon)
D: Goto A

“Skilled” zerg play is when the commander adds in commands like dodge or blast. AoE is target-less and lazy. It allows for lazy/unskilled play. AoE is the single biggest reason zergs stack for both offence and defense. More AoE won’t change anything especially when you look at the current system which is 90% or more AoE. This is the OP point and I agree with them.

Straegen.2938:

Conncept.7638:

Because nothing is more ‘vanilla’ than mindless zerging?

The only reason zergs are mindless is because of AoE. This is how it currently works:

A: Get near blue tag
B: Press random AoE skill key
C: Press 1 (use AoE/multi-target weapon)
D: Goto A

“Skilled” zerg play is when the commander adds in commands like dodge or blast. AoE is target-less and lazy. It allows for lazy/unskilled play. AoE is the single biggest reason zergs stack for both offence and defense. More AoE won’t change anything especially when you look at the current system which is 90% or more AoE. This is the OP point and I agree with them.

You do realize though the retaliation buff with steps A and B will usually mean instant death to your lazy AoE’er (including your melee #1 spammer) That is your defence to it. Combined with it being so easy to dodge and the damage itself being atrocious, i’m surprised anyone is complaining about it.

Even as a glass cannon myself, I can run into the zerg that has the AoE being dropped on it and come out of it completely unscathed because it’s just far to easy to avoid.

Allie Murdock.8152:

It is likely true that AoE will never be completely removed from the game, as the game is built with it being a factor. However, there are things we can look into doing to mitigate the importance of AoE in certain situations. Maybe even something we can do specifically for WvW.

We have a lot going on right now, so I’m not sure when we’d be able to get to it, but we can at least start thinking about our options.

Thanks for the feedback all!

When you’re thinking about it if you tone down the damage from aoe you must increase the single target damage and options for specs like staff ele and staff necro.

don’t forget to keep in mind 1v1, 5v5, spvp, pve, open world bossfights and dungeons.
so any change to wvw will have to be accepted by players who specialized in those areas.

The wall skills are the problem:
Line of Warding,
Spectral Wall,
Veil,
Static Field,
etc.

These skills can affect a limitless amount of targets,
and cannot be evaded.

Most of the AoE skills have max. target of 5 people, and targets in block and evade state also counts.
Even Mesmer portal have max. target of 20 people (or uses).
It’s so imba

I’ve always been a firm believer in increasing the AoE cap. Right now all WvW strategies entail are stacking up on a corner, blasting combo fields and rushing people, that’s it.

It’s so boring, mindless and stupid how this game revolves around stacking so much. In most games stacking meant you and your party got your butt handed over to you because everybody would eat all of that damage.

Increasing AoE cap would deter this stacking mentality and force people to come up with new strategies besides having 50 people run through a billion red circles unscathed because of the AoE cap and then just proceed to spam #1 to kill everybody. WvW needs to be more strategic then that.

People would be forced to spread out more to avoid being AoE bombed to death, there would be more smaller battles in a zerg vs zerg instead of just one big huge cluster. It would force people to strategize flanking, however they would stack at their own peril if they really wanted to disrupt a major part of the zerg.

Right now as I see it, there are zero risks to stacking.

And obviously if you raise the AoE cap, you can’t just mindlessly throw AoEs where ever you want. You have to gauge likely sources of high retaliation because that could probably kill you really quickly if you aren’t careful.

And of course AoEs like null field should remove conditions on everybody if they are in the circle, or wells should convert conditions on people into boons, for everybody who is standing on it. However AoEs without a clear circle or AoE indicator should stay the same.

People should be scared to step in AoE circles and avoid them instead of running through them. It just doesn’t make sense.

At the same time, running smaller groups should be incentivized.

Straegen.2938:

Conncept.7638:

Because nothing is more ‘vanilla’ than mindless zerging?

The only reason zergs are mindless is because of AoE. This is how it currently works:

A: Get near blue tag
B: Press random AoE skill key
C: Press 1 (use AoE/multi-target weapon)
D: Goto A

“Skilled” zerg play is when the commander adds in commands like dodge or blast. AoE is target-less and lazy. It allows for lazy/unskilled play. AoE is the single biggest reason zergs stack for both offence and defense. More AoE won’t change anything especially when you look at the current system which is 90% or more AoE. This is the OP point and I agree with them.

You must not have been around before the AoE limit, because there really were no zergs at all, AoE busted them up real quick. Players were required to actually think about where they were on the field and where they were headed in order to prevent their death, rather than standing in the middle of what should be dealing damage knowing that the RNG target selectors AOE uses are never going to hit the same target often enough to be a threat.

And there is no such thing as ‘skilled’ zerg play, the definition of zerging is to throw as many bodies at the enemy as possible as fast as possible. An organized 20-25 man group isn’t a zerg, and unfortunately when it comes down to it no 20-25 man group (no matter how well organized) stands up against the much more common 60 man zergs. Even if anyone were to ever organize such a large group (an impossible ventuire with the organization tools ANet has provided) I doubt it would make any difference so long as stack and spamming is possible.

Don’t remove Aoe… That would be a huge mistake.

Instead reduce the target limit of Aoe for Heavy classes but increase it for light classes.

The key to a succesfull WvW isn’t nerfing blobs but empowering small groups.

But how to empower them without overpower the blobs? Here is the problem.

In my opinion even if no AoE cap was pretty OP for zergs also smaller groups still stood a chance. Not saying its what it should be done but take it as an example.

Another example might be the ability Timewarp. Such a big combo field wich only affects 5 players? Nonsense. Its an elite, at least it should affect to 10 players. Make it not affect golems and allow it to become again 100% cast speed increase. Abilities like this, empower teamplay rather than random player stacking.
You guys need to focus on the design (or changes) of abilities that reward good teamplay usage rather than just AoE spam.

Massive player stacking may seem to be fun. Massive battles and all that. Hovewer the reality its different. There is no fun when 60-70 players move together across the map melting doors manmode. Also player stacking makes lag much stronger and i don’t think thats a good thing. Nowdays 60 vs 60 its nothing more than a lagfest and a massive AoE spam.

This conversation needs to be split slightly.

Both sides of the conversation so far are correct… in that AoE Boon Spam right now is choking WvW and making things blobbier, and reducing it would make things better. At the same time AoE Damage skills are the only real way to force that blob to split at all and people feel strongly that they should be increased.

What we need to do, is reduce the AoE Boon cleave OR increase heavily the methods of counterplay to boon generation that are available ( Something I posted in Balance already: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvP-WvW-Boon-Strip .) This provides less capability of a ball of heavies to just bowl over things and makes CCs much more interesting, as stability can be stripped.

The other way to go, is to shave off Retaliation Damage substantially (make it 5% max hp/sec… so you have to be attacking fully for 20s to die from just Retaliation) and leave AoE Damage exactly the same as it is (or very slightly changed) so that a coordinated havoc could drop 4-5 ice bow 4’s on a frontline, do the massive damage that the cooldown on that skill provides, not die, and possibly change the course of a battle.

As a necro all i can say is this:
Staff got nerfed to oblivion already so we got nothing more to lose.
Least take the ability from everyone else to heal/boon and boonflip conditions en mass and we can call it even.
I would find the game more pleasant when i will stop seeing warhorn warriors and shout guardians.
Who knows,fear might actually start working instead of constantly seeing immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune immune

Lord.4270:

I tried a game without aoe, it was amazing, there was 100 people but everyone was fighting in 1vs1.

Aoe is the main problem ! No more bus, just lot of fights !

Want to play single player ? – Try Skyrim.

Want to pvp 1v1 ? – try sPvP.

WvW is not your thing if you’re looking at 1v1 fights.

It’s a Massive Siege Warfare and the main reason i joined a Gaming community with more than 200 active Guild Wars 2 players – so i can ENJOY MASSIVE battles.

There is a sPvP so loners like you can play alone 1v1.

People like you are the main reason why WvW don’t evolve as game type.

No aoe better stacking.

Terok.7315:

No aoe better stacking.

Less AoE (damage as well as heal) less sense in stacking.

Allie Murdock.8152:

morrolan.9608:

When you’re thinking about it if you tone down the damage from aoe you must increase the single target damage and options for specs like staff ele and staff necro.

This is why we haven’t done anything major to AoE yet. Changing AoE basically means changing the balance of the entire game. :P

It is also pretty cheesy that a 5-man group can hit only 5 of a 20 man group (AoE cap), whilst the 20-man group can hit ALL of the 5-man group at once….

It makes fighting outnumbered incredibly more difficult, because you are fighting an invisible (aoe limit) system, rather than just fighting 15 outnumbered.

I would propose a defensive AoE cap, if the offensive one is truly required due to technical limitations. IE: I can only be hit by 5-targets at one time, rather than 10 people hitting me while I can only hit 5 of them.

Allie Murdock.8152:

It is likely true that AoE will never be completely removed from the game, as the game is built with it being a factor. However, there are things we can look into doing to mitigate the importance of AoE in certain situations. Maybe even something we can do specifically for WvW.

We have a lot going on right now, so I’m not sure when we’d be able to get to it, but we can at least start thinking about our options.

Thanks for the feedback all!

You could just Create new Skills that can only be used in WvW
And Armor’s aswell it may cost some Money and time to do this but your not Ruining the Game’s Combat Mechanic’s and making Classes OP in PVE or PvP by Updating 1 thing in WvW. im pretty sure this was an idea tossed around once during the GW2 Beta, but its a good Idea you can’t have 3 different games {SPVP/TPVP} {WvW} and {PVE] run the same combat mechanic’s because there will always been an OP Class or Skill causing other players to have an advantage over the regular community

As for AOE’s I see no problem with them the way they are if your a light class and spam 2 well good just hope that the Heavies don’t push through your lines and Chop your Staff in Half its WvW there aren’t very many things that an AOE can do cept make a red circle which can be dogged by Pressing —> A+A

Toning down the AoE dmg could work, and cleave abilities on all melee weapons should/could be either reduced the number of targets from cleave or make it something to trait for.

Gw1 Dervish came with the Scythe, a weapon that could hit 3 targets, all other weapons hit 1target. so naturally the base dmg for the Scythe was lower than the others.

Would most likely need a overhaul of the trait system, or more how you put your points. Want to hit many foes at once and do reduced dmg or hit one foe for more dmg.
Combat would be slower but hopefully involve more tactic than the “Drop all AoE on the blue dorito” as it is now.

So this is an honest question as I’m trying to understand this idea: what happens to group support, utility and cc if AOE damage is nerfed? Do they stay the same, or change as well? If they do change, then essentially the game must be balanced around 1v1, which has not been the goal so far. If those things change, what happens to guardians, arguably the best balanced class in the game? What happens to mesmer utility? Ele damage? Wouldn’t thieves rule supreme?

Conncept.7638:

You must not have been around before the AoE limit, because there really were no zergs at all, AoE busted them up real quick. Players were required to actually think about where they were on the field and where they were headed in order to prevent their death, rather than standing in the middle of what should be dealing damage knowing that the RNG target selectors AOE uses are never going to hit the same target often enough to be a threat.

I started playing in Beta. Zergs have been here since the beginning but they were not nearly as big. The reason was simple… lag. The AoE caps were a lag fix which simply allowed more players to stack. Players have been stacking from the beginning for two simple reasons… fields and healing. Defensive AoE which is every bit as prevalent as offensive if not more so. Virtually every zerg build drops a ton of AoE and very, very, very little targeted damage.

AoE is WAY out of balance in GW2. Surely that has to be obvious to everyone at this point.