Guild Wars 2

The solution is simple: Event Scaling

A huge component of all DE’s in PvE is the scaling involved in it. If you have 30 players, that event scales up, creating harder enemies that take longer to kill. So far, this has been a great system that works well in PvE, with little or no possibility of griefing whatsoever.

When I walk into range of any obtainable point on the WvW map, I get a notification that there is a new event in the area. When I complete a capture or defense event, I get exp, karma, and moneyz for completion (or failure) of said event. So if it looks and acts like a Dynamic Event, why is it not scaled the same as one?

When 50 people start smashing a gate with multiple rams put up in seconds, they can easily break into a tower within a few minutes. Hours of spent holding said tower, spending tons of player-earned money on upgrading the tower, and it can be taken in minutes because an entire server came to hit it so fast, the defenders have little time to react and defend. So I ask, why are these events not scaled? If there are 50 players hitting the gate, why is that gate not scaled upwards? Why does getting a huge attacking force give such a huge advantage. That being said, having the 50 players will not cause you to lose, it will slow you down, nothing more. To be clear, the idea is to scale taking objectives according to the number of players present.

And the scaling works logically. If you have 50 players outside a besieged tower, and 50 people inside the tower, no scaling would take effect. It would be like all the usual primetime tower fights in EB. And if there are only 5 defenders against 20, the favor would be in the outmanned defenders. And neither would this break gameplay, or ruin it for anyone. It would simply promote better usage of numbers, better planning, and not promote getting 50 people and just running over everything.

And if a server has the outmanned buff, the scaling goes up even more. (Recently at an off-peak hour in SBI, HoD got most of their map’s numbers, and wiped us off the map in less than 30 minutes. Four fully upgraded towers and a fully upgraded keep lost in less than 30 minutes. We made some mistakes, for sure, but it happened so fast, there was little we could really do.) With this scaling of the gates, walls, and even NPC’s, it would slow the zerg down, and give time for the outmanned and beleaguered defenders to mount a decent defense, prolong defeat, and give more time to try different options and strategies to break the siege.

So instead of the 50 HoD hitting one tower at a time, and moving from there, it would be better and more efficient to have the 50 players to split up into 2, 3, or even smaller groups to take the towers. As my server was outmanned, with only maybe 20 players actively fighting, we would be hard pressed to defend all four of our towers at once, and keep/take back our supply camps simultaneously. But at the moment, there is even less chance of the 20 players to stop the 50 players at a single tower.

This scaling would promote more efficient defense, better offensive coordinating and tactics, and slow the snowball that can happen when you lose one tower.

Fun fact: This system would also limit the “Nightcapping” phenomenon and give favor to the outmanned defenders, give them time to surmount an appropriate defense, use different tactics, and ultimately slow down the zergs that appear so often.

I am sure this system has flaws, but I think this is the single best way to promote more skillful play, limit zergfests, and balance WvW overall. Most other suggestions seem to force players to either play, or not play, and this one does not limit a single person, while still balancing the outstanding issues.

P.S. Please keep this thread on topic, and avoid the craziness of other threads.

Won’t work. It just slows down the inevitable a bit, but if it’s 50 vs 10 you still lose. Also you cannot scale based on local presence, otherwise you deny rightful “local superiority” tactics when maps are full.

Wanna stop brainless zergs dead in their track? Easy peasy: arrow carts hit per 5k/tick and have 0.5 second CD on skill “1”. End of zerg domination, forever.
Would also help a little bit with unopposed capping, since at the very least this way the zerg could be held by 10 people and they’d need (GASP!) actual tactics like “hey instead of getting slaughtered by the gun nests let’s take them out with long range artillery bombardment”.

Arrow carts were stronger (though nowhere near as much as they should be) in BWE, they were nerfed due to people whining, was pointed out it was a mistake, mistake is still here. Don’t hold your breath.

Well first off it is tons easier to defend then attack successfully
if there were 50 attackers it certainly doesnt take 50 to defend the tower. You could probably defend with 1/2 as many

The obvious counter to zerging is splitting up. If the zerg is in location X, let your team be at any location except X. If the zerg takes your tower, take two of his towers and a supply camp. A well defended keep can pretty nicely stall a zerg using way less people than the zerg.

~MRA

Zerging is effective for a few reasons, unfortunately. Yes, splitting up mitigates it to a degree, but with the size of the maps and the hit cap on AoEs, you can still somewhat effectively zerg a map with a large roaming zerg, especially when you have other contingents on the maps doing their thing.

I agree that a well played zerg beats a poorly played split, but I would assume that thats also true for well played splits beating poorly played zergs.

And by a “zerg”, I understand (mainly) a single contingent trying to cap stuff, with no other contingents. If you consider, say, four commanders each with their equally sized army operating at different fronts while other guys defend the keeps, then I wouldn’t call this zerging. That’s actually good gameplay, and if it is winning, then rightfully so.

~MRA

Yes, let’s try to “fix” pvp with some pve. eyeroll

The 5 person cap on AoE attacks makes it a kitten to defend against the horde. At the very least, arrow carts need a bigger target cap. Or, another fix would be togive priority to target hostile players over pets, clones, and minions. Fire an arrow cart at a gate and all you hit are clones, never the players.

Sadly, yes, it’s mostly a sea of ranger pets and clones on a door (I’m surprised they are part of the hit cap as they are not technically players). Although, I can’t really blame people for not wanting to hit a door, since AoE can be placed on the other side of it to hit you (obviously an unintentional bug, but who knows if it will get fixed).

But, back to the OP’s topic, I can understand the need to make zerg tactics less rewarding and preferable (let’s be honest, it’s cheap, especially when the attacking force dramatically outnumber the number of defenders). The idea to make guards scale to the size of the attacking force is a decent suggestion, but it needs to take into the consideration the number of defenders. For example, if a keep has 50 defenders, is it fair to punish 50 attackers (which would be a zerg)? If a keep (or any base, in general) “event” scaled based on ratio of defender/attacker, then that would be interesting (of course, you are going to get a lot of hate from people who strictly rely on zerg tactics to accomplish anything). If there are < 75% defenders, I would be in support of guards starting to spawn more rapidly (or even higher tier champions if totally imbalanced). Additionally, it would be nice if guards were actually “intelligent” and gave priority to attacking siege equipment. For example, having roaming guards attack NPCs over real PCs is upsetting. Ah well, it’s an interesting idea, and would make WvWvW more interesting for me, at least.

The counter to zerging is to go backcap the stuff they took while a smaller group defends a fortified location. If you’re losing to a single big horde of enemies, it’s an organizational issue on your realm’s part, not a game balance issue. Also, the maps are designed with 3 teams for a reason, zerging has huge disadvantages that can easily be scouted for and taken advantage of by both other teams.

If you’re complaining about a bunch of people capping all the stuff while your server has less people, then there’s another thread for that.

If you’re complaining about a bunch of people capping all the stuff while your server has less people, then there’s another thread for that.

The two things are not independent of each other. Part of the reason why nightcapping is so overpowered is that it’s too easy for a single big zerg to hold the whole map if the enemy has significantly less players. So as soon as the numbers become e.g. 50 vs 10 vs 10 the 50 can just happily zerg their way to 100% map control.

Put in instakill arrow carts, and all of a sudden the 10 can at least slow down the zerg a bit and force them to use trebs to cap the points. Doesn’t solve the problem but slightly improves the situation (not to mention the educational value on puggers whenever their mindless 40-men zerg gets wiped in 3 seconds flat and they start to realize that MAYBE there are other possibilities than just forming a blob and go beat on the closest gate).

hahahah…the other team has more players online at the moment! thats not fair!

simplest way to stop a zerg is to nail it against a keep with 1 or 2 other zergs/groups. Usually the players are so busy focussing on the keep gates/walls, that they don’t notice they are being attacked until it is too late (not to mention the current culling issues).

If you don’t want to lose money upgrading a keep/tower/supply, don’t do it. If you dont want to lose your keep/tower/supply to the zerg, figure out how to stop it.

Scaling will never work, it will just be taken advantage of.

“Look out! Zerg coming!”
“Everyone, logout! Relog in 10 minutes when the upgraded guards etc have weakened them a bit, we’ll zerg from our spawn”

The REAL power of zerging, is in degrading defenses and demoralising the opposition. If the other team has upgraded towers etc, you zerg them, don’t even bother holding them so when they take them back, all the upgrades are gone (be sure to take any supplies before you move on tho). While you’re busy re-taking the tower/keep/supply, the zerg moves on to the next and the next etc. Until they get back to the start and re-take a couple of supplies and towers (much easier this time as they are not upgraded!) and can then hold them as you are too busy upgrading/defending your stuff to mount a serious assault yet.

[Edit] I’d love to see arrow carts un-nerfed too! They are too weak at the moment.

Tyrshar.1782:

But, back to the OP’s topic, I can understand the need to make zerg tactics less rewarding and preferable (let’s be honest, it’s cheap, especially when the attacking force dramatically outnumber the number of defenders). The idea to make guards scale to the size of the attacking force is a decent suggestion, but it needs to take into the consideration the number of defenders. For example, if a keep has 50 defenders, is it fair to punish 50 attackers (which would be a zerg)? If a keep (or any base, in general) “event” scaled based on ratio of defender/attacker, then that would be interesting (of course, you are going to get a lot of hate from people who strictly rely on zerg tactics to accomplish anything). If there are < 75% defenders, I would be in support of guards starting to spawn more rapidly (or even higher tier champions if totally imbalanced). Additionally, it would be nice if guards were actually “intelligent” and gave priority to attacking siege equipment. For example, having roaming guards attack NPCs over real PCs is upsetting. Ah well, it’s an interesting idea, and would make WvWvW more interesting for me, at least.

That is basically what I said in my first post. If there are 50 wailing on the gates, and 50 up on the walls, the scaling would not take effect. And if there are less defenders, at least a ten man difference, the scaling would take effect, the walls and gates would have more health, and the NPC’s may have the same.

@Guild Wars Fan
But why should the only way to stop the zerg be to zerg them with a zerg of your own? Anet has stated that a good group of 5 players should be able to defend an objective against larger numbers if they are organized and smart. But this is just not true at the moment. A small group is just not capable to defend well, or stop the enemy from entering the objective easily. The scaling NPC’s is just to slow down killing them even more. And idk what server you are playing on, but on my server, no one would be willing to lose their spot in a map and have to wait in the queue again after they already got in. No one would log out to increase chances. The only thing the scaling would do would be to buy defenders time and slow the effectiveness of the zerg down, not create a situation where it encourages not playing.

If there is not a single defender in an objective, than the scaling shouldn’t take effect, because let’s face it: Without a single defender, you stand no chance at defending an objective, and so no scaling should happen because that objective is essentially lost anyways.

@Everyone else
I agree in capping around the zerg 100%. The issue is that you need a large number of defenders to even stand a chance against an enemy zerg at your gates. The more numbers you have, the more chance you stand at stopping them. And that is flawed.

But if your are outnumbered or being hit hard from both servers, it is hard indeed to leave enough defenders as well have a big enough force to go on the offensive. And that is where the scaling would help balance. You can give yourself enough time to counter the zerg, set plans in motion, prepare a better defence, etc., instead of being destroyed in a few minutes because you couldn’t field enough numbers to do the anti-zerg zerging strategies. Backcapping is never a reality when you face losing fully upgraded towers while you insist on retaking the ones you lost. Losing a fully upgraded objective is a huge loss fr a server, and takes a lot of time and effort to recoup that loss.

And in no way would the scaling mean that the enemy would be stopped. The scaling would just ensure that the zerging is slowed so that players who may have limited numbers can effectively organize counter-attack, hold longer for reinforcements to arrive, and just have longer to say their final prayers.

And yes, in accordance with night-capping, it would never solve the issue that your server is fielding less players. However, it would make sure that a zerg can’t take 4 fully upgraded tower and a fully upgraded keep in less than 30 minutes. Just slowing said zerg down would be a bonus for the outmanned server, give them time to try to find more numbers elsewhere, give them a small chance to actually defend, and give the server more time to hold their points and gain more points, while limiting the time the nightcapping server holds the points, and slow down their massive lead increase.

Every time the word “zerg” gets used on these forums its just because one side outnumbered the other. Doesn’t matter if it was 5v10, 20v40 or whatever. So implying that a “zerg” is bad or unfair and should be artificially hampered is wrong.

Any smart commander will try and bring more troops to a battle than his opponent, its common sense and thus a perfectly valid tactic. If said commander can’t bring more troops then he should try and outmanoeuvre the enemy. If a side wants to focus all their forces into one big army then let them. For every one objective they take you can take several.

Individual skill, fairness, etc have no place in the WvWvW ruleset. It is designed to be large scale, 24×7 battles. Zerging is a tactic, please don’t try and get the rules changed because you can’t come up with better tactics.

Yerffejy.6538:

The solution is simple: Event Scaling

A huge component of all DE’s in PvE is the scaling involved in it. If you have 30 players, that event scales up, creating harder enemies that take longer to kill. So far, this has been a great system that works well in PvE, with little or no possibility of griefing whatsoever.

When I walk into range of any obtainable point on the WvW map, I get a notification that there is a new event in the area. When I complete a capture or defense event, I get exp, karma, and moneyz for completion (or failure) of said event. So if it looks and acts like a Dynamic Event, why is it not scaled the same as one?

When 50 people start smashing a gate with multiple rams put up in seconds, they can easily break into a tower within a few minutes. Hours of spent holding said tower, spending tons of player-earned money on upgrading the tower, and it can be taken in minutes because an entire server came to hit it so fast, the defenders have little time to react and defend. So I ask, why are these events not scaled? If there are 50 players hitting the gate, why is that gate not scaled upwards? Why does getting a huge attacking force give such a huge advantage. That being said, having the 50 players will not cause you to lose, it will slow you down, nothing more. To be clear, the idea is to scale taking objectives according to the number of players present.

When any of the major wars weve had in the past happened. DID they scale for the guy losing his kitten to fast? No. Id rather stick with logic and real life like features then some carebear, dumbed down game like wow.

@Tzash
No. I never mean outnumbered. I mean a large group of players. A zerg is a zerg, whether it outnumbers the enemy or not. 50v50 is a zerg fight, and that is how I use the term “zerg.” And yes, a zerg can outnumber the enemy. The problem lies when there is an insane advantage in getting all your players in one spot to take objectives insanely fast. All I suggest is slowing that rate a little. Nothing major. There is a reason why modern battles are no longer zerg tactics like in WWI, and that is because there are disadvantages to zerg tactics, and the game should make such disadvantages apparent.

In the top servers, zerg tactics do not work during primetime. Skill plays a huge role in the fights, as well a tactics, and often lots of luck. Saying there is no skill means that the top servers win because they have 50 players in the map, where during primetime each server fields the same numbers, and thus the battles are much more strategic and skillful. So your point is wrong.

@Noizemaker
Does real life have cats with goat horns calling down meteors to hit a wall? Did you have to target an enemy in order to shoot them with a ballista? Wait, you mean that doesn’t happen in real life? Then why should this game be based directly of real life. This is a game that is played for fun, and therefor it is logical to balance the game to ensure that all players have an equal chance at fun.

Also, the scaling would never drastically change things. If the 50 man zerg wants to take the disadvantage and keep hitting a tower, they can. All it does is slow their progress, and suggest to them that they should be more strategic. It does not ruin gameplay for anyone, it creates better gameplay.

Wait, so all of a sudden 50v50 battles are “bad” and you want things changed to prevent this type of thing? So what is the magic number of players that suddenly makes a battle “good”? I know plenty of people that would consider a 50v50 fight epic rather than a zerg.

The WvWvW ruleset was designed to have large scale battles, that is why the population caps are set as they are. You are now suggesting artificial mechanisms because you don’t like large scale battles.

MagnusLL.8473:

Wanna stop brainless zergs dead in their track? Easy peasy: arrow carts hit per 5k/tick and have 0.5 second CD on skill “1”. End of zerg domination, forever.

It is world vs world, thee will always be zergs, and it is just as valid a game style as smaller group.

Two, that solution, doesn’t just hurt zergs, it hurts everyone who is targeted by them.

Yerffejy.6538:

@Guild Wars Fan
But why should the only way to stop the zerg be to zerg them with a zerg of your own?

Except it isn’t. I’ve seen servers zerging get completely worn down and beaten not because the other side had more numbers, they were both capped, but because the side not zerging played smarter.

Things you can do to wear down the zergs, continually cap supply locations, and kill carts. They will run out of resources. It does hurt when you have no resources to rebuild or put up defenses.

Couple that with splitting up to hit multiple areas, if the zerging server isn’t organized they’ll be chasing ghosts.

If they are organized, you aren’t being beat by the zerg.