The Solution to WvW? DAoC should be your guide.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

My question to OP is:And what do you think would stop big blobs from using that strong and potent CC against smaller groups?

As for the target cap: there wasn't one during launch days. And they were introduced for one single reason: servers were unable to keep up with amount of interactions that happened. There were huge skilllags in pretty much every major engagement. Reducing amount of interactions by introducing target caps for skills was the solution to that problem.

[Famine.7915]

They keep nerfing damage and now boons and support is near unstoppable. Firebrands are majority in many untouchable blobs and DH's are even taking over zerg dps since necromancers as a viable option to counter boon output have been nerfed so much. The last big patch that cut damage didn't even touch support, only amplifying the primary issue. Just my thoughts... :/

[Caedmon.6798]

People used to be able to overwhelm a 40 - 50 blob with a proper 15man guild raid. Too much has changed since then ( think it happend after Hot and only got worse with Pof and the recent sustain/cc changes ),mainly..too much sustain/shares.

[Haseno.6417]

@Swagger.1459 said:@"Haseno.6417"

“Blobs/zergs are annoying, and reward zero skill-gameplay. They crush smaller groups, solo players, and overwhelm in siege warfare”

Welcome to wvw, a mode created primarily for large scale fights! But if you don’t like large scale fights and blobs running around, then Anet did make some accommodations for you by offering small scale spvp. It’s called Heart of the Mists...

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heart_of_the_Mists

Enjoy!

P.S.,

“Game Developers are too afraid to allow players to have powerful Crowd Control. That is the key to defeating zergs/blobs.”

No, that’s called balance. Maybe you personally would like your character to CC a group of 50, and consider that skill because some devs in other games coded CC skills to affect 50 players, but that’s not really a measure a player’s skill, nor would it be healthy gameplay if players were individually given such skills to lob around...

But if you really want to have skills that can CC 50 people with a press of a button, I want things like a Deadeye Sniper skill that shoots 10,000 feet and can 1 shot up to 10 people at a time. And an Engineer grenade launcher that can blow up 25 at a time, along with an IED skill that blows up 50 at a time. And I want my Mesmer to be able to summon an illusion army of 50, because nothing would be more enjoyable than having 50 illusions to Shatter upon my enemies... What do you think?

1. I don't mind large scale fights. I do mind game content being reduced to "most population wins." The purpose of my post is to point this out, and to suggest a solution, by giving players tools to overcome zergs and blobs. Balance is achieved when strength in numbers is not the defining characteristic to the vast majority of victorious fights.

2. Small Scale/Arena/sPVP is boring. I'm an oldschool DAoC player for a reason. I know what good pvp is, and isn't.

3. You wouldn't have any comprehension of what balance is. Don't try to frame the goalposts of the debate. You won't win a debate against someone like me by doing so.

4. I take your dismissive attitude, and shove it, where it belongs. I'm going to insist crowd control is stronger in this game, and every MMORPG with WvW/RvR/Large-Scale Combat. Technically strength isn't even the correct word for it. A better word is "effective" CC. The game can have numerous snares, stuns, and more. But, this does not mean the CC is designed in a manner to act as a counter to busting zergs. The current CC in the game clearly does not act as a counter to zergs and blobs.

5. I did not state an opinion by suggesting crowd control must be better implemented to counter zergs in GW2's WvW. That is a cold-hard fact. That is the purpose, and the very logic, behind crowd control. To control a crowd, in order to reduce a threat and turn the tides of a fight. GW2 is plagued by zerg/blob playstyles, and has been a consistent burden and bane to the success of WvW for GW2. The game lacks proper CC to reliably and efficiently counter that playstyle, which is a fact. By definition, the absence of balance. Balance is a relative term. Ensuring tools exist to counter abilities is one thing, but one aspect to balance is that counters must exist to counter entire playstyles. Because if a playstyle does not have a counter, then it is by definition, not balanced.

Do you folks honestly think I would bother wasting my time making this thread If I didn't know what I'm talking about?

[Haseno.6417]

@"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:My question to OP is:And what do you think would stop big blobs from using that strong and potent CC against smaller groups?

As for the target cap: there wasn't one during launch days. And they were introduced for one single reason: servers were unable to keep up with amount of interactions that happened. There were huge skilllags in pretty much every major engagement. Reducing amount of interactions by introducing target caps for skills was the solution to that problem.

You don't take away peoples weapons in the real world to prevent harm by bad people. You don't take away peoples counter to zergs in MMORPG's due to the risk of zergs using the same weapons.

Your argument translated is "we can't allow such abilities in the game because the zergs might use it against others. Even though allowing it in the game would give people greater success in countering zergs."

[Haseno.6417]

@"XenesisII.1540" said:So turning the enemy into target dummies is suppose to save wvw?

Gw2 already has a ton of hard and soft cc's in the game, cripple, chilled, fear, slow, knockdown, knockback, daze, sink, pull, stun, float, launch. It's the matter of stability that nullifies most of them, and it's the one thing that usually separates the difference between pug zerg and an organized one, as pug zergs usually have less stability and thus already suffer the effects of hard cc's which are part of organized gravity or pull bombs. Go ahead and ask your local fight guild how they would feel about stability being nerfed to get to the stun paradise.

I don't care about the opinions of any "local fight guild" and their path of least resistance.

I only care about combat being designed in a manner in which there's a fairly effective counter to zerging/blobbing. As I don't believe certain playstyles and methodologies should be absent of a counter. Because that would be broken game design.

[Swagger.1459]

@Haseno.6417

If you think profession balance is the devs coding skills so 8 people can mow down a zerg of 50+ is possible, then I don’t think you know what healthy gameplay is.

But, let’s say, you get your 50+ person CCs, what professions get those CCs? What do you compensate the professions that don’t get 50+ person CC skills? Are all support professions given 50+ person cleanse skills? Are all offensive AoE skills now 50+ target? Are all team heals skills now 50+ target?... I mean, if balance is that much of a concern, surely you can’t just be suggesting the devs introduce a select few 50+ target CC skills on a select few professions without putting counters in place for balance.

On the topic of skill... Do you honestly think the devs coding in a few 50+ target CC abilities, on select professions, for a player to use at the press of a button translates to superior player skill?

I’ll answer the above, no, that’s not skill. That’s pressing a button. What is skill is a group of players who fights outnumbered and uses superior tactics to win. That’s skill. But that also takes effort. And it doesn’t seem you want to invest in the effort portion of skillful play, you just the devs to provide a few massive CC buttons to press.

[Swagger.1459]

@Haseno.6417

“I only care about combat being designed in a manner in which there's a fairly effective counter to zerging/blobbing. As I don't believe certain playstyles and methodologies should be absent of a counter. Because that would be broken game design.”

Your only concern is taking an 8 person group and beating up a zerg with a few button presses... That’s the definition of skill-less gameplay and broken game design, but you’re trying to paint it as some sort of skillful counter and healthy game balance.

[Swagger.1459]

@"Haseno.6417"

“Your argument translated is "we can't allow such abilities in the game because the zergs might use it against others. Even though allowing it in the game would give people greater success in countering zergs."

What methods are currently available to you to gain “greater success in countering zergs”?

[Dawdler.8521]

@"Caedmon.6798" said:People used to be able to overwhelm a 40 - 50 blob with a proper 15man guild raid. Too much has changed since then ( think it happend after Hot and only got worse with Pof and the recent sustain/cc changes ),mainly..too much sustain/shares.Well the same 15 mans that used to wreck face are now 15 out of the 50 man so the comparison isnt all about just changes...

But yes that was my point too which the OP shot down as "having an agenda". Ever since HoT passive sustain has gone through the roof.

[XenesisII.1540]

@"Haseno.6417" said:I don't care about the opinions of any "local fight guild" and their path of least resistance.

I only care about combat being designed in a manner in which there's a fairly effective counter to zerging/blobbing. As I don't believe certain playstyles and methodologies should be absent of a counter. Because that would be broken game design.

So taking 8 people to stunlock 40 people to death is not broken game design?I'm all for counter game play as well, but that means punishing players for not doing the appropriate move at the right time, not just locking down until they're dead, also having access to actually counter. Heck I even remember the time thief venom sharing was helping lock down groups with aoe bombs, it was pretty nasty, and I believe most people hated it.

The problem with this game is since the first expansion there's been too much passive and personal defenses added to the game. While before that you had to rely on actual team work of setting down the right fields and blasting for effect, they changed it to be more about boons/corruption spam game play, this has led to just carry more support to cover the holes in healing stability and boon spamming, while traits like purity of purpose took it over the top in recycling boons.

So what exactly do you want them to do with current gw2 combat?Increase hard cc's durations?Add more aoe cc's?Nerf stun breakers?Nerf stability?Nerf cleansing?

Like I stated there's plenty of soft and hard cc's in the game already, it's just a matter of overabundance of cleansing and stability in zerg groups that nullifies it for the most part.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

@"Haseno.6417" said:You don't take away peoples weapons in the real world to prevent harm by bad people. You don't take away peoples counter to zergs in MMORPG's due to the risk of zergs using the same weapons.

Your argument translated is "we can't allow such abilities in the game because the zergs might use it against others. Even though allowing it in the game would give people greater success in countering zergs."

Ok so here is a newsflash for you. Your "solution" to countering zergs by giving us mass CC, will not work, because zergs will use those exact mass CC against those smaller groups, rendering them again unable to do anything.

My argument isn't that we can't allow such abilities because the zergs would use it against each other, my argument is your solution will not work because zergs will be using those against smaller groups. You want to give small groups the tool to deal with zergs, while at the same time giving those zergs even stronger tool to obliterate those smaller groups.

As it was already mentioned in the thread, the only way to force the stack-on-the-tag to spread would be uncapping targets on skills, but as it was pre-established the servers are unable to take it. Not sure if it would be possible to optimize/dumb down core fight mechanics to allow capless abilities without killing servers, but definitelly if it was possible, the cost of such changes (even just in dev-time) would be too high for AN to go for it.

So you can do what everyone else in WvW is doing - accept the fact that major part of the WvW battlegrounds is presence of blob, adapt to it, or keep dying.

[hobotnicax.7918]

I sort of agree that more CC would be good for WvW.But I think that implementing some additional nerfs to boon generation (specially sharing boons) and healing output would go a long way to combat the mess that WvW is in right now. Furthermore the projectile hate must be toned down, so ranged spike damage becomes an option. This was already discussed many times with solutions offered (reflect number limit).WvW also needs to address the dependancy on FBs and Engies for group support. They have been out of control for too long now. The days of field blasting were much better, required more skills and coordination and didn't make boon generation so easy. Atm, some skills do too many things at once (damage, grant boons, output condi... add a trait in there and gg).The times where you really had to do a nice restack/empower + blast before a push were fun. Now it's only down to blasting stealth and gg - people get most of their boons in the fight. Absolutely not fun. Some call it meta, that is evolving through "balance" changes. Fine. But know that it's killing the game mode.

[Yoci.2481]

The combat systems are far to different to compare. For example DAoC has a very punishing interrupt system, where everything interrupts a spell caster. Even attacks that don't hit will interrupt. At the same time free casting spell casters can turn dozens of people into ashes within seconds. In GW2 pretty much only hard cc will interrupt.Another difference is that DAoC heavily punishes people for clumping up. The main reason for that is that AoE damage doesn't have a target cap and healing and support skills are typically group based and not area based. This is of course completely different from GW2 where AoE attacks do have target caps and heals and support abilities are typical based on an area around the caster or a specific location, which actually encourages people to clump up.The third big difference I see is that DAoC skills typically have no cooldown (and no global cooldown) and can be spammed at long as there is enough endurance or mana, and at a high level and with support there is an almost infinite amount of both.So DAoC combat revolves more around positioning and interrupts and not so much around cooldown and resource management.

[Drakh.2941]

CC is always a slippery slope. Binding Roots isn't fun for anyone, except Rangers. Knockdowns, Knockbacks, Static Fields all seems like they are OK, and would be OK with less Stability. As some have said, nobody likes losing control over their character. If it's brief, its alright, if its chain after chain after chain, its frustrating.

With regards to buffs and boons, when you killed the Buffer in DAoC, your team lost the boons the Buffer provided. I played a Shaman, and was target #1 most fights due to this feature.

I have always thought GW2 boons were a nice feature, but they are much too easily provided, and provided by everyone. It's much too late to go through with this kind of change, but I would be love to have boons provided exclusively by certain classes as a class mechanic or just by picking, say, a Heavy Armor profession, unlocks the ability to give Stability or Protection. Herald buffs are already working close to the DAoC Shaman. Kill the Herald, buffs go down (as the buffs expire)

As there are 12 boons total, and 9 classes and 3 Archetypes to spread them out to, it shouldn't be that difficult to actually balance compared to the current status. Some of the less desirable classes may actually be wanted if they were the only ones to provide, fury, or might, for instance. Although, looking at how gamers think, and how min/maxing works, the classes with the least desirable buffs will still be left out. Alacrity Renegades are a good example. Great buff, but not enough to make it META. Would you still want a heal Scrapper if Purity of Purpose didn't provide all the boon conversion, just from a stealth/heal/cleanse perspective? Probably. Would you still want a Guardian if it didn't provide anything other than Stability? Yes, history proved it before Firebrand. Would the class matter if they were the only ones to give Might or Protection? Lots of good questions.

Unlikely to happen, but a fun alt-history conversation.

[Junkpile.7439]

Feels like people think that in bigger zerg you shouldn't get punished when playing badly. If couple eles wipe 50 players who can't dodge meteor shower they will adapt or continue feed.

[Tiawal.2351]

This engine can't do proper large scale PvP. Would work up to about 20 vs. 20 without target cap. Maybe bit more. So a new engine is needed, a new game. There is one in works, but still years away.

What GW2 could do here and now:

1. Reduce boon duration to pre-HoT levels, even more in some cases. Make boons a precious resource, that needs timed properly. Reward thinking.
2. If boons are reduced, adjust damage vs. health and defense (likely some stats must be removed from WvW, like Minstrel & Trailblazer), so the time to live allows a fight to last at least a few seconds (no instakills, if needed add ~3s invulnerability, after more than 50% total health lost in under 1 second).
3. Change skills so matters which skills are used first, and which one follows it, similar to the combo system: field first, blasting after; but there could be more systems than just the combo. Reward intelligent play, by giving a properly executed combination a better result, while making random key pressing having reduced output. Still, allow multiple valid combinations, while also keeping them limited.
4. Replace most AoE with a cone that needs facing the targets.
5. Rework the way stealth works: always allow counterplay to everything. Remove stealth automatically when an attacking skill is started.
6. Remove buffs given by claimed objectives. Or limit them to a small area around the Lords.
7. Have people who understand mass-PvP in the dev team, and adjust new expansion properly to fit WvW.

[Strider Pj.2193]

@Tiawal.2351 said:

~snip~

So a new engine is needed, a new game. There is one in works, but still years away.

Source?

[TheGrimm.5624]

@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Remove target cap. Now small organized squads >> big slow blobs. There is enough cc in the game already, the reason blobs seem immune is the target cap.

Granted, the engine has to handle it, and that shouldn't be a restriction to game play as a counter argument either way.

The other counter to zergs is collison. Larger zergs didn't mean you could get on target with more. Combine that with target cap removal and now there are two prices to pay for getting too many people in the same spot and there is no more run away back thru your side when you are low, you die and zerg play is countered as the next body steps up to the meat grinder. Zerg till has advantage but it's more reduced. Smaller group will still take more hits but has better options to hold a line while they can.

[Riba.3271]

Tbf blob busting and removing target caps is far from desirable balance as there would always be someone on the receiving end of it. Maybe if it was a PvE gamemode.

You can just reduce the size of blobs by changing amount of maps and mapcaps.

Biggest issue in GW2 is how objectives turned from the best place to have fights and action into a graveyard with introduction of claim buff, gliding and all the other defensive giggles.

It isn't even about catering to the casual PvE audience atm, the state of the gamemode causes misery for everyone: Guilds don't want to EVER go open, commanders don't want to tag up, small groups are purely PvP oriented, casual activity to just take some objectives 4fun is just feeding enemy, commanding requires too much choosing the perfect spot so enemy doesn't have too many advantages, the relinking system is just flawed by design.

[nthmetal.9652]

The same thing always happens in these MMORPG's. And you want to know why? Game Developers are too afraid to allow players to have powerful Crowd Control.

And for good reason: No one loves not being able to do much. If you have ever seen a zerg vs zerg contact, where the groups are unevenly composed, you can already see that. On first contact with the enemy, you can't do much anymore. Not dodge away (because you need more than one dodge, and before you get the second one off, you are CC'd - and stunbreaking will just make you CC'd right away again). Not get any skill off. Nothing. You just stand there and die, and that, honestly, is seriously unfun.

Combine that with stealth assaults you can't see coming, due to the nature of stealth vs the nature of reveals? Yeah, I can clearly see how more CC would help the game.

IMO that's not the way to deal with things and have a happy player community. While it surely would achieve the goal of allowing smaller groups to beat much bigger groups, it comes at the cost of turning fights into the "who gets CC off quickest" competition. It will not really feel like a skill reward in most cases, and it will just frustrate players, because having your autonomy taken away is psychologically never a good idea. And that's what CC does.Maybe you could counter such effects by attaching additional iframes to dodges, attaching stability to every stunbreak, which will reward countering the CC the same way, it rewards the CC. Use it right, and it's impactful, and not useless. I still think this would in the benefit the larger group however. But it would at least be fair.

There is a much better way: Diminishing returns. If several attacks, if several conditions, if several effects of the same kind hit the same target, each time the stacked impact would yield less of a result. Less damage, no additional CC, less condition stacks or stacks at a reduced duration. IMO this would be a much better way, however I am not sure the engine / servers could handle the additional necessary calculations gracefully.The same principles could be applied to stats by the way, which would also help, by no longer favoring glasscannon or supertank builds, instead setting the sweet point somewhere else. This could make fights more easy to handle. You can still get an edge by going full zerker or full minstrel or however you choose to optimize, but nowhere near as much as currently, and it could help increase build variance - though it probably does not help the player-numbers game.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

i think there is a sweet spot between higher target caps and what we have currently. imo the big bombs of every class should hit more targets as long as it has a good cd (more targets, less duration), cleave should hit less, big ccs could hit more targets then big bombs, perhaps change stab removal grace period from 0.75s to 0.5 (maybe not at the same time as big cc buff, either or, but maybe both if necessary), make persistent aoes hit the same targets as long as they are in range (currently it hits only those closest to the center), buff boon removal, put a hard cap on boon durations and condi stacks/ durations, and put a lower cap on squad size (would make it so a lot of the times heals/ boons wouldn't reach the other squad if 2 squads stacked). finally commanders should have a grub mount.

[Senqu.8054]

Before HoT it was indeed possible to defeat a whole Zerg with 5 to 8 people. Just saying...

[HappyHubris.1096]

I don't know much about the engine scaling challenges in GW2, but some (WvW-only) ideas:

• Boon decay that increases with the number of players in close proximity. For example, your boons have -20% boon duration with 10 people near your character, -60% duration with 20 people, -80% with 30 people, etc. If this is too difficult to balance it could be constrained to key boons like stability.
• Skills that increase their damage based on number of proximate players. Imagine if something like meteor shower hit 1,000% harder on enemies (for the current target cap) when more than 15 enemies are in its radius. Or a single-target burst that becomes a one-shot-kill when a player is near too many allies.

Basically, disincentivizing huge stacking while preserving large-scale conflict.

[XenesisII.1540]

@HappyHubris.1096 said:I don't know much about the engine scaling challenges in GW2, but some (WvW-only) ideas:

• Boon decay that increases with the number of players in close proximity. For example, your boons have -20% boon duration with 10 people near your character, -60% duration with 20 people, -80% with 30 people, etc. If this is too difficult to balance it could be constrained to key boons like stability.
• Skills that increase their damage based on number of proximate players. Imagine if something like meteor shower hit 1,000% harder on enemies (for the current target cap) when more than 15 enemies are in its radius. Or a single-target burst that becomes a one-shot-kill when a player is near too many allies.

Basically, disincentivizing huge stacking while preserving large-scale conflict.

More like disincentivizing people from playing.

Keep in mind you should think about changes in regards to pve and whether or not it would be viable changes, because it's the base part of the game. I highly doubt they would put in boon duration decay based on the amount of players around. -20% will already affect raid groups.

You guys seem to want to kill zerging outright, but think about the content and how much it would be affected. You think roaming around on your homebl with 5 enemies to hunt is fun? well most people don't hence why you don't see a lot of people roaming. Sure the absolute map queue blobs are a pain, and mostly can only be handled by a counter blob or if the enemy is completely terrible at playing their classes, but it provides bodies to fight.

One shots will kill off pug zergs and even guild zergs, because I sure as hell will not run with 15 other clowns so that I can get one shotted by some 99% stealth deadeye, or a meteor covered from other aoes that all suddenly can just one shot anyone in them(one single ele can suddenly take out 15 man groups lol, heh and people thought burn guard was bad).

I said in another post I wanted groups to fear bombs, but not THAT much. Not running with groups will now be a bigger defensive tool than dodge. Players will complain about this and anet will just be forced to revert defensive tools again especially the auto immunity stuff which a lot got changed to 300s for a reason, maybe even add more defense to compensate for the the massive damage increases.