Small Scale Fighting WVWWVW - Yes or No? Why (Not)?

I personally enjoy small scale fights so about 1-15 people way more than zerg fighting. I would like to see anet encouraging small scale fighting in WVW more via the game mode. I understand that not everyone feels this way. Therfore I think zerg/blob fighting should stay an aspect of the WVW gameplay, however I think the gamemode should encourage small scale fighting and roaming as well.Am I the only one who thinks that would be a good idea? Yes / No? Why (not)?If you said yes maybe you can share some ideas of how that would be possible? (Maybe by buffing camps and dolyaks?)

ps. I would have made a poll but I am too lazy to look up how right now ;p

We already have ganking squads running in green and blue BL.Just look for one.

Small scale fighting used to be a much more common occurrence than it is now. Guilds used to run 15s instead of the 25s-30s they do now. With the power creep, and the amount of people leaving the game people have had to condense to less (but more populated) guilds. Mounts were the nail in the coffin for roaming, but roaming has been dying since HoT. As for what can be done for small scale fighting, the ability to "blob bust" is no longer one that is available. I would love for this to come back, however I don't see the specs or classes being modified to be able to do this. If you notice, havocing will usually occur near low tier towers or camps, meaning I don't believe they should buff dolyaks or camps. I believe possibly upping siege caps and reducing how difficult T3 structures are to take could improve this. Currently nearly every class is viable in WvW, which is new and we haven't seen this for a while. I hope to continue to see changes like this and hope that we can soon see more havoc groups as they are something I too greatly enjoy.

@spectrito.8513

I know that some forms of small scale fighting exists, but I dont think small scale fights are in a very good state right now and could be way better implemented.. There are moments were it is a lot of fun, however there is soo much downtime between fun moments.

I would like to know whether players want changes to the game mode that encourage more small scale fighting in WVW; more than we allready have (which is not a lot imo).

@"Megs.2986" said:Small scale fighting used to be a much more common occurrence than it is now. Guilds used to run 15s instead of the 25s-30s they do now. With the power creep, and the amount of people leaving the game people have had to condense to less (but more populated) guilds. Mounts were the nail in the coffin for roaming, but roaming has been dying since HoT. As for what can be done for small scale fighting, the ability to "blob bust" is no longer one that is available. I would love for this to come back, however I don't see the specs or classes being modified to be able to do this. If you notice, havocing will usually occur near low tier towers or camps, meaning I don't believe they should buff dolyaks or camps. I believe possibly upping siege caps and reducing how difficult T3 structures are to take could improve this. Currently nearly every class is viable in WvW, which is new and we haven't seen this for a while. I hope to continue to see changes like this and hope that we can soon see more havoc groups as they are something I too greatly enjoy.

(wishfullthinking): If anet would change the game mode structure in order that a few small groups would be equally important (in addition not necessarly replacement) as a big zerg, it would surely bring back roaming etc no? I just dont know what changes would be necessary. Then you dont have to change the POF classes too much.

@"Megs.2986" said:Small scale fighting used to be a much more common occurrence than it is now. Guilds used to run 15s instead of the 25s-30s they do now. With the power creep, and the amount of people leaving the game people have had to condense to less (but more populated) guilds. Mounts were the nail in the coffin for roaming, but roaming has been dying since HoT. As for what can be done for small scale fighting, the ability to "blob bust" is no longer one that is available. I would love for this to come back, however I don't see the specs or classes being modified to be able to do this. If you notice, havocing will usually occur near low tier towers or camps, meaning I don't believe they should buff dolyaks or camps. I believe possibly upping siege caps and reducing how difficult T3 structures are to take could improve this. Currently nearly every class is viable in WvW, which is new and we haven't seen this for a while. I hope to continue to see changes like this and hope that we can soon see more havoc groups as they are something I too greatly enjoy.

Which guild runs 25-30??? Dude is that NA?

It's a broad question considering we're all on different tiers and time zones. The game mode encourages you to get points and loot, it's mostly up to the players to spread out more. A problem that's sort of unassailable is that this isn't an actual open world pvp mode so there's not much to do during off hours because no one is floating around the maps exploring or hunting. There might not be the hard time limit of spvp, but we're still constrained so we naturally try to get it all out in that hour or two of prime time and that means the gravity of activity on the maps is going to bring everyone to the same action mostly. I think some servers or time zones have a good variety in scale of fights but you're not going to get the longevity or interest in actual roaming, exploring, and hunting without an actual open world pvp server.

I don't think the current maps should be disrupted for it, but either a repurposed EotM for this (that becomes part of actual WvW maps) or a new, smaller map in the upper right corner for this would be nice.

The combat system in GW2 currently incentivizes blobbing up. It's safer and you get the same bags whether you win 10vs10 or 50vs10. Hell, you get the same PPK too, so it's even better for your server to blob a group down rather than fight at similar numbers.

This then encourages the other group to match numbers and you end up with megablob vs megablob fairly often.

You do have guild groups running around attempting to fight with "15" people, but pugs always join them and "15" becomes 50 rather quick.

If WvW was working as it should and there was some real incentive to win the PPT game, you might see smaller groups running around flipping stuff, as it is more efficient. At present though, that's rare.

reduce squad size to 20 and make SM 3point capture system similiar to pvp. Winning team gets the castle but they need to kill the lord to fully capture it. Meanwhile losing sides try to break into inner and possibly steal the capture. After SM is captured it goes into slumber for 2hours without any gates and winning server/guild gets their name into the flags + points for capping. Now for 2hours you can fight in it without anyone having advantage over it. Kills inside SM are worth more

Ive been toying with this idea for a while now

I enjoy fighting in groups with 3 players or less. Once you start bringing along pocket healers and dedicated support builds it just turns to garbage.

The biggest issue with small scale for me is down state and how it benefits passive/bad play or the small groups who brought more cheese comps.

hmm well i'll throw a few brainstorm ideas out there and see what pops up:

ways to encourage small scale battles (15-30)

• change scoring. this can be done in a variety of ways. give more warscore for defending, bonus for multiple defenses within a timeframe. give bonus warscore if your side captures multiple objectives within a timeframe. give less warscore the more people are in the objective capture point. give bonus warscore for capturing and defending an enemy keep/ tower. give warscore for building + repairing but leave pips and reward tracks unaffected. more warscore for capturing + defending camps, escorting dolyaks, killing sentries, capturing ruins. give more warscore for stomping.
• if you change scoring I suppose the next step is to make it matter more lol. I dunno how to do this. end of matchup rewards, sorta like pvp seasons? new skins, unique buffs (perma swiftness in own territory, wvw rank gain boost, stuff like that).

edited - added second bullet.

There are not enough players who play outside their guild raid times to really facilitate much small group play. What I constantly see is guild raid groups form up (15-30 people), then another 20-30 pugs join them, and run around as a blob. The commander logs off, most of the guildies log, then most of the pugs log and the map is largely empty. This is due to the diminishing player base. This is also due to the incessant server jumping of guilds, scooping players up, then leaving the server largely empty.

To encourage any type of small scale fighting the server hopping has to stop.

I personally enjoy 10 v1 small scale fight.

@"DeadlySynz.3471" said:There are not enough players who play outside their guild raid times to really facilitate much small group play. What I constantly see is guild raid groups form up (15-30 people), then another 20-30 pugs join them, and run around as a blob. The commander logs off, most of the guildies log, then most of the pugs log and the map is largely empty. This is due to the diminishing player base. This is also due to the incessant server jumping of guilds, scooping players up, then leaving the server largely empty.

To encourage any type of small scale fighting the server hopping has to stop.

It's almost like a certain "Locust Alliance" is actually bad for the game mode but we can't talk about it because Matchups and because ANet likes selling them Gems for Transfers...

Three 25 man squads can already dominate a border where the other sides only have 50+ man borderzergs. A single zerg simply cannot be everywhere at once. A matchup is won by PPT, not zergs. I've seen situations where two enemy sides only have smaller squads and it's the zerg is just running around loosing ground constantly, because if you are on a keep there are literally 4-6 sizeable groups running around elsewhere and there are no one on your side capable of fighting any of them other than with the full zerg. Like chasing shadows, take one objective and loose 3.

So the game already encourage smallscale. That most players are scared hamsters that prefer to ignore this and bunch together in a single borderzerg is a whole other matter.

@"Dawdler.8521" said:Three 25 man squads can already dominate a border where the other sides only have 50+ man borderzergs. A single zerg simply cannot be everywhere at once. A matchup is won by PPT, not zergs. I've seen situations where two enemy sides only have smaller squads and it's the zerg is just running around loosing ground constantly, because if you are on a keep there are literally 4-6 sizeable groups running around elsewhere and there are no one on your side capable of fighting any of them other than with the full zerg. Like chasing shadows, take one objective and loose 3.

So the game already encourage smallscale. That most players are scared hamsters that prefer to ignore this and bunch together in a single borderzerg is a whole other matter.

Of course you can do a lot with smaller squads PPT-wise, but the thread is about small scale fights. If you have 15 or less, there are very few "fair" fights you're going to get in this game unfortunately. Few and far between.

The fundamental issue with smaller scale fights is the massive difference in skill levels expressed by different groups. There are nights when my guild is literally 5v10-15 people from guilds that are straight out of PvE. It's no fun then, but it's also no fun getting chased around the map by a 30 man guild cause we're the only group providing any challenge despite only having a party of 5 (sometimes up to 10, very rare).

Those smaller groups without the skill expressions to match other small groups will tend to group up with other groups forming a blob, which is what causes these really unfair fights, in my opinion.

What would really improve fights in WvW is ANet encouraging better skill expression in PvE. They've already done this in PvP with the league system, but the PvE system encourages lazy play, which, when the players come over into WvW to get mounts, dailies etc., it makes for terrible fights.

It's a catch 22 system for ANet though, cause increase the difficulty too much and their precious casuals will leave the game in droves. Most of their hardcore PvP/WvWers have left years ago because of their insistence on catering to the casual audience and won't be coming back.

I see so few good guilds left in WvW, it's really sad. The pug groups of 3-4 years ago could probably roll over the majority of those bigger guilds today with equal numbers. It's just not the same anymore.

Really interessting input thanks guys :+1:

@Dawdler.8521 said:Three 25 man squads can already dominate a border where the other sides only have 50+ man borderzergs. A single zerg simply cannot be everywhere at once. A matchup is won by PPT, not zergs. I've seen situations where two enemy sides only have smaller squads and it's the zerg is just running around loosing ground constantly, because if you are on a keep there are literally 4-6 sizeable groups running around elsewhere and there are no one on your side capable of fighting any of them other than with the full zerg. Like chasing shadows, take one objective and loose 3.

So the game already encourage smallscale. That most players are scared hamsters that prefer to ignore this and bunch together in a single borderzerg is a whole other matter.

So winning should be more meaningfull, in order to push people more towards smaller zergs. I wonder if alliances and guild pride will be an incentive enough in order to make winning matter. Probably leader boards for alliances would be a great incentive or other visual effects.

@Slanderman.9532 said:reduce squad size to 20 and make SM 3point capture system similiar to pvp. Winning team gets the castle but they need to kill the lord to fully capture it. Meanwhile losing sides try to break into inner and possibly steal the capture. After SM is captured it goes into slumber for 2hours without any gates and winning server/guild gets their name into the flags + points for capping. Now for 2hours you can fight in it without anyone having advantage over it. Kills inside SM are worth more

Ive been toying with this idea for a while now

the 3 point capture system is a really interessting idea. It would add more complexity to sieging probably.

@Ghostof Luzifer.6159 said:@spectrito.8513

I know that some forms of small scale fighting exists, but I dont think small scale fights are in a very good state right now and could be way better implemented.. There are moments were it is a lot of fun, however there is soo much downtime between fun moments.

I would like to know whether players want changes to the game mode that encourage more small scale fighting in WVW; more than we allready have (which is not a lot imo).

I would love to see more small scales, but i cant see it happening in WvW due to players mentality, even moreso now with Warclaw.Maybe in a new PvP mode, but i cant see it happening either.PvP in general is completely neglected even tough Gw2 have the best combat system i've seen. It's just sad to see PvP as a whole in constant decline.

@spectrito.8513 said:

@Ghostof Luzifer.6159 said:@spectrito.8513

I know that some forms of small scale fighting exists, but I dont think small scale fights are in a very good state right now and could be way better implemented.. There are moments were it is a lot of fun, however there is soo much downtime between fun moments.

I would like to know whether players want changes to the game mode that encourage more small scale fighting in WVW; more than we allready have (which is not a lot imo).

If you mean that a lot of people just go for the rewards and level ups etc, changes to the rewards system should fix the problem right? If you get more reward for your individual impact/skill or knowledge of the game mode, more players would split up. Maybe 1-10 players get twice the reward for taking a tower than 10+. However this might promote toxic behavior and exclusion..

@Dawdler.8521 said:Three 25 man squads can already dominate a border where the other sides only have 50+ man borderzergs. A single zerg simply cannot be everywhere at once. A matchup is won by PPT, not zergs. I've seen situations where two enemy sides only have smaller squads and it's the zerg is just running around loosing ground constantly, because if you are on a keep there are literally 4-6 sizeable groups running around elsewhere and there are no one on your side capable of fighting any of them other than with the full zerg. Like chasing shadows, take one objective and loose 3.

So the game already encourage smallscale. That most players are scared hamsters that prefer to ignore this and bunch together in a single borderzerg is a whole other matter.

In order to ‘win’ the matchup or the skirmish, yes.

But with the following:

@Ghostof Luzifer.6159 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:Three 25 man squads can already dominate a border where the other sides only have 50+ man borderzergs. A single zerg simply cannot be everywhere at once. A matchup is won by PPT, not zergs. I've seen situations where two enemy sides only have smaller squads and it's the zerg is just running around loosing ground constantly, because if you are on a keep there are literally 4-6 sizeable groups running around elsewhere and there are no one on your side capable of fighting any of them other than with the full zerg. Like chasing shadows, take one objective and loose 3.

So the game already encourage smallscale. That most players are scared hamsters that prefer to ignore this and bunch together in a single borderzerg is a whole other matter.

We believe we know what this will bring which is more stacking. And then coverage based servers will be benefiting again which of course, people don’t want.

Winning being ‘important’ again opens a whole can of worms that I am not sure we want. (And I am on a broad coverage server that would benefit from ‘winning counting’)

So winning should be more meaningfull, in order to push people more towards smaller zergs. I wonder if alliances and guild pride will be an incentive enough in order to make winning matter. Probably leader boards for alliances would be a great incentive or other visual effects.

Yes those are some downsides, the developers have to watch out for! It is going to be difficult to implement fair match ups.