Guild Wars 2

While playing last night I noticed the Outnumbered buff come up and it sent me into a spiral of thought about logical fighting scenarios. If you had 40 people in a small area all trying to swing swords wouldn’t it be much more difficult than a smaller group?

What if Anet added a “Crowded” debuff to WvW? The formula could be something like this:

if players within x radius is => y then Crowded Debuff

I won’t suggest what the debuff should actually be or what the number of players should be either but the debuff would make a lot of sense. The game is taking a turn towards this type of system anyways with the bloodlust and outnumbered buffs. I think this Crowded debuff fits right in with them in terms of theme and goal. Also, Anet could not add it to Edge of the Mists so if people want to GvG or run in mass groups unhindered they still can. Thoughts?

Quells.2498:

While playing last night I noticed the Outnumbered buff come up and it sent me into a spiral of thought about logical fighting scenarios. If you had 40 people in a small area all trying to swing swords wouldn’t it be much more difficult than a smaller group?

What if Anet added a “Crowded” debuff to WvW? The formula could be something like this:

if players within x radius is => y then Crowded Debuff

I won’t suggest what the debuff should actually be or what the number of players should be either but the debuff would make a lot of sense. The game is taking a turn towards this type of system anyways with the bloodlust and outnumbered buffs. I think this Crowded debuff fits right in with them in terms of theme and goal. Also, Anet could not add it to Edge of the Mists so if people want to GvG or run in mass groups unhindered they still can. Thoughts?

This idea has came up in the past, a few of us on TS were speaking about it last night although we went farther and suggested buffing/boosting the individual a % depending on the number of friendlies around them. (IE: the fewer friendlies the more of a stat boost/buff)

However, when this has came up in the past (conversations about penalizing zerging) ANET devs (from what I remember anyway) stated they would never be in favor of penalizing players for essentially blobbing together.

They would probably be more likely (out of the 2 scenarios) to buff under-manned teams or individuals rather than de-buff a large group. But in reality they will likely do neither.

The biggest problem with this game right now is that (on average) numbers are far better rewarded than skill, and there is a point where numbers are able to overcome skill, and that point right now is far too low on the scale of things.

Why would the penalize players for playing WvW the way it was meant to be played, large scale PvP?

Aeonblade.8709:

Why would the penalize players for playing WvW the way it was meant to be played, large scale PvP?

Because that scale tends to be horribly unbalanced most of the time. Just sayin’.

Aeonblade.8709:

Why would the penalize players for playing WvW the way it was meant to be played, large scale PvP?

It does gets a bit exasperating sometimes hearing people talk about “zerging” as if it’s a dirty word, lol – not that I think that’s what the OP was doing. The whole point of WvW, to my mind, is having BIG battles. If you want to do five on five fighting, go do pvp. I’ve never played an MMO yet that didn’t have imbalance issues. If you really think about it, it’s probably impossible not to have balance issues.

Anyway, sure, the debuff idea sounds like a good idea in theory – or a buff to the undermanned sides – but I imagine it would be much more difficult than it sounds to implement. AN would have to find a formula to differentiate between the numbers of players from three different servers within a given radius, and it would have to be determined also based on how many were actually engaged in combat, and then (ideally) adjust in real-time for players as they die and can no longer be counted as active participants… Ugh. I’m no coder, but it hurts my head to even think about it.

Each time i see this kind of tread it make me sad. I love Zerg vs Zerg battle. In the open field with veil, portal behind the ennemy, push right to avoid the head, going in their back to get to the DPS group while they buff up. Or in defense/offense in the middle of the keep, when you try to destroy their siege as fast as possible to bring the odds in your favor. These are some of the most epic moments. You may win or lose but its always fun.

What break the experience is when you are can only bring 10 people together in the whole maps while the enemy run across your map without any kind of resistance taking everything in a couple of minutes, leaving people discourage and quitting WvW.

An idea I have posted about before is local outmanned buff. Instead of being some sort of diffuse all-zone buff, there would be a visible grid on the map, zones of control. Like, 6-8 of them, all covering various areas, from keeps to camps. Not exact squares of course, that look ugly.

For example, we would have loved to have local outmanned in the area between garrison and hills when facing this:

I think what you guys are missing in the conversation is that there are some inherit things that make this game unbalanced beyond the numbers argument. Everyone fully expects there to be an uphill battle in a 5v15 or a 15v30, but there are extenuating issues that compound these fights and make them sway EVEN MORE to the larger force. (Think AoE caps, no DR on CC’s, etc.)

Lets not forget where and why many of these ball up and “stack tight, might on me” scenarios came from. They were all born out of the “workaround” to exploit the 5-man AoE cap. I truly think if their weren’t an AoE cap things would be a lot different for smaller team play, you gotta realize small mans are already getting hit with tons of damage, it is the 20-25+ groups that have people that are simply immune to certain situations due to the AoE cap.

I don’t think ANet will (or should) institute a mechanic that actively punishes players for playing together. It could definitely lead to people telling other players to leave the map or group because they are weakening the zerg, and that would be toxic to the WvW community.

alright, as much as some servers sometimes come up with massive numbers which can be a pain, this is wvw. its a game mode where lots of people fight eachother. every game that has wvw game modes has zergs. stop whining about it already! this is what this game mode is about. yes havoc groups are a ton of fun, but wvw is also fun if u are in the middle of an epic battle. i run with a zergbusting guild and its fun to rush 40+ with our 18-20 people. a 50man zerg can be wiped by 20 people as it is pretty hard to coordinate such a big number. in a 50 man zerg u will find tons of rallybots and squishies. yes i have actually defended a keep vs 40-50 with only 10-15 defenders. if u want to roam or only have 10vs 10 fights then either move to a lower server or go spvp. in the mid to high tiers u will see massive groups. all the suggestions i have seen so far is punishing players to play the game they want to.

From what I’ve seen, and I’ve been playing since official release, is that 5 v15, you will lose, roughly 75-85% of the time, if you’re in the smaller group.

15 v 30, if you get the element of surprise and boosted stats, you’ll crush your enemy in about 15-20 seconds, about 80% of the time, again as the inferior force.

15 v 30, if you do not have the element of surprise, or did not commit to a stack prior to attacking. You will lose about 85% of the time.

This surprise v no-surprise gets even more unforgiving as the size of a zerg goes up.

So let’s be blunt here. Numbers win. They will ALWAYS outclass skill in the end. The Russians proved it in WWII, they beat the German Forces who were superior in every way except bodies to send.

That’s the problem. Anet can be as conflicted as they want about debuffing huge zergs, but the truth is unless they do, the servers with the largest number of bodies, across all timezones WILL WIN. Because 10-15 really skilled people will still die to 30-50 man zergs.

Yes, big battles are fun, and I don’t want to see them removed. But big battles are supposed to mean, big battles, spread out over a wide area with a whole bunch of chaos.

Not 30-50 guys clumped together into a rolling ball of death, with a consistently defined strategy that is reduced to, stack, might, charge.

Worse than the 30-50 man zergs, is their side effects. Because you need numbers to win, it encourages inflated servers, buying guilds to transfer over. You know what that means? It means Money Wins. That means people farming rather than playing, or just flat out buying gems to turn into bribe money.

Know what other game is like that? Try almost every other MMO. There is no greater sin to commit in what is supposed to be a skill based contest, than “money wins.” That’s not the game I bought, it’s not the game I want, and it’s not the game Anet promised.

Turn WvW back to skill based victory.

Anet has already said they won’t be making any change to buff/debuff small/large groups.

Dawdler.8521:

An idea I have posted about before is local outmanned buff. Instead of being some sort of diffuse all-zone buff, there would be a visible grid on the map, zones of control. Like, 6-8 of them, all covering various areas, from keeps to camps. Not exact squares of course, that look ugly.

For example, we would have loved to have local outmanned in the area between garrison and hills when facing this:

Lol, hey at least their split into 4 mini-blobs instead of one big one.

And this is exactly what a crowd debuff would do. Not the end of zergs but just the end of one big blob blobbing everything in sight. It would force split groups and more and varied tactics. Could form defensive lines instead of just blobs all standing on top of each other.

Zerg solution: ask everyonie to throw down supply traps anywhere, ive seen 60+ blobs making a U turn after hitting 3 lol

Anet won’t go for it as it would promote anti-social gameplay i.e. “Go away noob”. However the rally mechanic is already doing a good job of that as is, so who knows.

How about an out of combat speed buff when running solo or small group instead? In other words, more carrot and less stick.

Just need to raise the aoe cap from 5 to 8.

If a 10yo game like daoc could manage with no aoe cap, I’m quite sure it’s possible with today’s hardware, unless their tech and/or design is terrible.

I like the idea.

The threshold numbers are debatable, for me, I would start a slight debuff at 30 players, so that by 40 players bloodlust and gaurd stacks would be cancelled, by 50 players, there would be some stat reductions from base, by 60 players it would be a significant stat reduction.

I think most guild groups run around 20-30 players quite often (25 seems to be a good number), and would optimize the game for that.

Also, I think if A-net was to discourage map blobbing, this would significantly improve the overall server / game performance.

if you want to remove zerg,blob,or whatever abomination you called it, it is rather simple

INTRODUCE AGONY TO ARROW CART SKILLS (if the attacker outnumbers the defender greatly such as local outmanned buff mention above)

REMOVE LOOT BAGS FROM TOWER AND KEEP CHAMPIONS (this have to be done, anet because this is the sole objective to most zergling blobbers or whatever you called those kittens)

that will significantly reduce blobbing zerging or whatever you called that

No the simple solution is to increase the cap on AOE damage. Increase it to 10 +.

If people charge in as a stack they should pay for it in lives. Anyone knows you spread out to take less damage from shrapnel. This game needs that one basic military rule.

Aeonblade.8709:

Why would the penalize players for playing WvW the way it was meant to be played, large scale PvP?

The answer is here :

Devon Carver

Everyone who plays WvW has encountered the zerg, either as a member or as a victim. The zerg is an important part of the game, but it shouldn’t be the best strategy for victory.

An important distinction should be made between large, organized groups of players making strategic strikes and mindless groups of players running around in a mob. The former are deadly and effective. The latter can be deadly at times but tend to be sorely lacking in strategy. Our goal is to continue to encourage organized large groups while giving small, tactical groups the necessary tools to put a dent into larger mobs of less-skilled players. We think that it can be fun to run around in a zerg but we also think that the game should be about tactical acumen and skill more than sheer numbers

June 5, 2013.
No improvements since this post.

There wont be either because that is how it is supposed to be.
Another thread that shouldnt be fed.

Don’t get me wrong I love large zerg battles. I don’t want to punish anyone for playing how they choose and frankly not everyone will always be happy but I think it would force some players to start considering other tactics in wvw. Also, as I said, we can keep these changes isolated to wvw and allow players to continue large zerg play and/or gvg in EotM. The key here is the number and the actual debuff. I’d say something like => 30 within a 1200 range would incur the debuff. The debuff could simply lower precision since swinging a weapon in the middle of all that would logically be pretty tough.

Also, I second the idea that aoe cap is a pitfall…

Quells.2498:

While playing last night I noticed the Outnumbered buff come up and it sent me into a spiral of thought about logical fighting scenarios. If you had 40 people in a small area all trying to swing swords wouldn’t it be much more difficult than a smaller group?

This is already in the game. It’s called skill lag. :P

I’m pretty sure from previous threads I have read, that Anet want to see blobs in the game aswell as small scale fights even as far down as 1v1’s, fights of any size as long as the people are enjoying the game, which is a very fair and positive way at looking at things. Where as I hate massive blobs, cant stand them. But there are players who love doing it for good wxp and in general it’s good fun for their play style/taste etc. But when we are talking about Zerg vs Outmanned players it’s a different story all together, and that should definitely be addressed, as it is no longer fun for the outnumbered players and the fun is 1 sided, and to do nothing about that would be anet going back on its word. The outnumbered buff needs some sort of battle advantage, weather it be raise AoE cap/Stats/or debuff the non outmanned for equality purposes, because the game no longer becomes and enjoyable experience for the outmanned player (at no fault of their own), and becomes a 1 sided experience. Something like this could also make the night capping issue a little more bearable.

After all we have unbalanced matches on occasions, and to be stuck in 1 for 7 days with no way or means to be handicapped enough to compete at that level, doesn’t make it an enjoyable experience, which is a shame, and demoralizes a whole server who just cant w8 to see if next weeks random match up is more forgiving.

This sounds great in theory and I do hate that people blob so much. But there are some problems that will be caused by this. Firstly, in my situation, I run with a guild that raid 5-6 times a week and plays 7 days a week and our raids last for 6 hours each day. We run tagless and make every attempt to roll exclusively as a guild. But we cannot shake the pugs. No matter what, our 30 man raid turns into a 40+ man raid because the pugs will not leave us alone. To add to this, they also die very easily and are bad at the game. So we end up with them causing more problems for us than they are helping us. We have tried everything to shake them including asking nicely, asking not so nicely, troll linking waypoints etc etc. Not going to stop following us. So we already have this handicap where pugs rallybot for us and now we have this debuff as well? The problem is there are many people who are not willing to learn. In the end this kind of addition will do nothing. The pugs will follow us still and we will have even more problems and the environment will just become more hostile.

EDIT: Just to point out here, I do not think that the full map blob or zerg is the best way to victory. The key to victory in the game format is playing effectively with smaller numbers. But this requires skill and organization, both of which are lacking on all servers.

Ghanto.9784:

It does gets a bit exasperating sometimes hearing people talk about “zerging” as if it’s a dirty word, lol – not that I think that’s what the OP was doing. The whole point of WvW, to my mind, is having BIG battles. If you want to do five on five fighting, go do pvp.

This is not about zerging vs. small groups. Its more about positioning. Currently a zerg runs around in one huge blob, because the game favors this playstyle due to the aoe cap. The more people stand in one place the less likely it is to get hit by an enemy.

A “crowded penalty” would just penalize blobbing, not zerging in general. You have to position your zerg correctly by spreading out in combat instead of blobbing to abuse the aoe cap to your favor.

In games like DAOC there was no AOE cap so blobbing like in GW2 was deadly. It was a common newbie mistake to stand all in one place because a single group could rush in and wipe your zerg in a short time.

Zergs also existed in DAOC although blobbing was dangerous. Instead you had to spread out at the start of battle. Positioning was actually an integral part of the game whereas in GW2 you just stick to your commander while spamming #1.

Markus.9084:

Aeonblade.8709:

Why would the penalize players for playing WvW the way it was meant to be played, large scale PvP?

The answer is here :

Devon Carver

Everyone who plays WvW has encountered the zerg, either as a member or as a victim. The zerg is an important part of the game, but it shouldn’t be the best strategy for victory.

An important distinction should be made between large, organized groups of players making strategic strikes and mindless groups of players running around in a mob. The former are deadly and effective. The latter can be deadly at times but tend to be sorely lacking in strategy. Our goal is to continue to encourage organized large groups while giving small, tactical groups the necessary tools to put a dent into larger mobs of less-skilled players. We think that it can be fun to run around in a zerg but we also think that the game should be about tactical acumen and skill more than sheer numbers

June 5, 2013.
No improvements since this post.

Since then they have come out and said they wouldn’t be changing anything on zergs. That is the whole purpose of EoTM in development now (as well as overflow of course), if you don’t like armies and sieges, go to EoTM when it’s released.

That being said, I’m not opposed to removing the AoE cap to make people spread out more, but if you think that will kill zergs it won’t. It didn’t in DAoC, it just made positioning important rather than inconsequential.

True but it will make keep defenses easier and change a lot of the simplistic strategies used now.

Or an easier, quicker solution is to create a new utility skill – The Blob Bomb.

It could be universally available to any profession and be equipped like any other utility skill. (Or they could give it to Rangers and make them useful for once,) It would simply be an AoE with damage that scaled based on how many players are within some range of each other.

Pros:

• Anet has made new skills already so that’s not a problem.

• It wouldn’t create performance issues because it’s not lifting the cap on all AoEs, it’s just one skill.

• You could still blob, it’s not forcing a game play style, there will just be a risk to blobbing now (as if there were no AoE cap).

Cons:

• Can’t really think of any.

Johje Holan.4607:

Or an easier, quicker solution is to create a new utility skill – The Blob Bomb.

It could be universally available to any profession and be equipped like any other utility skill. (Or they could give it to Rangers and make them useful for once,) It would simply be an AoE with damage that scaled based on how many players are within some range of each other.

Pros:

• Anet has made new skills already so that’s not a problem.

• It wouldn’t create performance issues because it’s not lifting the cap on all AoEs, it’s just one skill.

• You could still blob, it’s not forcing a game play style, there will just be a risk to blobbing now (as if there were no AoE cap).

Cons:

• Can’t really think of any.

This isn’t a bad idea, the only con I can really think of is what if 4 or 5 people use it within a second or so of each other and cause a massive lag spike.

+1 for an idea I have not seen before

Collision detection and no player clipping will solve many of the current blob problems.

florence.1674:

Collision detection and no player clipping will solve many of the current blob problems.

Add friendly fire to that mix and now we’re talking :-)

This was something I had been thinking about for a long time, getting people to break up into groups under 30-40. I myself thought the debuff would be called “Over Confidence”.

I’m all for large scale battles, but it’s not all that fun when you’re facing a blob so large your skills stop working. T1 servers, I’m looking at you.

As stated before, numbers dictate who wins, coverage is everything. I think population size should be included in the match up algorithm when deciding which servers match up.

Anet doesn’t want to break up the blobs. Karmatraining blobs pvdooring 24/7 is their vision. This is to push people who want to really fight other people with even odds into spvp where dreams of “esport” dances in anet’s head. There’s no sense in even trying to change it anymore.

Arnon.1563:

No the simple solution is to increase the cap on AOE damage. Increase it to 10 +.

That is a simple solution… so simple I cannot believe someone didn’t think of it and post it before. : – >

Lag, AoE would become even more prevelant than it already is now, won’t actually do anything to resolve zerging and a few dozen other reasons it is a horribly bad idea.

If you want to fix something, remove AoE from the game. At least then players would have to rely on basic skill to hit something rather than push buttons like a monkey. The lag would probably be substantially better as well.

Such a debuff would cause so much strife and in-fighting among groups and pugs that servers might tear themselves apart by trying to limit such a ‘Crowded’ debuff. The negative implications would outweigh any positive gain.

As such, the zerg fights would be 100% more enjoyable if the skill lag were fixed. I’d rather they address that vs. the imbalance.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Aeonblade.8709:

Why would the penalize players for playing WvW the way it was meant to be played, large scale PvP?

Because that scale tends to be horribly unbalanced most of the time. Just sayin’.

yes, but thats where skill comes in, right?

My ideas for fixing the zerg unbalance in wvw are these.
1. Simple really make it so when a team is zerging in 20-30 sized groups they simply take extra damage

2. 30-40 groups take even more damage and can even have longer condition duration apon them

3. Making balance issues key situations where enemys are stacked up to lets say water field etc can only effect so many people not a whole zerg. Meaning empower can only effect so many in a radius or water field etc. limit 10 or so.

4. Rewarding those in smaller groups with more via outnumbered buff magic find but also extra wvw exp for doing objectives like defending a tower solo. At the moment those folks that have to build our siege and repair our walls are getting very little wvw exp.

Tasks that involve players having to do key roles in wvw such as firing siege upgrading structures etc should get wvw exp and comparable to how much you’d get in the time of doing a objective.

5. Allowing players that form groups of 10 or less “dependant on amount of people on your server in the map” To gain a buff for being together as to impart people to want to group into zerg formation instead of running uncoordinated because theres no extra reward for it.

6. Making it so the population of a map depicts the score gain of each team. For instance 50 people on TC and 20 on FA. The 20 on FA actually get more score per tower camp keep etc because of the population difference so this wvw isn’t about who can distract enemys blob and ninja a garrison in another borderland mentality.

7. Having a lot of people gain benefits and gold etc from doing objective style play such as defending a camp solo like I did where as they get a wvw exp passive bonus often for securing defending objectives instead of zerging havoking or solo wandering.

8. final reset in 4 minutes make the game about sportsmanship and honor not about sheer cheap tactics by allowing those new to wvw to actually get trained to play the game of wvw thru tutorials or other such things ANET or servers should consider posting often in chat etc.

Ty for reading this is my ideas in a 10 minute time frame from playing GW 2 for 1 month doin wvw.