Guild Wars 2

Right, because WvW didn’t have capture-points before today.

I bought GW2 for two things: underwater combat, and WvW. It was an underwater combat video on YouTube that sold this GW1 player.

GG, keep the personal anecdotes coming!

The people doing the loudest complaining about this have probably not spent much time imagining and practicing any strategies and tactics for working with this new opportunity.

Yeah, it would be a silly thing to do: to ALT-F4 for these reasons.

I wouldn’t even worry about it if it happens. I’d laugh at the one that did it, and move on. It’s not going to make me upset, it’s going to make me laugh at how upset that person was.

You can go at least as high as Dragonbrand on the NA leaderboard without experiencing WvW map queue outside of the first hours of match reset.

Not at all, I’m never worried about being away from the largest stack of allies on the map. It simply changes how I play the moment.

“Blob” cynicism has always been histerical to me.

Chris.4527:

kitten no, this patch was/is beyond terrible. The orb buffs were taken out for a reason, now its even more ridiculous since theyre near impossible to defend.

Orbs were removed for their ability to get hacked, not because anyone at ANet ever agreed with moaning about their buffs.

WvW = Army v Army, sorry!

Anecdotal evidence is what I find most amusing about all of it.

Yes.

Today’s obligatory forum postings make it even sweeter!

gidorah.4960:

Blix.8021:

I could be wrong, I didnt’ have much time to test before TC 20 man zerged everything.

i don’t believe this happened everyone knows the bloodlust points are anti zerg

They attacked us with more people than us. Why do they zerg so much?

J Season.9156:

Are you serious? Players have to specifically waste their time sitting on a ruin point or else it will slowly time out. I wouldn’t call that engaging content for the 60-70% of the day when WvW is semi-dead for most servers. Let’s roll out the carpet for…. AFK WvW players, BOTS, and more!

Not to mention there’s no personal reward for sitting on a point for an extended period of time.

No. You don’t have to sit there. The capture point simply decays when you (logically) choose not to sit there bored.

Your complaining misses the point of why it decays!

Next caller, please. :\

deracs.1762:

Jscull.2514:

meep.2601:

WvW is imploding at an amazing rate, and I have to say that it is very satisfying to watch.

this thread is full of ideas that could make wvw much more enjoyable. will any of it be implemented? no.

Anet has been completely ignoring great wvw ideas since the betas. thumbs up anet we are proud of you!!

+1 (and lol at the name meep)

No way to give -1, needs to be fixed in forums!!. Reading through this thread and responding, and yes I am going to respond to Jscull since we have been back and forth a lot this thread. Js has stated that he has no interest in any part of WvW other then pvp, wont siege, wont defend wont take towers camps etc. and yet at the same time keeps +1 and quoting posts that Anet does nothing for WvW. While we all like different aspects of WvW, if you are unwilling to participate in any part of it, quite possibly the game simply is not for you
DAOC has everything you keep saying you want. You have your power creep, world roaming groups for PvP, no need to siege, zerg etc. As a bonus you also get no skill lag, lots of room so zergs cant find you, no aoe limits, virtually everything you want. Graphics are older of course. So why would you not simply play a game that has everything you want, instead of playing a game that has nothing you want? I just don’t get it

Many of us know, unfortunately, that he and his team come from DAOC. It warms my jimmies that the reason we know this fact is that it’s attached to his actual reputation of cuddle-puddling with his few friends in threads like these, defeating his own intentions every single time.

Toys-r-us kids mentality vs. zerg mentality = I need more popcorn.

Azylynne.9487’s post above is fairly accurate.

The “wvw is imploding” post… LOL. What’s actually imploding is many player’s will to force themselves to play WvW as if it is something other than what it is designed to be. From solo-roam-or-go-home types getting run over every single night, to stack-on-me-and-get-in-TeamSpeak-to-be-screamed-at types beginning to lose hair and develop aneurisms… many people still have much to learn about calming down and having fun appropriately.

Bro… I can press CTRL with my little finger, WASD with my ring and middle finger, and zero with my thumb: as a Mesmer traited for dodge-cloning and near constant 3-illusion upkeep.

Get, on, MY, level… BRO.

ANet, please implement this points-per-player-kill concept finally, so that we can laugh and munch popcorn at the patch note response threads for that month. Hoping for something like, “kitten you, I don’t play for points I play for kill/death ratio,” followed by shocked realization that they’ve been cornered into playing for PPT against their will.

Thank you so much, we love you!

Chris.3290:

Manned Arrow carts will drive off 5-10 random yayhoo’s and a single AC will prevent the “ninja cap” by 4 people and a ram.

An elementalist and a guardian, with competent builds and use of combos, means the attack probably still defeats the arrow carts.

Yet, I’ve seen an arrow cart or two defeat incompetent groups of 20 at a gate.

Thorson.9218:

Virtute.8251:

Pay ALS to move back in (some of you still owe us for upgrades and solo-roam-or-go-home opportunities), and we’ll come naked-cap SM again. For old time’s sake, you know.

What, DB and T2 isn’t all you thought it would be? Hours long queues got ya down?

Bummer….. :P

It’s even better than we had imagined, and hours-long queues are a myth! Curse you, reality! Curse you!!!

Contiguous.1345:

According to the Manual, The material of the towers isn’t actually specified.
The terms wood, paper are used by players to indicate some sort of upgrade or none.

The game actually uses the words ‘reinforced’ and ‘fotrified’.
A T1 tower has reinforced doors.
A T2 tower has reinforced walls.
A T3 tower is has fortified walls.

T1, T2 and T3 would all be called wooden I guess. Idk if there’s any agreement between players on the exact meaning.

LOL, this is totally opening the great programmers’ debate: does the count start at zero or one? Technically should start at zero, but socially we often begin at one.

I’ve definitely seen and heard plenty of people say “T1” or “tier 1” is a default-state tower with normal (not reinforced) gate. Yet, supposing that you’re numbering the upgrade tiers according to the rows on the Quartermaster’s screen, top to bottom, I know what you mean. Communication foul-ups, go!

Rob.7624:

Virtute.8251:

Rob.7624:

If you guys need lessons on a 5man cap of SM. Pl0x pm me

Pay ALS to move back in (some of you still owe us for upgrades and solo-roam-or-go-home opportunities), and we’ll come naked-cap SM again. For old time’s sake, you know.

Anvil wasn’t a good server to fight.
It was literally a zergilious Borlis pass offhand server.
Which as you should remember, ruined the most even matchup in NA at the time with an organised 2man.

Goodluck in your rebuilding, but you’re better off without ALS.
Winning isn’t everything. Infact in WvW, its quite literally nothing. Lol

Lawls. We organized our part: AR BL 2.0. The “2 man” aspect happened naturally, later in the match.

Rob.7624:

If you guys need lessons on a 5man cap of SM. Pl0x pm me

Pay ALS to move back in (some of you still owe us for upgrades and solo-roam-or-go-home opportunities), and we’ll come naked-cap SM again. For old time’s sake, you know.

King Amadaeus.8619:

if you have really played on SF then you know…If I am taking a keep, things are going to get lost before we can cap it. Unless you get lucky and the enemy is asleep, as soon as they see my orange swords pop at blue keep, the green ones are headed for anz/mend etc….

That’s a fact in all matches I’ve played, too. Anzalia’s is just made to be flipped more often than not.

Have you noticed AR this week, going all the way into your corner just to flip Speldan even when they can’t possibly flip either of those towers? I chuckle every time… I just know it’s one of their eight guys “solo roaming.”

King Amadaeus.8619:

If we had two commanders going my preference is to zone both sides of EB for instance, then we have adequate coverage to both defend and attack. More often than not though I am the only commander, or 2-3 more tag up after me. At which point I tag down usually.

That style of zone play often only works in the types of matches that SF gets (biggest one amongst relatively very small servers). At the middle and above on the leader board, there’s fewer (progressing toward no) chances to do that effectively. At least, not organically with any two commanders just because they’re there at the same time.

In this week’s tier 1, I’ve seen all 3 servers lose SM and their corner of EBG when trying to have it both ways like that. Blackgate responds quickest out of the three (and with greatest volume of players), when thusly threatened. Last night, they very effectively used siege to stop 15 of us (Dragonbrand) from threatening their towers while also stopping SOR from taking BG keep. BG lost SM to us multiple times in all of that, though… then most of us logged out, and they got our entire corner.

Vena.8436:

People are quick to join, quick to abandon karma trains that have no goal other than to farm karma/wxp, and all it takes is one opposing commander to spoil it all.

People are slower and less likely to join a group with a goal beyond farming mad loot, and also quick to tuck tail from such a group… which scales with the expectations that the group itself projects. On Anvil Rock, my guild instantly dumped 75 members by implementing one demand: be in our TeamSpeak while playing WvW with us.

When faced with odds like all that… sometimes flipping and forgetting is the only thing that’s going to work.

Vena.8436:

Virtute.8251:

Would never have known that (much less, have been on both sides of it), thank you for the valuable :P

But… tell that to Blackgate this week, thanks.

I would, since I am on Blackgate, but then my guild avoids those zergs to farm the other zergs. :P

Skilled “zergs” aren’t zergs no matter how much the word “zerg” is abusively zerged. :P

King Amadaeus.8619:

Defense just isn’t a very high priority unfortunately if the objective isn’t “ours” (one of our towers for example.)

I suppose that by “ours” you really mean naturally ours, as in home borderland and 1/3 of EBG. Honestly… even that isn’t convincing enough for many players. Really the decision is emotive: do I care, and will it be fun?

King Amadaeus.8619:

2. I play on a lower tier, and while sometimes I have large zergs, it is usually the majority of the map. So I cannot dedicate 3/4 of the map on defending Klovan and possibly losing a T3 Ogres….But if I keep Klovan paper, then I also have to worry less about someone building a treb in it to hit SM.

I’ve played in Anvil Rock, Dragonbrand, and Sorrow’s Furnace (been helping SF spawn-camp AR occasionally this week) and no commander with half a brain would defend Klovan while Ogrewatch is being attacked and red corner was their home turf. Not all commanders are equal in reasoning, though!

King Amadaeus.8619:

The long and short of it is that 80% of people like to take things, 20% like to keep them…(I may be being kind by saying 20%)…

A savvy commander can effectively cause the 80% to unwittingly play defensive, if that’s what it takes to keep the threatened structure.

There is also, of course, always the one or two crazies that cry out “we’ve got incoming to north camp!” every time two enemies venture into it after some upgrades are dropped.

Vena.8436:

Virtute.8251:

… if you win. Of course, that’s also more fun… if you can win.

Karma trains are usually the very definition of pugs and mindless zerg, coordinated guilds farm them. :P

Would never have known that (much less, have been on both sides of it), thank you for the valuable :P

But… tell that to Blackgate this week, thanks.

I want a downed-state skill enabling me to challenge the stomping player(s) to a mini-game: thumb wrestling, arm wrestling, or rock-paper-scissors. I want that skill to have a zero second cool down.

Vena.8436:

Dawdler.8521:

What do you think?

Of course you do.

You get more badges and WXP, train crashing than you do following the train.

… if you win. Of course, that’s also more fun… if you can win.

Jalad Lantana.3027:

… is WvW just a jumble of the whims of whatever commanders are present on the map?

Yes. The whims of the commander(s), the players, the majority guild(s): these determine the map’s strategy. Personal fun or game rewards are merely variables (and not the only ones) in that function.

Velkyn.5168:

Virtute.8251:

These things operate on longer timelines than Guild Wars 2 has been released. Guild Wars was released in 2005, and its GvG wiki page history starts in October 2007.

Alright, but the point was that guild halls and more focus on “guild content” was mentioned by the devs quite a while ago, but this latest blog post with the outlook for the rest of the year doesn’t talk about them anymore at all now. That’s rather unsettling and disappointing imho…

Yeah, I get that. I agree, too, there’s plenty of features from GW1 that honestly deserved to be in GW2 1.0. There’s also some long-lived bugs whose existence reeks of irresponsibility.

However, I think that many of these features are not in yet for two reasons: withholding them allows the game a longer lifespan through incremental introduction of them (which is exactly ANet’s m.o.), and it seems that they want like-kind but different implementations of features like that. They want this to be unique, rather than a 2.0 version of GW1. It’s not a bad move.

Yet, when the location is defended or we are intercepted en route, we are rewarded more so: both tangibly (so far as database records can be) and intangibly.

Sarsbear.3469:

Virtute.8251:

Sarsbear.3469:

Virtute.8251:

Honest suggestion: Play a different game until ANet adds Guild v. Guild. No need to be cynical about the whole thing. GvG will come with or shortly after guild halls, and it’ll be tied to influence/merit progression, gems (tickets), or both. I’d bet on it. Best to be patient and at peace with reality.

Sarsbear.3469:

I play this game like its left 4 dead 2 survival mode now. Grab a couple buddies and go fight the zombie horde, see how long you can last.

WvW as intended. See also: Just Cause 2 Multiplayer.

WvW as intended is try to avoid PvP at all costs. Fighting an enemy is the worst thing you can do with your time when you’re trying to get the most points.

Haha!

They have our garrison! Let’s let them keep it. It is a silly place. We will attack theirs instead, and I promise that they will not fight us for it. I promise.

You’ve confused PvP with defending/attacking. Sitting in a keep on a cannon is not PvP.

You’ve confused the strategies of defending and attacking inside the WvW PvP zone with the tactic of utilizing specific available weapons during same.

Trinkets only:

Exotic PTV

Ascended PTV

Sarsbear.3469:

Virtute.8251:

Honest suggestion: Play a different game until ANet adds Guild v. Guild. No need to be cynical about the whole thing. GvG will come with or shortly after guild halls, and it’ll be tied to influence/merit progression, gems (tickets), or both. I’d bet on it. Best to be patient and at peace with reality.

Sarsbear.3469:

I play this game like its left 4 dead 2 survival mode now. Grab a couple buddies and go fight the zombie horde, see how long you can last.

WvW as intended. See also: Just Cause 2 Multiplayer.

WvW as intended is try to avoid PvP at all costs. Fighting an enemy is the worst thing you can do with your time when you’re trying to get the most points.

Haha!

They have our garrison! Let’s let them keep it. It is a silly place. We will attack theirs instead, and I promise that they will not fight us for it. I promise.

These things operate on longer timelines than Guild Wars 2 has been released. Guild Wars was released in 2005, and its GvG wiki page history starts in October 2007.

Khisanth.2948:

Yoke.4671:

Ive seen it countless times:
Desolation are losing they get influx of big US guild(RUIN) IRON get way more active same time funny enough, they start winning come 1st in EU, they start to get lot of transfers/every sunny day pvper is out now cause they are winning.
All of a sudden they have hours of Qs and the server starts to break down, RUIN leave, IRON get flakey Deso start losing. People transfer away.

Seafarers rest start to gain momentum up the tiers do well for their size against 1st/2nd place EU, they get huge influx and get massive Qs and have zergs as big as everyone else now, server implodes people transfer off.

Piken Square gets influx at same time due to med pop free transfers, from people trying to escape the top tiers Qs and blobs/lag. It starts to get big Qs, and massive zergs. Alot of its wvw guilds leave to other servers (they say to escape the Qs and to fight against PS themselves) they all flood to same server and it then gets Qs longer then the ones they escaped from and they blob more then PS ever did.

Those things wouldn’t have been as bad if the scoring and matchmaking wasn’t such a failure but I guess at this point I am beating a dead horse.

I think you are. Scoring and matchmaking are not a failure. Many players’ perception of it is.

My prediction for when it will happen

As for what it will be, I’m betting that it will be on the sPvP arena model, but with more maturity in its allowance and configuration of rules, and will include a full PvE gear option.

Honest suggestion: Play a different game until ANet adds Guild v. Guild. No need to be cynical about the whole thing. GvG will come with or shortly after guild halls, and it’ll be tied to influence/merit progression, gems (tickets), or both. I’d bet on it. Best to be patient and at peace with reality.

Sarsbear.3469:

I play this game like its left 4 dead 2 survival mode now. Grab a couple buddies and go fight the zombie horde, see how long you can last.

WvW as intended. See also: Just Cause 2 Multiplayer.

covenn.7165:

I don’t even use ascended gear currently by choice because the min/max stat combination for my style of play / class is better in exotics.

Also true. I have kept my PTV and Rabid Exotic trinkets because I mixed those with Knights jewels, for when I feel like playing more risky with 50-60% crit chance and ~1k condition damage.

Zikory.6871:

covenn.7165:

I don’t even use ascended gear currently by choice because the min/max stat combination for my style of play / class is better in exotics.

Can you explain how that works? I don’t see how less stats will min/max when higher stats are available.

The “min/max” he’s talking about is the spread of stats across the build, such as PVT referring to Power as the max (major) stat and Vitality/Toughness as the two min (minor) stats.

There are combinations that work very well in some builds for soloists, roamers, or team-composition players, and those stat builds aren’t possible in Ascended trinket gear.

Your idea of “just as good” depends on how ANet ends up balancing Exotic, Ascended, and Legendary gear stats, as they have said will happen after they’ve worked out (and probably after actually implementing) the full gear sets including weapons.

Currently, Ascended is barely better than Exotic outside of high level Fractal dungeons, and I’m wearing PVT Ascended trinkets already merely in preparation and only on my most-used character.

Though, to be fair to your point, that means that I’m getting 22k HP on a Mesmer, before the weekly WvW points buff.

Nuked.2360:

Serjical.9613:

Hey for an update we’re stalled on the decision to move now that we’ve learned we’d lose our Guild upgrade(T6). It would be a very tough pill to swallow to start everything over from new again. This seems to be the hurdle which is holding us back from transfering.

Does anyone have a link to calculator or know the gold cost for upgrading guild to T4/T5?

I don’t know the exact cost but if your looking to continue to do guild missions etc. The upgrades remain in tact on the server you transfer from so if you left say SBI you could guest back to SBI to burn the influence+use any of those upgrades til you got them on your new server.

ALS tested this during our move from Anvil Rock to Dragonbrand, and it was not true. Once our guild leader was transferred to DB, he no longer had access to the Anvil Rock side of the guild: neither bank nor upgrades.

We made a new ALS on DB anyway. Upgraded it to tier 4 research within a week, and tier 5 in 2.5 weeks. We have guild bounties and are unlocking trek right now. This cost us influence points of ~50 of our 100 people logging in and playing daily, and about 1,000 gold spent by our members thus far.

In related news, I hear that Anvil Rock is in need of bodies. You could be counter-culture against their counter-culture. It would be so meta!

Even after being told about this thread and the comments on the video itself, many that I’ve shown this to can’t decide if the commander is serious or not.

Your 5man killed me when I was solo. Why you so zergy, bro? Solo roam or go home.

Server rank won’t matter… your argument runs perpendicular to the game you’re attempting your ideals within.

uberkingkong.8041:

Are you sure that people are leaving anvil rock server? They maybe getting ready for the $10,000 pvp tournament and not playing WvW as much because of it. Anvil Rock is #1 NA PvP server.

Both are the case. Anvil Rock is quite short on players that dedicate time to PvE normal events (temples and the like), and even shorter on those playing WvW as designed. It’s population rating of “Very High” is wholly due its PvP players and their marketing efforts around their video streams, tournaments, and so on.

When ALS left AR, we removed a lot of their daily commanders, their reset-night planning, their NA timezone coverage, and WvW upgrade bank roll. All of this had been propping up AR in morale and PPT. It had given many people freedom to play in ways that they can’t now, against opponents that are impossible for them now. We were weary of that weight, and had no one to hand it off to (we tried that first). When we left, so did others, to various destinations.

There have been many on AR who have lusted for PvP players to enter WvW, but it’s rare for those to understand why it doesn’t happen, or to respect the differences between the two play styles and cultures. The results of it happening, and the PvP player’s reaction to having done it, are rarely what the WvW player would have ideally imagined.

sostronk.8167:

Aeros.2046:

The population imbalances are the fault of the player base, no the development. Band wagoners looking for easy wins rather then actually having to work for them.

And the game is designed to cater for those who want easy wins…

ALS agrees, so now we are building up a war chest so that we can afford our weekly transfer hop between Sanctum of Rall and Blackgate, depending upon who won the previous week.

Aeros, you’re too cute!

Beard, if there are any grudges between AR and GoM, they’re historical and should be unrelated to today: AR has fought them multiple times before, and the WvW guild transfers that a GoM player referenced earlier (from GoM to AR) was TCMM, the guild that brought your server-wide TeamSpeak (it had been theirs for 5 years prior) and came to AR with intention of forming the guilds alliance we had for months afterward.

Good luck. I hope you find your fun.

The ranking system is fine. Both coverage and skill influences your server’s weekly score. By fighting an opponent server, you generate the data needed to rank yourself. None of us have a right to demand a fair fight. Those are the rules of this game. Improve or die.

ALS has done quite enough winning and dying (i.e.: playing WvW) on behalf of Anvil Rock to have generated the data and emotions necessary to fairly decide that we would rather do the same on behalf of Dragonbrand now. Ranking evolution from 2013 Week 25 onward shows exactly how opposite of “fair weather” our contributions were. We had many friends and very appreciated help along the way, and did our best to leave AR better than we found it. We made sure to leave your server-wide TeamSpeak server online, intact, and available to you under the ownership of ALS’ original founders whom now also have retaken ownership of ALS on AR. You don’t have the website we were going to give you, but Dovgan and others stepped up to fill that role now, knowing full well what we had nearly ready to provide you. The tools remain at your disposal. Now AR displays how effectively it cooperated with us, by showing the same of how it behaves and performs without us.

Snowreap is mostly correct in his summation of how we decided where to go. DB was chosen for social reasons after DB had already been made our top choice due to its NA coverage gaps (which it still has after our 110 additions). We chose a server that we wanted to play with, and immediately took ranks 1 – 3 off the table. We don’t care about wins on the leaderboard, and we aren’t bothered deeply by loses on the field. We’re fun-seekers.

We weren’t “sick of losing”. In fact, we intentionally chose to move to a server that for the most part (the same as AR) knows that it honestly doesn’t care for the idea of playing under Tier-1 conditions as the game and server are today. DB has its share of glory-seekers, but really we’re just a larger-than-average collection of people and guilds that play at cartoon murder, rated T for Teens.

How anyone comes away from the mechanics and realities of this game with such a deep sense of betrayal and entitlement, as shown daily in these forums, is at once amusing and baffling. Although good customer relations demands some audience be given to complaints, the product is delivered as-is without warranty toward your enjoyment of it.

Besides… you’re Anvil Rock: the home of the highest volume of fair-fights to be found in GW2. Leave the supply camps alone, and venture into The Heart of The Mists. See exactly how demolished the vast majority of GW2 players are in the truly fair circumstances you’re crying for in WvW.

Silas.8630:

Again, you’re writing with the assumption that the small group is standing in the large group’s AoE. If they’ve set up a proper ambush (ie: using superior tactics) they aren’t being hit by a single AoE because the large group didn’t know they were there in time to react.

Okay. Since that answers and accounts for all possible scenarios, then you win the debate we weren’t having. Thank you.

Silas.8630:

And now it’s time for “fun with math: zerg edition”

This scenario will assume a 100v10 fight. For simplicity’s sake, each member of both forces will drop a single ranged AoE and both forces will be perfectly stacked on their respective commanders.

100-man zerg drops AoE on 10-man force, each AoE hits 5 targets. Each member of 10-man force gets hit by 50 AoEs. (probably insta-melted despite AoE cap)

10-man zerg drops AoE on 100-man force, each AoE hits 5 targets. 10-man zerg hits at most 50 of the 100, realistically even fewer. Half of the force is left untouched, the other half is hit by a single AoE each. (damage output completely crippled due to AoE cap)

So tell me, who does the AoE cap really benefit? The force that couldn’t output any damage because the opposing force was so large the cap absorbed all the damage, or the force that took almost no damage, because the cap allowed to them stack and negate all the damage coming from the smaller force?

This is appropriate, fair, and I’m glad that it is that way. The 10 deserve every “Finish Them” spike they get for thinking that they would stack up and confront the 100 head on.

Remember that your earlier argument presumes that the 10 are skilled enough to avoid enough of the 100’s AOE attacks that the 10 can survive without any AOE target capping at all. Then notice that you are asking ANet to reconfigure the game so that every one of the 100-group’s AOE attacks is allowed to damage all 10 of the 10-group.

Now show how the 10-group is any less likely to die instantly to the 100-group in your requested configuration. It won’t happen. When both groups are given equal footing in damage output possibilities, then the more numerous group is always at an advantage. The smaller group must still significantly out-maneuver the larger one.

Enjoy GW2 WvW.

Silas.8630:

The way you talk about the AoE assumes that the small team will be standing in the center of the full AoE spike, which, if they’re using a remotely decent stragety, won’t be the case.

I assume nothing of the sort. In 80 vs 10, the members of the 80 are individually limited to damaging a maximum of 5 per each of their attacks. In that, the 10 currently have an advantage of moving amongst the 80 briefly without instantly dying. This advantage is reduced for every additional target that you allow players to damage.

Excuse me:

If the AOE cap is removed, then that applies to everyone. Larger army still wins. You just drop even faster… eventually, when the server CPUs finish calculating all the damage, and your client CPUs finish calculating the AND YOU’RE DEAD.

AOE cap of 5 characters (including mobs) actually benefits small teams in excess of 5, while also allowing lesser than 5 to damage up to 5.

Next.

Solo.9027:

Arguably, Anet wants fewer pve’ers just zerging for tokens since they’re giving out so many badges just for having achievement points.

^ This.

It is part of their stated goal of discouraging mindless zerging. Later comes direct encouragement of mindful large-scale combat. If by “PvEer”, you mean a player who prefers not to fight against other players… please don’t wish for them to enter PvP modes more often. Wish for them to be given every reason not to. It’s better for all of us that way.

“Group cohesion”, I’ll give you that one. “Actual organization”, sure, internally and within the scope of caring only about the immediate fight (tactically) and not the goals of strategy needed to perform as a havoc team in WvW.

“Rag-tag”, yep, that’s ALS. That’s also Anvil Rock: at other times touted as a thing to brag about by the likes of Dovgan and Sinema Kane. “Spam invitation”: no. Invite tagless players exclusively within WvW and bring them into a WvW focused guild: yes. The only time we touched 500 member roster was the day we implemented ways to know how long it had been since an account’s last activity, and promptly kicked 150 accounts, along with a mail explaining why.

As a havoc team on Crystal Desert or any server, you’ll be expected to honor the ways WvW is played and have respect for larger rag-tag guilds just the same as speak poorly of now. We wish you the best in your new home.