Hey there fellow Tyrians! I've never been much for PvP in MMOs but recently was introduced to GW2 and WvW and have fallen in love with it. Like I said, I don't like PvP, but tower defense and RTS games are very much my niche, and I find so many elements of that that play out in this mode.
My question is though... What even is the point of WvW? I'm on Sanctum of Rall (Jade Quarry team) and we are literally always outnumbered. I understand there's a beta in progress to handle that, but I still wonder what the intended goal of the 'game' is?
The masteries and siege mechanics would lead you to believe it would be about holding out and defending your land while pushing into the others. And... at rare times it can feel like that. But when we are up against higher pop servers and it's their 'peak' time, the game's objective seems to be to run away from a zerg, and hold a tower or 2 if you can. Siege is literally ineffective against a zerg unless you have around 10 people and well placed siege... But often you just have random catapults and no shield gens or AoE control set up. Your other choice is to abandon the map and just move to a Borderland... which is fine until the zerg starts to follow you.
Now, given combat in the actual game, and how a player's abilities are worded to affect only a set number of allies or enemies, the concept of a zerg in a competitive mode is insane to me. There seems to be no structure provided by the creators of the mode, as you literally can play this team based game mode without helping out your team at all (leading to AFKers and bots (the lack of security against bots is a concern also, but that's another topic)), or stack with 50 + players and just stomp every person you come up against without them having a speckle of hope of resisting you.
If the point is to do that and not actually try and hold and upgrade objectives, why have teams at all? Why not just let people log in and assign them to a match in progress so they can play their janky build. The mode feels like it's just a sandbox that has no real goal and for someone who was drawn to it because of the strategy and Tower Defense aspects, that saddens me.
What could be done to improve the mode? Overhaul the siege systems? Balance teams (caps based on other server's current pops in EBG and just queue and play in borderlands until your turn is up?)? Change abilities to make zergs less efficient? Add an effect to zones that dampens your power based on the number of your team mates that are also there?
Or, am I alone and is this exactly how the mode is intended to be played and I'm just not really the target audience? What are your thoughts?
