[We really need a discussion with the devs on these changes.]

1 hour ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

That's literally being punished for being good at the game.  Which wasn't enough, so they made it so you never can repair and have no breathing room of using the tower doors for kiting anymore.  

Based on the reasons they gave for these changes, I wouldn't be surprised if the devs read a story like this and have the wrong takeaway of "The changes worked! There's more player engagement--more fights because the gate stayed open--and it still felt better for the attackers because they get to take the objective in the end," while completely ignoring the fact that after this happens once or twice, the defenders will just stop defending since it's futile. If you nerf defense into the ground so that defense never wins, people will just stop defending and you end up with a PvE karmatrain over paper objectives.

[What makes GW2 combat in WvW fun? (and how I feel recent changes go in the wrong direction)]

On 4/27/2024 at 5:15 AM, Coldtart.4785 said:

People have been blaming aoe caps since 2012 it's getting a bit old. Let's all just ignore the support builds that do more than what a whole party used to do alone and are stacked 4 to a party while we're at it.

Support powercreep is a large part of it, but it's heavily exacerbated by the simultaneous shift to pool-noodle offense and lower target caps for that now-weaker offense.

[Objectives are still too hard to take, some suggestions to help.]

In these dire times for attackers, we should listen to the wisdom of old. The Camp Counselor achievement, titled "Walls Get in the Way," truly encapsulates the essence of the mode. In order to improve the feel of the game mode for attackers, increase player engagement, and avoid giving defending players too much of an advantage, we should simply remove all walls and gates from objectives.

[WTF is Anet doing to WvW?]

On 4/20/2024 at 3:59 PM, Cael.3960 said:

Interesting that no one considers the time and effort required to assemble and train up a quality guild group. To theorycraft a comp, build up an understanding of how and when to use it, and then execute it effectively in the field. To hear many of people on these forums, all you need is to get 50 people into a squad and they can obliterate anything, anywhere, anytime. 

I've seen 30-man groups annihilate 60+ with virtually no losses. That disparity of skill, leadership and coordination has a far more significant impact than simple numbers. 

But clearly players with zero inclination towards improvement or collaboration with their server mates deserve a way to win against something that takes months or even years to build. For all the complaints about 'easymode' blobs, you sure you aren't asking for the exact same thing for anti-social solos?

Do you seriously think that the fights should be over before they've even started? That that's in any way fun or healthy for the gamemode?

Also, I'm calling cap on that 30 v 60 example of yours unless you're either talking about comped vs half-asleep uncomped (we all know the guild in question) or you're using an example from many years ago.

Yes, it is "easy mode" if you can spend an hour theorycrafting builds and then use that plus your superior numbers to win every fight for the next 6 months. It's especially "easy mode" because you're already starting with a huge zerg and thus the balance massively tilted in your favor. When most servers have neither the population nor the timezone coverage to contest boonblobs, yes, what you're describing is easy mode for the boonblobs--especially when the past few balances have shown that such skill and theorycrafting expertise is usually just taking advantage of bug abuse (ie the former super-healrevs from a glitched sigil, or the invincible healrevs before them from the dodge issues) or balance oversights (ie warrior longbow, holo unintentionally getting around target caps).

[WTF is Anet doing to WvW?]

On 4/19/2024 at 5:35 AM, joneirikb.7506 said:

This is a very interesting point, because I've seen it done before. And the result was that the company thought no one cared/played the game any-longer, and just shut it down, and replaced it with a new game. So it's very much a possibility that if people just stop playing WvW, they'd just shut it down, because well no one is playing it. They'd finally have the excuse they needed to just turn off WvW entirely, and put GoB in a pvp track or something.

The pessimist in me wonders if that's the point of the way changes have been going. It's a shame that WvW has never really received much developer attention over the years, which is probably in no small part due to it not really having anything directly monetizable (just warclaw skins I guess) aside from the indirect effects of it being fun and keeping people playing the game long-term. It seems like the amount of work required to fix the problems in the mode is high, and it's of course a much more delicate balance compared to PvE. How many years are we going on for Alliances now? At this point I'm not convinced Alliances would even fix much since the problem seems to be a deeper disconnect than just population balance, and who cares about population balance if there's no reason for groups to do anything other than karmatrain though undefended objectives?

Drive off smallscale players and players in outnumbered servers by only balancing in favor of massive, low-intensity zergs; drive off defenders by making it much harder to get rewards from defense (especially if it's not a successful defense--it doesn't matter how long you delay attackers or if you repel them, it only matters if you get kills); drive off the remaining defenders that defend for fun by making it impossible to defend against a larger group; drive off medium-sized groups by making it impossible for them to do anything to fight map queue boonblobs; and eventually, the loss of all the former groups will lead to the large fight-seeking groups being driven off since all the fights are gone and the mode devolves into a karmatrain.

[What makes GW2 combat in WvW fun? (and how I feel recent changes go in the wrong direction)]

13 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

 

11 hours ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

 

3 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

Thanks for those insights. Though the discussion has almost 100% been about target caps, I intended for the main point of my post to be my gripes with how un-fun the current meta is and how it squanders the potential of GW2's combat system. My target caps proposal is very much a nuclear option, though it's intended to push people to change playstyles to more engaging gameplay--the intention is to get zergs to spread out (thus making it a good thing that all standing in one spot = death) but not to make them quit, though I do see how it runs the risk of driving away people that have become used to the more laid-back zerg gameplay. Part of the reason that proposal goes to 50/unlimited offensive target caps is because my worry is that any less would still heavily favor numbers and just lead us back to the old pirate ship meta.

[What makes GW2 combat in WvW fun? (and how I feel recent changes go in the wrong direction)]

2 hours ago, Cael.3960 said:

At some point you have to step back and understand that this game is bigger than yourself and if you want a healthy meta is has to include players with different wants/needs and priorities. 

...

Blobs aren't the be-all-end-all expression of how players play this game. It's just one way to play.

This is a bit ironic considering the recent changes--what prompted me posting this in the first place--are all about restricting playstyles and only incentivizing boonblob karmatrain (note: not even blob v blob, just unrestricted karmatrain) gameplay.

[New MMOs Now That WvW Was Murdered?]

On 4/21/2024 at 6:57 PM, Bunny.9834 said:

Ashes of Creations looks promising. 

If only it wasn't planned to be subscription. The lack of a subscription is what originally got me to GW1 in the first place.

[What makes GW2 combat in WvW fun? (and how I feel recent changes go in the wrong direction)]

19 hours ago, Cael.3960 said:

 

I feel like you're not hearing what I'm saying--you're taking the idea in a wildly different direction that assumes the current status quo is the only way things can be and that people would never adapt to change. So here are my responses to your main points:

-When support/heals are kept the same but offensive target caps are limitless, incoming damage for a group that doesn't adapt is comparatively much greater than before. The unchanged support/heals can't suddenly deal with anywhere from 3x to 10x the damage that was coming in when each AoE hit a small fraction of the group of 50 before. The point isn't for one or two people to be able to wipe a zerg, the point is to push the zergs--and the gamemode in general--towards engaging gameplay rather than letting them win for simply showing up. A group of 50 would still be far more dangerous than a group of 5, but a group of 5 would be able to do something--would pose at least some threat if ignored--to the group of 50, which is not the case in the current meta. Heck, you can use the numbers 50 and 25 instead of 50 and 5 and it's still the same situation in the current meta.

-To the point about people playing to play with friends rather than to just get rewards for karmatraining everything: I agree. And if that is the case for the boonballs in question, as I assume it is, they would continue to play with their friends, just in smaller groups spread out over the field rather than one giant blob moving through the field as one. The difference would be that instead of only the commander making the calls in battle, there'd be more callouts from random people to focus targets, save one group from a push, etc. You imply that boonballs are simply an excuse to get a bunch of friends together in a discord call and that making boonballs no longer invincible to smaller groups would just lead to those players quitting. Idk about you, but I've never had trouble hanging out with friends in roaming/havoc groups, and my experience has been that the banter and camaraderie is both more frequent and more fun in smaller roaming/havoc groups--in a disorganized 10v10 fight, for instance, when one person is being focused and yelling for help, or another just landed a long stun on and enemy and is calling for everyone to nuke them. Even in zergs, the camaraderie is all between fights, with the comms clear for the commander (aside from a few CD callouts or warnings) in fights.

-Regarding skill and challenge: I don't think you understand what this means regarding boonballs in the current meta. If you only play in large zergs--especially if at peak times on a server that consistently outnumbers or matches its opponents at those times--maybe you don't get to experience what gameplay is like when outnumbered and/or when only one of the three servers can field a full zerg. The latter is the majority of the time, and most of the time I get to play. I occasionally play with zergs--some of them that are quite good, well-coordinated ones, others that are decidedly not. The changes I propose aren't some attempt to make myself always win. In fact, I don't care about winning or getting bags--I played tons of WvW before they added the ranks and rewards to the mode. I like having fun. In the current meta, notably after the recent nerfs to defense, there is almost nothing that a small group can do against a fully comped boonball, and the few things that can be done are the type that leads to the boonballers sending you rage-whispers. The current meta is decidedly un-fun, both when outnumbered and when your server outnumbers the enemies. With targets uncapped for offensive skills, that wouldn't mean a group of 5 can reliably wipe a group of 50 because no group of 50 would still be clumping up in one spot. A group of 50 would still be far more dangerous than a handful of roamers. What it would mean, however, is that the smaller group can do something, can pick at the backline or the sides or the overextended parts of the larger group, etc. Speaking from experience, nobody in the current meta thinks "Oh yay I can't wait for the challenge of trying to fight a boonball with 5 people to test our skill" because everyone knows that's impossible. You quite literally can watch your participation tick down into the red if you try to defend an objective while outnumbered against a boonball, and refreshing it  means leaving the objective to hunt some late arrivals. As a result, most would-be defenders just give up on even trying to defend objectives that are under attack by a larger force because there's no point and all your tools have been removed. You either go to a different map and hope for some content or go play a different game. I don't know how you think that massive imbalance is leveling the playing field, allowing for skill expression, or increasing player engagement, because it's doing quite the opposite. The "zergs seek out other zergs" thing only applies to a fraction of the large zergs--most are content to karmatrain around papering everything (because, as you pointed out, it's more of a social experience for them than an attempt to find engaging gameplay) and, because a difference in numbers of merely 10 people makes such a huge difference in the current meta, even a sizable zerg on one team will actively avoid the bigger zerg on the other, a phenomenon that remains the same (albeit with the sides swapped) an hour later when the zerg of 40 has risen to 50 and the zerg of 50 has dropped to 40.

-I think you illustrate my point quite well regarding all the interesting stuff going on in boonball fights: if 90% of the gameplay decisions are being made by two people out of 100, that's not very engaging gameplay for the other 98 people.

When it comes to adaptation, I think you and I just disagree about the ability of primarily-largescale players to adapt. Zergs adapted just fine going between the hammertrain/blast meta, the pirateship meta, the stealth gyro meta, the current boonball meta, etc. Whenever a new balance update borks the balance, the zergs quickly adapt to it. Fighting as parties of 5 working together in a group of 50 rather than as a single boonball would be a larger adjustment, but I'm confident it would immediately lead to a healthier, more engaging, more fun game overall.

[What makes GW2 combat in WvW fun? (and how I feel recent changes go in the wrong direction)]

4 hours ago, Cael.3960 said:

And the 10 people might manage 3 kills instead of 1 out of 50 before being annihilated. Because that 50 man group has dedicated healers in minstrel gear (often 50% or more) and most small groups are lucky to have 1 heal and 1 support per party. Even with no target cap they're still able to outheal the damage. The extra kills? They're the ones in poorly organized parties without support ie., the map randos who joined an open tag like it's a PvE meta. 

I'm not sure where you're getting this idea from that they'd be able to outheal the damage from. Look at the damage you deal with a typical DPS skill, even with minimal might/buffs, and multiply it by 10. Would you be able to perpetually sustain that incoming damage, or would you instantly go down? Those healers in minstrel gear would still be limited to 5 targets for their healing/support, and the 2 or 3 per subgroup wouldn't be able to outheal the equivalent of 10+ people whaling on them and their party--the stacked zerg would get instantly downed. The reason sustain is so strong in the current meta is because low target caps and overtuned supports mean that the DPS to Support ratio is almost 1:1, and the low offensive target caps (some going down to 1 or 2 targets, whereas most support is 5 targets) mean that every AoE from a DPS player is going to have a corresponding support counterhealing it. In a clash of two boonballs of 50 each, you're not getting hit more than you're getting healed as long as you stay stacked. If a few people are caught away from the zerg, they melt even if their supports are sending healing their way. With offensive target caps being 50 each, everyone would rightfully melt when just standing in AoEs.

4 hours ago, Cael.3960 said:

The cloud meta is one of the most effective, and universally despised, metas in the game.

It's only despised in the case of number imbalance (ie Mag) and people who exclusively run in organized zergs and can't adapt to more than a point-and-click adventure. Are you telling me that you seriously enjoy two boonballs slowly circling each other more than you enjoy a disorganized 20v20 fight over an objective, a fight where the frontline ebbs and flows and individual players can actually have an impact? Even at the full cloud level of 50v50ish, cloud fights over a keep--with each side's siege attacks flying overhead as the attackers try to push into the breach and the defenders try to push to the attackers' siege--are far more fun than boonball fights. The cloud only gets boring when it's a stagnant line in the middle of nowhere (ie the "OW sentry meta"), but, even there, that's because it's downtime when the cloud has no objective to attack or defend--the boonball gameplay that corresponds to that is just not getting to fight anything at all.

4 hours ago, Cael.3960 said:

When done right it's so oppressive to new and inexperienced players that they refuse to play. When done poorly it creates a stagnant, prolonged engagement where rewards are few on both sides and a lot of time is wasted to achieve a minimum of warscore on both sides.

This describes boonballs just as well as the cloud, except instead of just new/inexperienced players the boonball drives off everyone from a server that can't match the boonball's numbers. And I'd disagree about the cloud driving off new/inexperienced players. There'd be growing pains, sure, but they'd be pushed to get better rather than just treat WvW like another mindless PvE meta train.

4 hours ago, Cael.3960 said:

Which basically means... you're giving highly skilled players a buff against lesser skilled players. And a 50-man group of highly skilled players will be untouchable with that kind of advantage.

Regarding the effectiveness of experience: maybe, just maybe, the goal shouldn't be to dumb down WvW combat to the point that a brand new player is just as effective as a veteran. I prefer when games with complex combat systems reward skill rather than just rewarding the outnumbering of the enemy. The fight shouldn't be over in the organization phase before the fight even starts.

It's not as if what I'm suggesting is without precedent. Back in the early days of the game, "zerg busting" groups of 15-20 that would win against groups of 40+ were quite common, and WvW was more popular than ever. The higher skill ceiling wasn't driving people off, it was pushing them to get better.

4 hours ago, Cael.3960 said:

I feel what you're looking for is really a way for a 1v50 to be effective, particularly as a part of some kind of cloud where a zerg is limited to a very small number of targets whereas solos scattered around the edges have a maximum number of targets and the highest possible damage. 

Once again, that would only be the case if the zergs didn't adapt. If they refuse to stop plopping their whole group of 50 in a bunch of red circles at once, then they deserve to go down easily. Organized groups would still be superior to randoms because groups of 5 could take advantage of boons and having supports--it's just that they would be a mobile group of 5 rather than one cog in the blob of 50. 

4 hours ago, Cael.3960 said:

Far worse, if 2 50 man squads can create map-wide lag on a borderland with most skills having target caps of 10 or less, just how much lag will 50 man target caps create with those numbers? I don't even want to think about it. Back when GW2 wasn't running on Amazon discount servers performance was good enough that you could sometimes get away with this. Now? No chance one side even manages a single skill cast with that much going on. It's even possible that most of your cloud gets nothing to go off either, meanwhile that boonblob's passive sustain might just be enough to come out on top anyway. 

If all else remained equal you'd have a point, but you're not considering the downstream effects of raising offensive target caps. After the day or so it would take for people to adapt, you would almost never have the target caps getting used up because people would stop stacking all in one spot. There would only be the occasional spike if someone does get caught unaware with their zerg all in one spot (a spike in lag that would immediately subside since the zerg would all be dead). Once people adapted, you'd probably have less skill lag because you'd be spreading the fight out into a bunch of localized smallscale fights within a larger battle rather than 100 players all trying to cast skills within 600 range of each other.

[What makes GW2 combat in WvW fun? (and how I feel recent changes go in the wrong direction)]

Just now, MysteryDude.1572 said:

ok , now im thinking , woudlnt that promote extreme pirate ship? if all offensive skills hit 50 people , why would someone risk to come close for a 50 target cap arc diviner where they can eat in the face 50 skills 50 taget each . if the play is to cloud a zerg with eles and kitten , yes , but other than that it would mean 50 man necro shades/50 man CoR/ 50 man holo forge etch , and its not like single target focus aint a thing..

No, because of the huge difference in risk/reward of a zerg running a 50 man pirate ship and 1 or 2 warriors with arc divider attacking it. If you were dead set on hunkering down as a group of 50 and trying to individually target down every attacker that comes in range, it only takes 1 or 2 enemies getting through for your zerg to get wiped--which is incredibly easy to accomplish given things like stealth and invulns. Meanwhile, if the enemies are split up, you can only ever hit a small number of them at once despite the high target caps. And every time your zerg starts focusing 1 of the enemies dancing just outside your range, the other 49 enemies spread around the battlefield can swoop in and nuke you.

[What makes GW2 combat in WvW fun? (and how I feel recent changes go in the wrong direction)]

Just now, MysteryDude.1572 said:

i think they would just kite mostly , not completely spread left and right

unless its cloud?

If the enemies are spread out, you wouldn't be able to kite them forever, nor would you be able to attack objectives while all stacked in one spot. Whether it would end up as clouds or parties of 5 spread out across the battlefield (ie if attacking a keep maybe one party is defending the rams, one is pressuring the walls, one is on the outer walls trying to shoot at the inner walls, etc.), it'd be more fun and interesting gameplay than blob v blob.

[What makes GW2 combat in WvW fun? (and how I feel recent changes go in the wrong direction)]

6 minutes ago, MysteryDude.1572 said:

also , it doesnt make sence sense WHY a zerg would split up liek you mentioned. just because a meteor stike will affect ALL enemies so it doesnt matter where they stand? (to my understanding). thats cool , but its doent depend on offensive targe caps but rather suport RANGE

They'd split up to stay out of the deadly red circle AoEs to minimize the amount of people getting hit by them. It only affects them if they're standing IN it. In the current meta, they can just stand in several red circles and ignore them because each AoE only ever hit a few of them at a time, and that damage will instantly be healed up. If the AoEs could hit all the players at once, the groups couldn't just ignore and outheal them.

[What makes GW2 combat in WvW fun? (and how I feel recent changes go in the wrong direction)]

8 minutes ago, MysteryDude.1572 said:

ok, lets say offensive skills have 50 target caps .

so?

10 vs 50 , you still have to bypass 30 suports, what you would get is massive dps padding

oh, and imagine 50 man zerg with offensive 50cap skills....

whatever people think they can abuse in low vs high numbers , has proven to be extra degenerate when it gets abused by high numbers as well

I see your point, and it's kinda why the "pirate ship" meta existed back in the day. When taken to the extreme of 50 target caps, though, the 30 supports wouldn't be able to outheal the pressure of 10 people dropping AoEs on them with the support/heal skills still capped at 5. The whole point would be to make tight stacking a death sentence--if a group wants to stay stacking as a group of 50, sure they can melt one of the smaller groups just like they can now. However, with all the smaller groups having 50 target cap AoEs, they can swoop in and nuke the group of 50 the moment the group of 50 focuses one of the smaller groups.

[What makes GW2 combat in WvW fun? (and how I feel recent changes go in the wrong direction)]

As with many of you, most of the recent changes were a huge disappointment for me. So that got me thinking about what I enjoy about GW2 combat and how I feel the devs have been taking it in the wrong direction. I've primarily been a solo to smallscale (ie up to 10v10) roamer, defensive scout, and occasional zerg flex player in my many years playing WvW on and off since launch. I've gathered my thoughts below and welcome your opinions as well. It turned out to be a longer post than I was expecting, so please bear with me.

What makes GW2 smallscale and disorganized largescale (ie cloud) combat fun for me?

• It has tons of build variety--there are plenty of common archetypes you run into and, once experienced, you can often predict what different classes will try to do, but there are always roamers that surprise me with something new or an unexpected skill/trait choice that gives them an advantage. Similarly, I often find myself swapping utility skills as I'm running into a fight to tailor the build to what I'm expecting. On smallscale, everything feels potentially viable even if a handful of high tier classes are most prominent, and you can always be in for a rude awakening from a class you never see or would initially write off as "low tier".
• Movement. In smallscale, standing in red circles is a death sentence, and by now all classes have a number of ways to stay mobile; some are through movement skills like leaps, others are through teleports. There are all manner of ways to take advantage of terrain or skill range, whether you're line-of-sighting a ranged enemy, juking an opponent to get a quick breather, leaping just out of the enemies' range when they try to burst you, or luring the opponent to a spot from which you can send them plummeting to a gravity-laden death.
• Individual agency and dynamic responsiveness. In smallscale, smart plays can completely swing a battle; this might take the form of key interrupts, working with a teammate to land a big stun and nuke right as 5 enemies are pulled into a tight bunch, dropping a key projectile blocker to save a teammate from focused pressure, deciding whether to try to res a downed ally or use their vulnerability as a chance to down an enemy attacking them, or (before the recent changes) dancing around a pillar to contest an objective for a critical 10 seconds until more allies can arrive, landing a crucial disable on enemy siege, etc.
• Unlike sPvP, WvW has tons of interesting terrain and varied ways of engaging objectives. These provide yet another avenue for elevating what makes the combat system great.
• And more, but those are the key points.

Now, how do these translate to organized largescale (ie "boonball" gameplay)? In my opinion, almost all of it gets lost in translation.

• Build variety is hamstrung and, honestly, doesn't matter as long as you fit the general comp. You know how many builds rely primarily on projectiles? Well, projectile hate is ubiquitous among big zergs, so take all those builds off the table. Target caps and the ability to fill them reign supreme, as evidenced by the main meta DPS before this last patch being the ones that had ways to hit more than 5 targets because of  balance oversights. But really, you don't care what classes the enemies are running when you're in a tight zerg fighting another tight zerg--you just care where the red mass is shifting to. At most, your commander might try to take advantage of the enemies whiffing an important skill in unison.
• Optimal movement is pitifully low movement, and it has been trending down over time. You have to stay in range of your dedicated supports and stack on the tag to minimize the impact of the low target-cap enemy red circles, so take a look at any significant movement skills and discard them--they'll only be used if you make a mistake and need to get back to the zerg. Low offensive target caps and overtuned support mean that staying stacked is more important to survivability than avoiding enemy AoEs, so boonballs move slow (or, if they outnumber the enemies, don't have to move at all) to keep everyone together. Organized largescale in its current state is about 90% of the way there to the "Chinese GvG" meme where the two zergs just stand beside each other pressing skills off cooldown. This wasn't always the case, and I think the most indicative case study of the state of boonball movement is that portal bombing is rarely seen anymore in large zerg fights. Since you can only get 20 players through each portal, the importance of numbers and target caps mean it's a death sentence to drop 20 of your players on a zerg of 50 half-awake enemies. Even if you catch them by surprise, your damage will tickle them and you'll get instantly melted if they respond. Even if you have 2-3 mesmers using portal and/or mimic to get the whole zerg through, unless you all pop up on the same spot you'll have the huge disadvantage of being temporarily split up and losing the local numbers advantage to absorb enemy AoEs.
• Individual agency is minimal. As mentioned, staying stacked is more important to survivability than avoiding enemy AoEs. The enemy boonballs operate by the same logic, so you can forget dropping AoEs when you see an opportunity--if you cast an AoE on a clump of juicy targets when the rest of your DPS are not, yours will just be absorbed and ignored by the enemy boonball. So, toss out player agency and only use your big skills when the commander says to. Since everyone's stacked, there's no point in paying attention to individual skill usages--just "hey look the red mass shifted in this direction or used their wells just now." The one place individual agency is maintained in largescale is among supports, where getting stab, stunbreaks, or heals out at the right time can save your party, but even that is whittled away by zergs running 2-3 supports per party. Once again, this wasn't always the case--a single meteor shower used to be a deadly threat if not avoided, but the downward trend in damage and the drastic reductions in target caps over the years have made individual red circles able to be completely ignored.
• Tools continue to be removed for outnumbered teams to do anything. It's no secret that there is huge population imbalance, both absolute in the match-up and locally across timezones. It's been futile for an outnumbered server to engage in open field battles with a larger zerg for a while now, but until recently defensive advantages gave outnumbered players a way to fight back. Intelligent usage of siege, disables, splitting the zerg or cutting off reinforcements with wall patching, and diving in and out of capture points gave outnumbered defenders ways to temporarily even the odds or buy time for reinforcements to arrive. And it's not as if there was no counterplay--diligent attackers could kill defensive siege, guard against enemy disables, pull defenders, spread out to keep defenders out of the capture point, etc. Intelligent gameplay was (the past tense being key here) rewarded, and it was especially potent if the attackers weren't paying attention and engaging in counterplay. Attackers afking while their siege-users press 1/2 could find their siege disabled or destroyed. Now, most of those defensive options have been nerfed into oblivion, and there's no reason for a large zerg to pay attention to defenders that they outnumber because, quite frankly, there's nothing the defenders can do to stop them.

So, now we've moved from a fast paced, dynamic, and varied combat system that rewards quick thinking, creative build variety, split second opportunities, and interesting movement to a static, boring point-and-click adventure where you only play the game if you have similar numbers and, even then, respond to commander callouts like you're in a Skinner box...and even that's very generous in assuming the servers can keep up with the largescale fights, because most of the time the mode is plagued with skill lag when boonballs clash.

So, what's my ideal balance look like?

Take advantage of what makes the GW2 combat system great. Ultimately, I believe it comes down to target caps. How do you get people spread out and using movement? By drastically raising offensive target caps to the point that stacking your full zerg in one spot while in range of the enemies is a death sentence. Picture this:

• If all offensive skills had very high or no target caps (ie a cap of 50 targets) and support/heal skills stayed capped at 5 targets, then optimal zerg gameplay would shift from the slow, static blobs that we have now to parties of 5 split up across the fight area but still working together. Movement and positioning would matter greatly, as you'd want to be close enough to capitalize on opportunities without getting too far from your party supports and without providing too juicy of a target clump for the enemies. You'd be more frequently engaging enemies in localized smallscale fights within the larger, say, 50v50, and this would make for especially fun fights over objectives and sieges.
  • The skill ceiling would be so much higher than amidst the boonblob
  • Individual agency would be returned to largescale combat, and key plays by individual players could shift the momentum in one part of the battlefield
  • Movement and terrain would be important again
  • Build variety would matter again since you're engaging in localized smallscale.

I love this game and I've had a lot of fun over the years, but at this point I'm feeling battered by the realization that the gameplay I've enjoyed for years seems completely at odds with the balance devs' vision for WvW. Personally, I don't find boonball fights and karma trains against undefended objectives fun, and turning WvW into just another PvE meta train is a travesty to the gamemode's potential.

 

TL;DR: The current balance direction towards boonball supremacy squanders the best parts of GW2's combat system.

This went a lot longer than I thought, but thanks for coming to my TaimiTalk. Let me know what you think.

 

[Dear Anet Developers]

4 minutes ago, Ronin.4501 said:

Problem is you can't do that in EOTM. Well you can, but you fall to your death too lol.

You don't play necro, do you? 😉

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spectral_Walk

[Hot Take: Boon Strips/Corrupts are not the solution.]

I think offensive target caps being low is the biggest problem. If every offensive skill had no target cap while support/defensive ones were capped at 5, we'd see MUCH more interesting largescale gameplay. In its current state, the "right" way to play--the way that the balance incentivizes--is to stack as many people as possible on one spot and barely move. A point and click adventure that exists to spite all the potential that the combat system has. 

It would be much better if stacking in one spot was a death sentence and people instead had to play intelligently as parties of 5, working together with the larger zerg spread out over the battlefield.

[Dear Anet Developers]

15 hours ago, Ronin.4501 said:

It's not just the lack of mounts and gliding that make EOTM an awful map. It's the necessity of having STAB at all times on that map so long as enemy players have knockback. If you're in a squad without a lot of STAB or even in a party without permanent STAB you're basically setting yourself up for an easy death. Terrible design flaw.

My and my necro pulls say that's not a flaw, that's a feature 😄 

[New MMOs Now That WvW Was Murdered?]

On 4/18/2024 at 4:22 PM, TheGrimm.5624 said:

If you aren't HD2 on the side, you should be. Its great for team building in any case even though its not the same niche. But its does feel the same when are trying to use 4 to defend against 50. May need to start a WvW suggestion post for a Hellbomb. Zerg runs in, you set off your 4 Hellbombs killing yourselves and the 50 of enemy zerg. This sounds like a win for liberty the more I think about.

Can't second HD2 enough. It's the only game in a while that's been able to keep me pulled away from GW2 (and I'm already up to 100 hrs in it). Very different type of game and not what I'd consider an MMO, of course, but it really scratches the "work together and use your bag of tricks to survive against the horde when the odds are stacked against you" itch.

One of their newest updates added in a proper base defense mission, and it's more satisfying than the current, neutered WvW defense gameplay after the last several rounds of defense nerfs.

[Does anyone think reducing the circle size for camps was good?]

7 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

The smaller rings (as far as I can see from the few screenshots - I am at a no-access to the game spot right now) seem to cater the trend of appealing to the "low game intelligence bracket". Attackers, who want to flip the camp can now pretty much fight defenders in the mid range (900) category of skills, with much less (not counting gathering nodes) items to obstruct their LoS. Defenders, coming from the outside of the ring have spots reduced where they can use for cover (e.g. the left and right side of the depot hut in Alpine Lake camp) forcing the flippers to move from the middle of the ring. The attacker can now stand in the middle and stay there, even if defenders have split up to two opposite sides (which usually reduces the synergy between them). As an attacker you now need less tricks to successfully conquer the camp or be smart about you attack.

I think you're right. Unfortunately, the sad trend in 90% of the recent WvW changes has been removing skill from WvW. Pretty much the only good one was lowering the guild aura stats, but there's no way you can sell the capture point reductions, defense nerfs, etc. as anything other than catering to the lowest common denominator of attackers.

[Does anyone think reducing the circle size for camps was good?]

8 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

For example I thought alpine north or NW camp were fine, just that defenders had too many stats.

If you were having trouble taking camps because the defenders "had too many stats," then it was just a skill issue on your part. You'll still have trouble taking the camps. Not once have I failed to take a camp against enemy players because of the tiny difference the guild aura stats made.

But hey, it seems you're represented more than the rest of us on the balance team.

[WTF is Anet doing to WvW?]

6 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

Defenders had to do nothing to win with weaker group

What gamemode were you playing? Because it sure wasn't WvW unless your boonblob is one of the worst possible. For the past year, the tiniest modicum of effort on a boonball's part has been enough to win against outnumbered defenders. 

If you and your group are the type to throw down 8 catas in an exposed spot while all the keep's cannons and mortars are still up and then never use the bubble skill, you deserve to get easily repelled by 1-2 people.

[New Suggestion Regarding Keeps/Towers for WvW]

Great change to make objectives feel better for attacking groups! The defenders' advantage behind their own walls and gates was previously too strong. This surely won't swing that advantage completely in favor of attacking groups, and it will encourage player interaction so that large portions of attacks against structures don't feel like a slog with little payoff. This will help to incentivize more player vs. player interactions while still allowing for defensive tactical gameplay, such as defenders simply leaving the map.

[WvW Changes April 16th 2024]

It was already extremely difficult to do anything while outnumbered, and Anet's determined to make it impossible. Wasn't this kind of karmatrain gameplay they're "balancing" towards what they nuked EotM for years ago?

[What happened?]

Anyone want to guess at how long before they just remove gates altogether so as not to give defenders "too much of an advantage"?

Seriously Anet, if you only want boonballers to play the mode with two giant zergs slowly circling each other at a snail's pace while skills take 10 seconds to activate, just say so. It'll save the rest of us time hoping that the game mode ever stops getting worse.