Guild Wars 2

I’m a fairly casual GW2 player in terms of the time I can commit to the game. But even my limited time in WvW has made clear how many different the ways GW2 rewards giant clusters of players traveling together over a divided force.

Here is an incomplete list:

1. (Unintended) Culling.

2. Objective rewards. Capturing an objective provides a set reward to each player. So if 100 players capture a supply depot, then the rewards collectively are 20 times greater than if a group of 5 captures it. Yes they reward bronze, silver, gold badges for contribution but the overall effect remains the same. With regards to experience and Karma, it is a bad idea to capture an objective with a small group. You have cheated your allies of a scoring/reward opportunity but probably worse you have provided a much bigger scoring opportunity for the enemy’s larger force.

2. Rewards for player kills. Along the same lines, as long as a player makes enough contribution to qualify for a kill, the rewards are the same as killing a player solo. From a reward standpoint it is much more efficient and rewarding to run in a large group and score many kills at once when you overwhelm a smaller group.

Both of these are consistent with what is clearly a core design principle of the game: allied players never compete for rewards; rewards merely compound. You never have to race to get a resource node before another player does in GW2. You never have to argue about dividing loot. For a PvE game this makes complete sense. In a PvP game, this system translates to a reward system that balloons with the number of players. 100 players filling 20 enemies in 20 seconds will generate much more loot than the same 20 enemies being killed by a solo thief over the course of an hour.

3. Out of combat run speed. Makes hit and run tactics by smaller groups much harder. Once the smaller group is in combat the rest of the zerg is able to catch them by virtue of being out of combat. GW2 effectively has “mounts”: its just that there is no graphic to accompany the faster move-speed.

4. Downing Mechanics – both in terms of speed of revival and the fact that the zerg can always rez their dead. The smaller force is forced to respawn at a way point. The smaller group can’t really knock an enemy out of the fight for long.

5. Lack of collision detection- (again worthy of its own thread).

6. AoE cap. The zerg provides tremendous protection for its inhabitants. The AOE cap means the enemy AOE gets distributed and manageable. Whereas, against a smaller force all damage finds its intended target. Numbers normally win anyway, but this mechanic exacerbates it. It means that even when the smaller force gets the jump on the larger that their advantage is diminished.

7. The WvW scoring system. This one probably deserves its own thread, but the capture and hold mechanic really means that the zerg is free not to defend ever. The PvE presence in objectives provides all the defense necessary for the Zerg. They can roam and return. Lockouts only makes this worse. The PvE presence in objectives only provides a real deterrence to smaller groups. To the zerg the PvE presence provides no real challenge.

What’s worse is that the system really rewards a “flip and forget” play-style. A zerg need not stay in an objective past the point of capture. Just go flip more objectives. Even when the zerg loses an objective to the enemy, its only temporary. The zerg never has to “hold” anything. There are free PvE NPCs to do that for them. These same free NPCs provide a valuable time buffer to allow the Zerg to often return to an objective as smaller enemy is attempting to take it. That’s zerg defense.

I’m sure other people can and should add to this list without too much effort. My point is pretty simple. It is not players’ “faults” for zerging. Zerging is the playstyle the game rewards over and over again. The game becomes a contest of who has the biggest, best coordinated zerg with the best “coverage” of the day. That’s the game. It’s just not one I thought GW2 would be, or one that I particularly want to play, except that there aren’t really better current choices. At their peak, I have enjoyed Shadowbane, DaoC, and Warhammer more than GW2 but given the curent populations, those aren’t really options.

I would points out also that culling (#1) is the only one of these (I believe) that will be addressed by the big patch next week.

At their peak, I have enjoyed Shadowbane, DaoC, and Warhammer more than GW2 but given the curent populations, those aren’t really options.

I’d like to point out that because of WuvWuv’s substantially higher population, they are most likely satisfying the majority of those who want open world pvp and those who hate zerging are an outspoken minority.

I want tweaks to wvw too, but don’t make it so that elite 5 mans can just farm zergs.

Removing AOE caps would further unbalance classes. That ele spamming meteor shower? Yeah way more effective than that poor shortbow ranger.

I agree with all except the AoE cap partially; I think it also promotes interesting play and tactics (as siege weapons don’t adhere to this cap), while I agree it does indeed not reward smaller groups.

What I find frustrating as well is that, if you spend an hour trebbing a keep, you don’t get any rewards while someone walking up to the lordroom and standing in the circle for 1 second gets gold reward.

In short: individual players don’t get rewarded enough based on actual contribution to the fight. This also goes in sPvP where you can hold off 2v1 for 5 minutes and not get any rank points.

Agreed.

The major argument you’ll see is that it’s “World vs. World”, Zergs are the norm and expected.

I would love to see a mechanic that discourages Zergs… we’ll see next week what the big WvW update has in store.

Celly.5912:

What I find frustrating as well is that, if you spend an hour trebbing a keep, you don’t get any rewards while someone walking up to the lordroom and standing in the circle for 1 second gets gold reward.

That is very frustrating to me too. You could sit in a tower/keep/castle trebbing for an hour, and you get nothing, despite being the reason why your server could cap it. I understand initially that it’s so that people can’t rotate on the treb and tag the target and then get rewarded later (e.g. bots), but you should enable the walls/doors as an enemy, thus knocking it down aka “killing it” would count as a tag and allow a trebber rewards.

Teamkiller.4315:

At their peak, I have enjoyed Shadowbane, DaoC, and Warhammer more than GW2 but given the curent populations, those aren’t really options.

I’d like to point out that because of WuvWuv’s substantially higher population, they are most likely satisfying the majority of those who want open world pvp and those who hate zerging are an outspoken minority.

Only if you think coming to conclusions without any actual evidence is useful.

treyalsup.4627:

1. (Unintended) Culling.

This is probably the biggest issue since you cannot see half of your opposition to target them with siege, or to properly assess threat and numbers. Right now you can see the closest ~20 people and you can shoot at them with your siege. Now imagine if you could see all 80 of them, crammed into a tight spot right in front of your gate, which is lined with balistas and arrow carts, and be able to actually shoot all them with said siege.

I think the biggest issue is that there’s just a lack of anti-personnel siege available to discourage clumping. Add a defensive siege variant that does splash damage on each target hit (for example), effectively scaling upwards with the number of people hit, and you will introduce a deterrent to running in congested globs.

treyalsup.4627:

5. Lack of collision detection- (again worthy of its own thread).

This exists for a far better reason than any I can think of for removing it: latency and rubber banding. When the whole of taking any keep/tower requires that you be forced to go through multiple chokes, body-blocking will lead to an unwanted amount of rubber banding and people with lesser connections or from other regions would effectively be barred from participating because they’d be rubber banding like mad (even more so than they are already).

treyalsup.4627:

6. AoE cap. The zerg provides tremendous protection for its inhabitants. The AOE cap means the enemy AOE gets distributed and manageable. Whereas, against a smaller force all damage finds its intended target. Numbers normally win anyway, but this mechanic exacerbates it. It means that even when the smaller force gets the jump on the larger that their advantage is diminished.

I don’t agree, as I’ve said countless times: do not change the rules of the game, add tools to enrich the game. Give zerg-buster siege and you don’t need to change AoE rules.

Vena.8436:

treyalsup.4627:

1. (Unintended) Culling.

…

I don’t agree, as I’ve said countless times: do not change the rules of the game, add tools to enrich the game. Give zerg-buster siege and you don’t need to change AoE rules.

For clarity…. I’m not arguing for the removal of the AoE cap or for implementing collision detection. I assume they exist for primarily technical reasons, rather than for design/balance reasons.

But like them or hate them, those mechanics in the game disproportionally reward the larger force. That is demonstrable fact.

treyalsup.4627:

But like them or hate them, those mechanics in the game disproportionally reward the larger force. That is demonstrable fact.

We have skills that have no caps: line spells. And if, for the sake of the rest of the game, AoE be capped at 5 and remain capped, then adding siege effectively fills the exact same role and does not leave the negative caveat in the system when team sizes start to verge on the 20+.

I think we need a bit more variety in siege but I also want to see how powerful siege will be when you can actually see everyone and target everyone. One of the biggest issues with balista is that they cannot target anything being culled, effectively limiting their target # to the 20 players who were reported to a player. (Same thing for ACs to a degree since you will only know to shoot at what you can see.)

As for clipping. That is something that punishes everyone involved by turning any bottle necked competition into a test of ping (see: GW1 PvP -> exasperated further by GW1 Mesmers who were ping checks). For that reason, they gave us a different form of “collision detection”: warding and line spells. You can still get through them with stability or by taking the condition/damage associated with the line. You could cross a necromancer’s Spectral Wall… and you could run into the enemy force with 10 stacks of vulnerability.

Five line spells on a choke leads to “you” entering combat: on fire, blind, poisoned, multiple stacks of vuln, and possibly knocked on your kitten by a staggered LoW.

To summarize, I think they gave the game plenty of “counters” to certain issues you’ve raised such as to discourage zerg balls. But, in large part, due to culling, you cannot (largely because you simply do not know what you’re even fighting half of the time) use the tools to your advantage. I do, however, think that a few more tools need to be added to the game.

Teamkiller.4315:

At their peak, I have enjoyed Shadowbane, DaoC, and Warhammer more than GW2 but given the curent populations, those aren’t really options.

I’d like to point out that because of WuvWuv’s substantially higher population, they are most likely satisfying the majority of those who want open world pvp and those who hate zerging are an outspoken minority.

I want tweaks to wvw too, but don’t make it so that elite 5 mans can just farm zergs.

Removing AOE caps would further unbalance classes. That ele spamming meteor shower? Yeah way more effective than that poor shortbow ranger.

First off, you can’t spam meteor shower, secondly the shortbow ranger isn’t meant to be an aoe weapon, and third you can dodge out of damage which balances out a lot of issues with damage. Un-capping the AOE would do a lot to balance the game. Look at it like this. 5 players flank 20 players attacking a tower. The five players hit them hard and knock a few down. The twenty players turn and hit them and the 5 players drop quickly.

Why would something like this happen? This is the reason. A 20 player team can put their damage into 100% of the 5 player team. However the 5 player team can put their damage into 25% of the 20 man team. Not only does this not make sense at all, its a drastic imbalance and punishes the players using good tactics while rewarding those making mistakes.

Celly.5912:

I agree with all except the AoE cap partially; I think it also promotes interesting play and tactics (as siege weapons don’t adhere to this cap), while I agree it does indeed not reward smaller groups.

What I find frustrating as well is that, if you spend an hour trebbing a keep, you don’t get any rewards while someone walking up to the lordroom and standing in the circle for 1 second gets gold reward.

In short: individual players don’t get rewarded enough based on actual contribution to the fight. This also goes in sPvP where you can hold off 2v1 for 5 minutes and not get any rank points.

Doesn’t siege cap at 10 players?

I don’t think the huge-laggy-whole-map-population-zergs were intended by Anet they are just like the OP said a byproduct of their game design.

It always reminds me of Claw of Jormag.
Here Anet attempted to create a large scale dynamic event, with various enviromental weapons, Boss stages and strategies to take the dragon down successfully. The 3rd stage was truly inspiring by shifting focus from just attacking to guarding and guiding Bomb-Carrying Golems down to the Dragon to stun him so everyone is free to rush in a do 10x more damage then they would otherwise. Anet did all that to sculpt a unique and fun teambased dynamic event.

In the end though, time and time again, everyone would rather just sit up on the little hill and spam autoattacks while taking 5x longer to kill him.

It is very sad when players want to spend more time playing like bots and doing things in the simplist way possible than actually trying to experience the game they are playing.

Teamkiller.4315:

At their peak, I have enjoyed Shadowbane, DaoC, and Warhammer more than GW2 but given the curent populations, those aren’t really options.

I’d like to point out that because of WuvWuv’s substantially higher population, they are most likely satisfying the majority of those who want open world pvp and those who hate zerging are an outspoken minority.

If only you had any idea of just how many people have stopped playing WvW or GW2 altogether because of the way WvW has been implemented.

I also think that this game type’s prevalence for zerging is absurd, almost as absurd as the people who want to defend it by constantly reverberating the tired argument of “It’s called WORLD vs WORLD nubs, hence ZERGS.”

Think about REAL LIFE World vs World. Zergs (armies) are a tool that can be used, but they aren’t the ONLY tool. More conflicts have been fought and resolved with much, much smaller tactical teams and they should have play here too.

treyalsup.4627:

2. Objective rewards. Capturing an objective provides a set reward to each player. So if 100 players capture a supply depot, then the rewards collectively are 20 times greater than if a group of 5 captures it. Yes they reward bronze, silver, gold badges for contribution but the overall effect remains the same. With regards to experience and Karma, it is a bad idea to capture an objective with a small group. You have cheated your allies of a scoring/reward opportunity but probably worse you have provided a much bigger scoring opportunity for the enemy’s larger force.

2. Rewards for player kills. Along the same lines, as long as a player makes enough contribution to qualify for a kill, the rewards are the same as killing a player solo. From a reward standpoint it is much more efficient and rewarding to run in a large group and score many kills at once when you overwhelm a smaller group.

Both of these are consistent with what is clearly a core design principle of the game: allied players never compete for rewards; rewards merely compound. You never have to race to get a resource node before another player does in GW2. You never have to argue about dividing loot. For a PvE game this makes complete sense. In a PvP game, this system translates to a reward system that balloons with the number of players. 100 players filling 20 enemies in 20 seconds will generate much more loot than the same 20 enemies being killed by a solo thief over the course of an hour.

About rewards – it’s simply matter of player-friendly reward system. If you establish some cap (on reward or on number of players who receive it), players will be frustrated ALOT MORE. “GTFO from our group, you decreasing size of reward!” “GTFO from circle, one of our buddies will not receive reward because of you!”. Definitely does not promote an atmosphere of friendship and mutual assistance.

Just had an interesting idea:
You mentioned the scoring system.
An possible change would be:
-You need to hold a tower/supply camp for at least 15(30?) minutes until it will generate points for your team.
-You need to hold a keep/Stonemist for at least 30(60?) minutes until it will generate points for your team.
-Re-capturing a tower/camp before this time elapses will have the following effects:
—Karma, XP and Gold gain for the re-capturing is halved
—The Objective will not generate points for your team for x minutes, where x is the time the objective was controlled by an opponent

What does this mean?
Simply flipping objectives will not give your server any benefit. If 2 servers constantly flip eachothers objectives, while the third one bunkers the Keep in EB and their own borderland, that third server will win the match due to the fact, point gain for the other servers will be largely down.
However, you can golem rush a keep without bothering about defending much to take away point gain from your opponents. They, on the other hand, need to take it back asap for every minute they don’t control it counts double.
Also, as the overall point gain by servers will be lower in heavily contested games, Dolyak intercepting will be more rewarding for the servers.

Basically, this change promotes defensive play simply because of the fact, that in a heavily contested game, the one who kept to the same objectives for longer will have an advantage over the one who had more objectives at any given time but these were flipping back and forth between servers.
Might even add more point gain for long term ownership of objectives… But here I’m sceptical, as this might benefit the servers with the strongest off-time coverage.

Basically, the change would mean that taking stuff from a server weakens that server but it will not net you an advantage over the third server unless you are willing to defend it.

Dynnen.6405:

Doesn’t siege cap at 10 players?

They cap at 50.

Dynnen.6405:

Teamkiller.4315:

At their peak, I have enjoyed Shadowbane, DaoC, and Warhammer more than GW2 but given the curent populations, those aren’t really options.

I’d like to point out that because of WuvWuv’s substantially higher population, they are most likely satisfying the majority of those who want open world pvp and those who hate zerging are an outspoken minority.

I want tweaks to wvw too, but don’t make it so that elite 5 mans can just farm zergs.

Removing AOE caps would further unbalance classes. That ele spamming meteor shower? Yeah way more effective than that poor shortbow ranger.

First off, you can’t spam meteor shower, secondly the shortbow ranger isn’t meant to be an aoe weapon, and third you can dodge out of damage which balances out a lot of issues with damage. Un-capping the AOE would do a lot to balance the game. Look at it like this. 5 players flank 20 players attacking a tower. The five players hit them hard and knock a few down. The twenty players turn and hit them and the 5 players drop quickly.

Why would something like this happen? This is the reason. A 20 player team can put their damage into 100% of the 5 player team. However the 5 player team can put their damage into 25% of the 20 man team. Not only does this not make sense at all, its a drastic imbalance and punishes the players using good tactics while rewarding those making mistakes.

no, no it wouldn’t. Stop arguing semantics. What I meant by “spamming” meteor shower is using it every time it’s off cooldown.

The ele’s going to get substantially higher kills. Why? Cause vastly more powerful AOE that’s why. What about say, a rifle warrior? Or actually, any warrior that is not using hammer?

You don’t see how this would imbalance the classes? Without a massive massive nerf to AOE there’s no way all classes would have their own niche in WvW. Some people are going to rack in 30 kills per fight while others rack in…like 2.

I’ll also mention that plenty of people on youtube have won 5v20’s…yes against bad players but do you really expect to wikittenv20 vs good players? Anyhow, Flanking 20 with 5 guys isn’t exactly “Fantastic tactics” that let’s you deserve to kill all of them. It’s one of the most basic military maneuvers there is.

Only if you think coming to conclusions without any actual evidence is useful.

You mean apart from the fact that gw2 is far far more active than those other games mentioned?

If only you had any idea of just how many people have stopped playing WvW or GW2 altogether because of the way WvW has been implemented.

You are massively exaggerating how many people have stopped playing WvW or GW2 altogether JUST because of WvW.

I also think that this game type’s prevalence for zerging is absurd, almost as absurd as the people who want to defend it by constantly reverberating the tired argument of “It’s called WORLD vs WORLD nubs, hence ZERGS.”

I don’t understand, what exactly is invalid about this argument? There are large scale battles, there are small scale battles. I participate in both. Everyone I know has at some point participated in both. I don’t understand why you complain about zergs, apart from the fact that maybe you’re tired of losing a 30v1. But that’s ok, because you’re supposed to lose against those kind of odds. It’s like going into a boxing match and expecting to beat 30 bodybuilders at once. Not gonna happen.

Think about REAL LIFE World vs World. Zergs (armies) are a tool that can be used, but they aren’t the ONLY tool. More conflicts have been fought and resolved with much, much smaller tactical teams and they should have play here too.

They are the best and most prevalent tool. Historically, things have been acquired and won by massive armies, not by small 5 man teams that killed 300 guys. Such things are extremely rare and hence why the subject or stories and legends.

Tell me, do you think the United States Special Forces should be able to take the United States marines corps in a fight? It’s about 5000 vs 200,000. Sure, there’s no question as to which soldier is better in combat, but seriously, 5000 vs 200,000, they’re a reason they are SPEC OPS and not front line troops, it’s because with their pitiful numbers they would be destroyed in open field combat, hence their forte is special operations.

Which is what I think small scale should be relegated to. Typically small scale involves sniping supply lines and supply camps, as well as ninja’ing certain structures while YOUR army has the ENEMY army occupied elsewhere.

Teamkiller.4315:

The ele’s going to get substantially higher kills. Why? Cause vastly more powerful AOE that’s why. What about say, a rifle warrior? Or actually, any warrior that is not using hammer?

You’re being massively obtuse or disingenuous. You’re comparing the Ele’s single greatest AoE weapon to the warrior’s single greatest single target DPS weapon. You’re intentionally omitting, for the sake of your pathetic argument, that warriors do not have a LongBow weapon, which is their AoE option. EVERY class has an AoE Option, even if that option isn’t as effective as staff ele.

Teamkiller.4315:

If only you had any idea of just how many people have stopped playing WvW or GW2 altogether because of the way WvW has been implemented.

You are massively exaggerating how many people have stopped playing WvW or GW2 altogether JUST because of WvW.

I also think that this game type’s prevalence for zerging is absurd, almost as absurd as the people who want to defend it by constantly reverberating the tired argument of “It’s called WORLD vs WORLD nubs, hence ZERGS.”

I don’t understand, what exactly is invalid about this argument? There are large scale battles, there are small scale battles. I participate in both. Everyone I know has at some point participated in both. I don’t understand why you complain about zergs, apart from the fact that maybe you’re tired of losing a 30v1. But that’s ok, because you’re supposed to lose against those kind of odds. It’s like going into a boxing match and expecting to beat 30 bodybuilders at once. Not gonna happen.

Think about REAL LIFE World vs World. Zergs (armies) are a tool that can be used, but they aren’t the ONLY tool. More conflicts have been fought and resolved with much, much smaller tactical teams and they should have play here too.

They are the best and most prevalent tool. Historically, things have been acquired and won by massive armies, not by small 5 man teams that killed 300 guys. Such things are extremely rare and hence why the subject or stories and legends.

Tell me, do you think the United States Special Forces should be able to take the United States marines corps in a fight? It’s about 5000 vs 200,000. Sure, there’s no question as to which soldier is better in combat, but seriously, 5000 vs 200,000, they’re a reason they are SPEC OPS and not front line troops, it’s because with their pitiful numbers they would be destroyed in open field combat, hence their forte is special operations.

Which is what I think small scale should be relegated to. Typically small scale involves sniping supply lines and supply camps, as well as ninja’ing certain structures while YOUR army has the ENEMY army occupied elsewhere.

I’m hardly exaggerating. I started a guild of 60 players to play WvW when this game started. Now, only about 4 ever play. I started in an alliance of about 14 different guilds when this game started, all focused on WvW. Of those 14 guilds, I can name only ONE that still plays this game with any regularity – and they are going to drop it once TESO releases.

You are being so intentionally obtuse just to prove your internet point that it’s sad. Yes WARS have been fought by armies, but inside those wars, do you think every battle was fought by the WHOLE army? Do you think they zerged every objective with as many people as they possibly could because it was the best way? Or do you think, that throughout the course of human history, small groups have won as many if not more engagements than massive armies have? I am not arguing for the extinction of the zerg. They have their place, same as any other tool. But it shouldn’t be the ONLY tool.

Think on it.

Zerging isn’t the only tool to capture anything (at least in T3 and below). I frequently see small teams harassing the supply lines/keeps/towers, and they work wonder. It’s only natural that people gather together, because it means more safety and a better chance of survival. You don’t need to stay ikittenerg if you don’t want to, and you can just avoid enemy zergs by running away if you see one and if you don’t want to engage.

IMO WvW should stay the way it is.

Another QQ post. How many QQ post have we had this week alone? 6 maybe even 7 now? And its barely half way the week.

Teamkiller.4315:

no, no it wouldn’t. Stop arguing semantics. What I meant by “spamming” meteor shower is using it every time it’s off cooldown.

The ele’s going to get substantially higher kills. Why? Cause vastly more powerful AOE that’s why. What about say, a rifle warrior? Or actually, any warrior that is not using hammer?

You don’t see how this would imbalance the classes? Without a massive massive nerf to AOE there’s no way all classes would have their own niche in WvW. Some people are going to rack in 30 kills per fight while others rack in…like 2.

I’ll also mention that plenty of people on youtube have won 5v20’s…yes against bad players but do you really expect to wikittenv20 vs good players? Anyhow, Flanking 20 with 5 guys isn’t exactly “Fantastic tactics” that let’s you deserve to kill all of them. It’s one of the most basic military maneuvers there is.

If ranged AoE is needed, a warrior can simply equip their longbow and AoE. You know, probably just like that Ele did when they swapped out that staff for their two daggers so he could meteor storm.

And the example the other poster gave about 5 flanking the 20 didnt mean they should have been expected to win… just that they should have been able to make a bigger impact.

Teamkiller.4315:

You mean apart from the fact that gw2 is far far more active than those other games mentioned?

No, I mean that there are many factors that contribute to the population of the game, one of which for example is age, most MMOs lose population over time (all except WoW & EVE and they are only treading water these days), so comparing the population of a game that is over a decade old like DAoC to a new game a few months is meaningless at best, dumb / dishonest at worst.

Secondly you have decided that people still playing support the “zerging” and would disagree with the OPs points without any evidence, as the OP shows still playing the game does not equate to being satisfied with all aspects of it.

Thirdly in regard to population the WvW population has been declining, many guilds have left, including some very large ones, queues that were once common place now only occur on reset night, the WvW populations of many lower tier servers have collapsed, etc. (I am on T1 server by the way).

Lastly the OP is correct in that there are very limited modern alternatives, there are many people who are just using GW2 to as a stop gap until ESO and especially Camelot Unchained are released, because the WvW has simply not lived up to expectations.

Eclipses.7152:

Of those 14 guilds, I can name only ONE that still plays this game with any regularity – and they are going to drop it once TESO releases.

And quite possibly be dissatisfied for the same or different reasons once that game is released and they are 6 months into it. The very fact that they are pinning their expectations on yet another game that they have never played. I’ve particularly enjoyed the reviews that are in awe of the 200 man fights. I don’t particularly want to get into the specs of that game. It’s off topic. I just want to point out that there are people who will constantly hope for the next big thing that will meet their expectations, go to it, and be disappointed 6 months in. The ebb and flow of populations based on those folks is expected. So, please, please, please stop posting the “Well we’re all going to ditch for TESO and GW2 will die” arguments.

I agree with a lot of the statements that you’ve made, although i could see how removing the AoE cap would further unbalance some classes.
With regards to the “Downed-Mechanic” point i agree, and in fact there is a pretty simple solution.
What i would suggest is:
In PvP environments (WvW and sPvP) you’ll only be able to down one time. Currently you will enter defeated mode instantly after you’ve been downed 5 times. This is working great in PvE (Dungeons etc) but it’s seriously a problem in WvW and sPvP.
A lot of times when engaging in 1vX fights i actually manage to down a lot of people and sometimes twice. The problem is that they just keep getting rezzed, and there is no way i can ever down the same person five times.
Entering defeated mode at the second down would still keep the original intentions (incentive for group play, better chance of comebacks), while not making 1vX or 10vZerg totally impossible.
I’ll gladly admit that i’ve sometimes been saved by the rally mechanism and the feeling of being back in the game is awesome. I strongly believe a change like this would only be for the better.

This is just one post out of many, so chances are that the devs will not see it, if you do it would be great if you could consider a change like this.

In regards to the OP i think the two 2’s are the most important subjects.

Sylosi.6503:

Lastly the OP is correct in that there are very limited modern alternatives, there are many people who are just using GW2 to as a stop gap until ESO and especially Camelot Unchained are released, because the WvW has simply not lived up to expectations.

Just have to point out that they are using GW2 as a stop gap while waiting for another game with massive scale open world, that may well be modeled similarly to GW2s PvP and a game that is still not even off it’s first kickstart stage. This doesn’t sound like an argument for a dying population to me.

JaironKalach.4938:

Just have to point out that they are using GW2 as a stop gap while waiting for another game with massive scale open world, that may well be modeled similarly to GW2s PvP and a game that is still not even off it’s first kickstart stage. This doesn’t sound like an argument for a dying population to me.

Because it wasn’t an argument for the population declining (WvW oreintated guilds leaving, the queues compared to a few months ago & WvW pops on many lower tier servers was the argument for that), I was merely pointing out that the OP is not alone in that he is only really still playing WvW due to a lack of modern alternatives and when those alternatives are lanuched, he and good many others will leave. (and yes CU is a long way off, ESO is not, some will probably even try Darkfall Unholy Wars).

What I’m saying is that your argument for a future dying population is flawed because the automatic assumption that those games 1) will exist and 2) be more enjoyable than GW2 has all kinds of holes in it….

JaironKalach.4938:

What I’m saying is that your argument for a future dying population is flawed because the automatic assumption that those games 1) will exist and 2) be more enjoyable than GW2 has all kinds of holes in it….

They don’t even have to be more enjoyable. If people don’t enjoy wvw of gw2, people will try something else. Don’t expect them to get back to something they didn’t like.

Hey guys let’s talk some more about how this here video game is totally like real life war and zerging is rewarded in real life war…I mean haven’t you all read sun tsu!?

Sun Tsu? I thought that was some sort of tea that makes you randy.

Acelerion.6820:

Hey guys let’s talk some more about how this here video game is totally like real life war and zerging is rewarded in real life war…I mean haven’t you all read sun tsu!?

As I pointed out in another thread, Sun Tzu advocates intelligent, indiscernable strategy, but having your force concentrated against an opponents weakness…. So no, he doesn’t favor small mans. Really, really not a good troll.

Lines 13-19 available here:

http://suntzusaid.com/book/6

My point exactly

Time to close down the internet. I saw it was a troll post and I still responded. Only thing left for the day is to go back to bed.

Sun Tsu advocates zerging. He advocates attacking the weaknesses and shoring up your own weaknesses. He would much so approve of the situation where the OP’s 5 man party faced and lost to the 20man zerg, so long as he was in the zerg.

Bringing your 20 man zerg against a 5 man group is a valid and actually correct course of action.
The incorrect course of action is that 5 man group trying to drive off a 20 man zerg unless they had a truly solid strategic advantage. Sun Tsu calls it “earth”.

The 5 man group can choke the 20 man group and make their numbers count for naught. If they can’t choke them they have no business fighting them. There are very few locations where you can choke a 20 man zerg in WvW so if yours is 5 men, avoid the enemy zerg and try to rally more to your cause. If you can’t rally more then you will inevitably lose objectives that the zerg attacks. You should be attacking other objectives that are undefended.

Some of us do like the large fights.

T2 has plenty of 10-15 man havoc squads running around so I really don’t see what all the whining is about. They can clear objectives about as fast as a full zerg.

There’s already a tool for spec ops to fend off a zerg. It’s called siege and upgrades. Regardless of numbers, it’s extremely hard to take any place with 5 players manning siege. A zerg can still take it, but in the time it does you could rally your entire borderlands to that structure. You have to kill the oil before throwing golems or rams at a gate, cannons have to go for most catapult placement, ballistas and trebs can be built to counter catas, arrowcarts will discourage them from getting anywhere near the door. Seriously, have you ever tried to get an unorganized zerg through mass arrowcarts?

Camps held by siege and havoc squads will buy enough time for the main zerg to react and save it.

You can’t hold off an entire zerg forever with 5 people, but you can make their life miserable and slow them down significantly.

The reason why zergs win is because very few people care to scout or defend, because it’s not fun sitting around doing nothing.

1. This is a reward to zergs? Your own team also counts towards the culling and the lag issues. Its the exact opposite, running in a small group will result in much less delays and culling issues.

2. This is basic GW2 mechanics, and you are aware of it, so why complain? What do you want? “Congratulations 20 hero’s where were all level their new character. You finished this low level event. To bad the event was scaled for 5 ppl, so the reward is split between you. Here is negligable coin, exp and karma.”

3. Sorry but this is bull. Goodluck scouting, or sneaking supply camps with a whole zerg. The other servers know where you are, orange swords and all that stuff. It also depends on how you play, trait and skill. And certain professions can easily escape any situation.
Besides, if their zerg is chasing 5 ppl then that is their zerg not doing something usefull for the time being. Thats a win…

4. A zerg can only revive their dead if they WIN the fight. Rezzing downed might seem easier, but with the big zerg on zerg clash, its a nightmare with the skill delay and culling.
But yah, in ideal situations a zerg will have more hands free to get their downed up. But how do you compare this? Small vs Small? Or Small vs Zerg?

5. Wut? You mean people can walk through eachother? Again, what do you want? 5 kitten to block off paths for other ppl? Make NPCs unreachable?

6. AoE cap was inplace to make sure AoE skills can still hit hard without being rediculously damaging. I’d like to invite you to go watch some beta footage of some Ele’s and Warriors running around, just 5 of em. And they downed an entire zerg in litterally 3seconds. You honestly think THAT is a good idea? Or should we just nerf AoE across the board? Sounds equally kitten since most abilities are aoe, then we’ll never kill anything.

7. 5 ppl can take a keep or tower. Done it a fair amount with 10 or less people, its not even that hard if you know the spots to get in from, or have a Mesmer hiding inside.
The only thing to ruin your day is if they have spotters in their towers/keeps, but that stops a zerg just as easy…

20 ppl and 3 rams dont actually get in all that much faster then 4 ppl and 3 rams. Or try and get into a tower or keep that has just 5 ppl on some Arrowcarts. Goodluck, you’ll need it.

So you made it abundantly clear you want Arenanet to punish Zerging. Which would then get people into small groups to do anything. First off, maps arent large enough to have 5-10 groups spread out everywhere all doing their own thing.

Secondly WvW is about large scale fighting! Thats the entire reason that it exists. Then turning around and punishing large scale fighting (as if culling isnt doing that as it is) would completely defeat the purpose of WvW.
You say WvW is all about servers having the best coordinated zergs with the best coverage. And what is wrong with that? We’re not talking mindless randoms, we’re talking coordinated, voicecom, guilds, build, geared, experience and practised in fighting WvW.

You didnt expect this? Well, what did you expect then?

Teamkiller.4315:

Dynnen.6405:

Teamkiller.4315:

At their peak, I have enjoyed Shadowbane, DaoC, and Warhammer more than GW2 but given the curent populations, those aren’t really options.

I’d like to point out that because of WuvWuv’s substantially higher population, they are most likely satisfying the majority of those who want open world pvp and those who hate zerging are an outspoken minority.

I want tweaks to wvw too, but don’t make it so that elite 5 mans can just farm zergs.

Removing AOE caps would further unbalance classes. That ele spamming meteor shower? Yeah way more effective than that poor shortbow ranger.

First off, you can’t spam meteor shower, secondly the shortbow ranger isn’t meant to be an aoe weapon, and third you can dodge out of damage which balances out a lot of issues with damage. Un-capping the AOE would do a lot to balance the game. Look at it like this. 5 players flank 20 players attacking a tower. The five players hit them hard and knock a few down. The twenty players turn and hit them and the 5 players drop quickly.

Why would something like this happen? This is the reason. A 20 player team can put their damage into 100% of the 5 player team. However the 5 player team can put their damage into 25% of the 20 man team. Not only does this not make sense at all, its a drastic imbalance and punishes the players using good tactics while rewarding those making mistakes.

no, no it wouldn’t. Stop arguing semantics. What I meant by “spamming” meteor shower is using it every time it’s off cooldown.

The ele’s going to get substantially higher kills. Why? Cause vastly more powerful AOE that’s why. What about say, a rifle warrior? Or actually, any warrior that is not using hammer?

You don’t see how this would imbalance the classes? Without a massive massive nerf to AOE there’s no way all classes would have their own niche in WvW. Some people are going to rack in 30 kills per fight while others rack in…like 2.

I’ll also mention that plenty of people on youtube have won 5v20’s…yes against bad players but do you really expect to wikittenv20 vs good players? Anyhow, Flanking 20 with 5 guys isn’t exactly “Fantastic tactics” that let’s you deserve to kill all of them. It’s one of the most basic military maneuvers there is.

Alrighty there arm chair commander, I’m guessing you’ve never payed attention to DAoC (which is where this whole system of PVP came from). Anyway, lets look at some of your points. A sniper warrior, if speced right, can do some serious aoe with Crack Shot trait and all of his skills. Does he have a ground target aoe? Not at all, but lining up a kill shot to hit 3+ players and possibly downing all of them is > meteor shower, especially if those players were trying to revive someone. Also have you seen what happens to most staff eles when someone starts to put damage into them? It nearly shuts them down or forces them to burn utilities/attunements to stay alive.

Next up I said ‘good’ tactics not fantasic tactics. But lets look at the little scenario I set up. People standing on a door waiting for it to fall are not using good tactics. In a siege I’d say using ‘good’ tactics would be setting up a small defense point with an AC or ballista to cover it while knocking down the wall or door. There are many ways to set this up, however what usually happens is people take the path of least resistance. Thats the ‘bad’ tactic.

Before I describe the merits of a flanking maneuver and its effectiveness I’ll just ask you to glance over this link and maybe you’ll see that theres a little more that goes into maneuvers and planning for them…especially a flanking maneuver.

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm34-130.pdf

Lastly the question about how 5,000 men could take out 200,000. I’d say most of it would depend on the terrain they were fighting in and how long the 5,000 had time to prepare it. Now if you’re talking about 5,000 dudes standing with their assault rifles aimed at 200,000 dudes, then thats another story. But I guarantee you they’d do a whole lot more damage if the 200,000 dudes had their backs to the 5,000 and didn’t know they were there. But since there hasn’t been a real open field battle like that since WWII its a moot point (I don’t count Desert Storm since our tanks could accurately target theirs from 5-6 times their effective range as well as our Abrams/A-10s having depleted Uranium weaponry. )

I believe that applying group buffs to actual group members only instead of random people would help small groups. That system worked well in DAoC. Sure, the zerg can just clump more but doing so is not as easy for them as it is for a 1-2 groups.

A great post by treyalsup.4627 which deserves developer attention and response.

Main point that needs to be improved is #2.

Not all kills are equal and tagging a player with a little AoE damage takes no skill or effort and shouldn’t count the same for the reward. On a similar note, support builds are not equally rewarded even in zergs.

You’re being massively obtuse or disingenuous. You’re comparing the Ele’s single greatest AoE weapon to the warrior’s single greatest single target DPS weapon. You’re intentionally omitting, for the sake of your pathetic argument, that warriors do not have a LongBow weapon, which is their AoE option. EVERY class has an AoE Option, even if that option isn’t as effective as staff ele.

Do you want to know the problem with this argument? The longbow’s aoe is hardly anything worth talking about…unless you take into account their arcing shot, which is usable only once every time their adrenaline refills, and is far more easily avoided than a meteor shower. Even then it is not as effective nor as much aoe.

Again, I’ll point out that you NEED melee warriors and guardians in your ranks to help your freaking zerg, and they will miss out on a ton of kills because you know aoe cap removed. Furthermore, this doesn’t solve the balance at all of classes that are purely support that keep your backline and frontline alive and well. They get precisely zero kills.

If only you had any idea of just how many people have stopped playing WvW or GW2 altogether because of the way WvW has been implemented.

You are massively exaggerating how many people have stopped playing WvW or GW2 altogether JUST because of WvW.

I also think that this game type’s prevalence for zerging is absurd, almost as absurd as the people who want to defend it by constantly reverberating the tired argument of “It’s called WORLD vs WORLD nubs, hence ZERGS.”

I don’t understand, what exactly is invalid about this argument? There are large scale battles, there are small scale battles. I participate in both. Everyone I know has at some point participated in both. I don’t understand why you complain about zergs, apart from the fact that maybe you’re tired of losing a 30v1. But that’s ok, because you’re supposed to lose against those kind of odds. It’s like going into a boxing match and expecting to beat 30 bodybuilders at once. Not gonna happen.

I’m hardly exaggerating. I started a guild of 60 players to play WvW when this game started. Now, only about 4 ever play. I started in an alliance of about 14 different guilds when this game started, all focused on WvW. Of those 14 guilds, I can name only ONE that still plays this game with any regularity – and they are going to drop it once TESO releases.

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

There’s this. And then there’s also…

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

The important one is number TWO. You assume the reason they stop playing is because wvw sucks. Have you ever considered that the reason they stopped playing is because like the rest of gw2, initial interest faded? Have you ever noticed that zergs of 200 in PvE at launch are now more at the size of maybe 20? Uh, right, yeah.

Conversely, I could tell you my own stories and say that I am a part of five guilds, and the PvE guild is 4 times less active than the WvW guild, considering the typical number of people online at any given time.

You are being so intentionally obtuse just to prove your internet point that it’s sad. Yes WARS have been fought by armies, but inside those wars, do you think every battle was fought by the WHOLE army? Do you think they zerged every objective with as many people as they possibly could because it was the best way? Or do you think, that throughout the course of human history, small groups have won as many if not more engagements than massive armies have? I am not arguing for the extinction of the zerg. They have their place, same as any other tool. But it shouldn’t be the ONLY tool.

Now tell me where I made this argument that “zerg should be the only tool” And I’ll concede.

Oh, nowhere?

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

I said they are the best and most prevalent tool. Anything else is support. Your special operations squads aren’t going to fight on the frontline and win the war without the army, while the army can win the war without the special operations squads. It will be substantially more difficult but it is possible.

Likewise, we ALWAYS have havoc squads on the map taking camps and other small objectives while our main army hits the heavy targets. I don’t see ANYONE stating or claiming that zerging should be the only tool.

I only see people claiming zerging is the only viable tool, which is sad and wrong. You are the pathetic one making your pathetic point to change the game into something you want to see, ruining it for a lot others.

You’re being massively obtuse or disingenuous. You’re comparing the Ele’s single greatest AoE weapon to the warrior’s single greatest single target DPS weapon. You’re intentionally omitting, for the sake of your pathetic argument, that warriors do not have a LongBow weapon, which is their AoE option. EVERY class has an AoE Option, even if that option isn’t as effective as staff ele.

Do you want to know the problem with this argument? The longbow’s aoe is hardly anything worth talking about…unless you take into account their arcing shot, which is usable only once every time their adrenaline refills, and is far more easily avoided than a meteor shower. Even then it is not as effective nor as much aoe.

Again, I’ll point out that you NEED melee warriors and guardians in your ranks to help your freaking zerg, and they will miss out on a ton of kills because you know aoe cap removed. Furthermore, this doesn’t solve the balance at all of classes that are purely support that keep your backline and frontline alive and well. They get precisely zero kills.

I’m hardly exaggerating. I started a guild of 60 players to play WvW when this game started. Now, only about 4 ever play. I started in an alliance of about 14 different guilds when this game started, all focused on WvW. Of those 14 guilds, I can name only ONE that still plays this game with any regularity – and they are going to drop it once TESO releases.

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

There’s this. And then there’s also…

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

The important one is number TWO. You assume the reason they stop playing is because wvw sucks. Have you ever considered that the reason they stopped playing is because like the rest of gw2, initial interest faded? Have you ever noticed that zergs of 200 in PvE at launch are now more at the size of maybe 20? Uh, right, yeah.

Conversely, I could tell you my own stories and say that I am a part of five guilds, and the PvE guild is 4 times less active than the WvW guild, considering the typical number of people online at any given time.

You are being so intentionally obtuse just to prove your internet point that it’s sad. Yes WARS have been fought by armies, but inside those wars, do you think every battle was fought by the WHOLE army? Do you think they zerged every objective with as many people as they possibly could because it was the best way? Or do you think, that throughout the course of human history, small groups have won as many if not more engagements than massive armies have? I am not arguing for the extinction of the zerg. They have their place, same as any other tool. But it shouldn’t be the ONLY tool.

Now tell me where I made this argument that “zerg should be the only tool” And I’ll concede.

Oh, nowhere?

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

I said they are the best and most prevalent tool. Anything else is support. Your special operations squads aren’t going to fight on the frontline and win the war without the army, while the army can win the war without the special operations squads. It will be substantially more difficult but it is possible.

Likewise, we ALWAYS have havoc squads on the map taking camps and other small objectives while our main army hits the heavy targets. I don’t see ANYONE stating or claiming that zerging should be the only tool.

I only see people claiming zerging is the only viable tool, which is sad and wrong. You are the pathetic one making your pathetic point to change the game into something you want to see, ruining it for a lot others.

Boulderbolg.3460:

I believe that applying group buffs to actual group members only instead of random people would help small groups. That system worked well in DAoC. Sure, the zerg can just clump more but doing so is not as easy for them as it is for a 1-2 groups.

I agree. This could be #8. I don’t think its huge, but it has a small effect.

We could probably add (#9) The combo system. It’s much easier to have every finisher triggering a combo in the zerg. It’s much easier to get to 25 stacks of might in the zerg.

Zephyrus.9680:

Not all kills are equal and tagging a player with a little AoE damage takes no skill or effort and shouldn’t count the same for the reward. On a similar note, support builds are not equally rewarded even in zergs.

I agree. Many other games had a system of dividing rewards among a group to ensure that support characters were compensated equally with the characters they affected / supported.

But since GW2 never divides rewards, support characters are relatively under-compensated.

Support characters in GW2 are pretty much pseudo support anyway. There are no true healers or tanks. This is by design.

GW2 will always reward zerg play because its designed around a failed E-Sport system.

DAOC didn’t have that sort of system, So you were allowed to run 8mans that could wipe large zergs very quickly (In seconds)

This made traveling ikittenerg an advantage in that you had more numbers, But also as a Disadvantage in that you were a Target for these 8mans to hit. It required your own Small Groups and smart play to not be instantly dropped by these groups.

Things like Collision Detection will also not exist, because you technically don’t have Tanks, I mean…The reason it worked in warhammer online for example is because you had Classes like the Blackguard which had a lot of utility but had little damage, In exchange though they could face tank a zerg of players with ease.

This game will never been DAOC, hell it’ll never been Warhammer Online…It has shown that despite having 3 Factions, If you combat system and gameplay mechanics are designed horribly it won’t be able to compete with games with 2 Factions (WAR) in terms of actual good combat/gameplay.

So if you’re looking for DAOC2, i suggest waiting for ESO or CU as maybe they’ll be close to it.

GW2 is not going to be it though.

JaironKalach.4938:

Eclipses.7152:

Of those 14 guilds, I can name only ONE that still plays this game with any regularity – and they are going to drop it once TESO releases.

And quite possibly be dissatisfied for the same or different reasons once that game is released and they are 6 months into it. The very fact that they are pinning their expectations on yet another game that they have never played. I’ve particularly enjoyed the reviews that are in awe of the 200 man fights. I don’t particularly want to get into the specs of that game. It’s off topic. I just want to point out that there are people who will constantly hope for the next big thing that will meet their expectations, go to it, and be disappointed 6 months in. The ebb and flow of populations based on those folks is expected. So, please, please, please stop posting the “Well we’re all going to ditch for TESO and GW2 will die” arguments.

This is true.

However I have to say that from what it appears to be, TESO is taking their WvW like experience much more seriously than Arenanet.

We can at least hope that over there players won’t have to wait 6 months to see updates and positive content and progression system additions.

Once again, all you small man “hardcore pvpers” battle with the carebear zergers arent willing to spend 18 in game gold to fight other hardcore teams. Stupid, just get on the same tier, and some teams will just have to change if the tier shifts. SO WHAT its 18 in game gold. Make this happen, we will all have MUCH MORE FUN! Consolidate, 5 man tier will be a hell of alot better than all of us spread out trying to figure out ways to beat Anet’s finance team which allows CAREBEAR CITY to happen…………………………….

Xsorus.2507:

Things like Collision Detection will also not exist, because you technically don’t have Tanks, I mean…The reason it worked in warhammer online for example is because you had Classes like the Blackguard which had a lot of utility but had little damage, In exchange though they could face tank a zerg of players with ease.

Collision detection was removed because no one wants to play “Ping Wars 2” when the population is world wide but servers cannot be. So instead they added skills to take its place but you don’t seem to be aware of their existence.

Xsorus.2507:

hell it’ll never been Warhammer Online… it won’t be able to compete with games with 2 Factions (WAR) in terms of actual good combat/gameplay.

No one wants to be WAR… and no one can compete with WAR on the fact that its a dead game that died faster than a mayfly in spring.

Eclipses.7152:

However I have to say that from what it appears to be, TESO is taking their WvW like experience much more seriously than Arenanet.

As far back as the first glimpses into WvW, it was never considered as even remotely what it ended up becoming (by the devs and even by a lot of players). They didn’t consider it anything more than an extension of PvE and designed it as such, PvPers had sPvP. Problem being… the core mechanics ended up being good, really good, and it sucked in a whole lot of people and it became a big thing. Unfortunately, development doesn’t work nearly as quickly nor does internal management.

Eclipses.7152:

We can at least hope that over there players won’t have to wait 6 months to see updates and positive content and progression system additions.

What you’re going to get is: six classes, a map designed around geography of a past game rather than designed to actually be balanced, a long vertical progression system post leveling, and the same exact game structure as here with “world” replaced by “alliance” all fighting in their “campaigns” rather than “tiers”… and some bigger maps, sort of kind of.

…In maybe six months.

Could be the greatest game ever… or it could be a stinking pile of manure. But, at the end of the day, at least WvW ended up a stable game mode, with functional/good mechanics, and an ever evolving meta. This is why I hate comparison with non-existent entities, too much “grass is greener” mentality.

Vena.8436:

Xsorus.2507:

Things like Collision Detection will also not exist, because you technically don’t have Tanks, I mean…The reason it worked in warhammer online for example is because you had Classes like the Blackguard which had a lot of utility but had little damage, In exchange though they could face tank a zerg of players with ease.

Collision detection was removed because no one wants to play “Ping Wars 2” when the population is world wide but servers cannot be. So instead they added skills to take its place but you don’t seem to be aware of their existence.

Xsorus.2507:

hell it’ll never been Warhammer Online… it won’t be able to compete with games with 2 Factions (WAR) in terms of actual good combat/gameplay.

No one wants to be WAR… and no one can compete with WAR on the fact that its a dead game that died faster than a mayfly in spring.

Eclipses.7152:

However I have to say that from what it appears to be, TESO is taking their WvW like experience much more seriously than Arenanet.

As far back as the first glimpses into WvW, it was never considered as even remotely what it ended up becoming (by the devs and even by a lot of players). They didn’t consider it anything more than an extension of PvE and designed it as such, PvPers had sPvP. Problem being… the core mechanics ended up being good, really good, and it sucked in a whole lot of people and it became a big thing. Unfortunately, development doesn’t work nearly as quickly nor does internal management.

Eclipses.7152:

We can at least hope that over there players won’t have to wait 6 months to see updates and positive content and progression system additions.

What you’re going to get is: six classes, a map designed around geography of a past game rather than designed to actually be balanced, a long vertical progression system post leveling, and the same exact game structure as here with “world” replaced by “alliance” all fighting in their “campaigns” rather than “tiers”… and some bigger maps, sort of kind of.

…In maybe six months.

Could be the greatest game ever… or it could be a stinking pile of manure. But, at the end of the day, at least WvW ended up a stable game mode, with functional/good mechanics, and an ever evolving meta. This is why I hate comparison with non-existent entities, too much “grass is greener” mentality.

Ever evolving meta? There is only one meta here and its name is Zerg.

I do agree with the majority of your points however I disagree with some as well.

I’m pretty sure that in TESO we’ll have mid-large size grouping mechanics that don’t necessitate the purchase of an outlandishly priced, poorly designed money sink like Commander.

Eclipses.7152:

Ever evolving meta? There is only one meta here and its name is Zerg.

Meta is with regards to skill compositions, team comps, counters etc; you can’t with a straight face tell me that this game hasn’t gone through several shifts in group methodologies and make-ups. The team comps have shifted with just about every patch and new approaches to engagements in open field to towers to keeps have come and gone.

We’ve had the turtles, the portal bombs (this has been in particular volatile in regards to counter creation and from skill changes) or black hole portals -> sweeps, veil bombs, earthshaker trains, cond bombs, open-field siege is becoming more prevalent now, and when the culling is removed, the meta will shift again (veil bombing is going to become pretty much pointless with the patch since you won’t be able to chain them any more or abuse their culling mechanics*). And the ever novel ways of placing and using siege and counter siege and counter-counter siege.

…Engineers used to be a clutch class for camp flips. Now its necromancers or thieves for their fields. Leg-specialist warriors on arrow carts. Cond damage necros and mesmers on trebs. The lists go on and need to be appended with every patch. Rangers re-roll every patch to something more useful.

I don’t think many games would be able to produce this sort of meta without just outright copying the skill/trait/siege system in this game and this is one of the few things that call back to the origins in GW1.

*This change alone is going to shake the meta because many a player hardly even knows how to mount a proper approach without abusing veil + culling, and its been one of the biggest driving points of the map zerg. The approach becomes ever harder when ballista will now work and be able to target you as you’re running at them since you’re neither stealthed nor culled. Two ballista popping you from several thousand clicks away… are going to ruin any zerg’s day especially if its a choke + line spells.

Portal bombs are also going to change.

Eclipses.7152:

I’m pretty sure that in TESO we’ll have mid-large size grouping mechanics that don’t necessitate the purchase of an outlandishly priced, poorly designed money sink like Commander.

Can’t say what TESO will or won’t have because whatever they intend or say vs. whatever the players prefer and will do in spite of mechanics, are things that can only be found out posteriori. For all we know, a priori, it may have nothing but zergs to make even Aion blush.

6. AoE cap. The zerg provides tremendous protection for its inhabitants. The AOE cap means the enemy AOE gets distributed and manageable. Whereas, against a smaller force all damage finds its intended target. Numbers normally win anyway, but this mechanic exacerbates it. It means that even when the smaller force gets the jump on the larger that their advantage is diminished.

YESS. i’ve personally never understood the reason for an aoe cap in most situations PvE or PvP, but as an ET player I gotta say we would probably be able to hold our property if they just removed the aoe cap, we just got run over by 50 sf simply because we couldn’t actually damage 90% of the group. -_- change it, NOW. WvW should be more about what seige your using and how your using it, instead of this zerg-happy exp/karma train nonsense….BTW really hate that orange swords doesn’t occur unless its 20+ SF gets so many ninja caps on us and FC…..not that we can stop them since they outnumber both of us combined

Intelligence and skill should determine who wins these matches, not the size of your server……or atleast make the number of people not be so beneficial