Target caps vs the numbers game

[blp.3489]

I've seen a lot of grumbling about WvW devolving into whoever has the larger zerg/blob wins, sometimes called the numbers game.  It seems to me that a logical way to address number imbalances is through target caps.  Using a simplified example, if you have five players fighting ten players and each side executes an AOE  attack that hits all the players on the opposing side, the larger the target cap the more "balanced" the damage will be.  With a target cap of 5 both sides would take damage against 5 players.  With a target cap of 10 the 10 player group would take damage against 10 players while the 5 player group would only take damage against 5 players.  Effectively the ten player group takes twice the damage of the five player group, making it into a more even fight.  Of course the ten player group will be able to, on average, make twice as many attacks as the five player group, and has on average twice as much health as the half size group, so it isn't totally skewed.

It seems to me that playing in such a scenario would take more skill as there is incentive to position your group to avoid having attacks hit the full target cap, and therefore a disincentive to simply stack everyone in one place.  Separating your squad into 5-player parties that keep some distance will reduce total AOE damage taken, with the tradeoff of less AOE healing, cleansing, boon sharing, etc.  Coordinating ten five player groups is clearly harder than, and requires more sophistication than coordinating a single 50 player group.

[Xenesis.6389]

My spider senses are tinkling, I have a weird feeling of Dozen DeJa Vu... also known as DDJVU!

😐🍿

 

 

[enkidu.5937]

2 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

Separating your squad into 5-player parties that keep some distance will reduce total AOE damage taken, with the tradeoff of less AOE healing, cleansing, boon sharing, etc. 

You are right. But what you suggest already exsists. I already tag 3 to 20 enemies with most of my skills.

 

Range Cloud is the META, just melt „stack-on-com FB + Zerker Scourge“. Simple math and basic hard-coded game mechanics.

 

If you face a „stack-on-tag zerg“ you can bomb them easily from free-caster position. They move in slow motion and willfully eat your AoE all the time, while the cloud just evades their AoE ticks. Its so boring to be honest. 😏

[blp.3489]

1 hour ago, enkidu.5937 said:

I already tag 3 to 20 enemies with most of my skills.

Okay, I'll expose my ignorance, how do you manage that outside of siege weapons?

[Xenesis.6389]

14 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

Okay, I'll expose my ignorance, how do you manage that outside of siege weapons?

Pulsing aoes.

[Cyninja.2954]

We know what higher target caps lead to. We had a 10 player target cap for scourge in the past (and even in the distant past on siege and other skills). Keeping it simple, it lead to: who every got their bomb off first won.

 

Yes, increasing target caps does lead to smaller numbers being able to kill larger blobs. The question remains: what is better for the mode or majority of players?

 

Now I know, every player here thinks:"oh I'm good/skilled and as such, I will be on the benefiting side of the equation". Will you be really though? Also not to be contrarian, I would LOVE larger target caps to be a thing again. Then again I also loved running with smaller organized groups taking on blobs in the past. Somehow that was not the majority of players though as far as I remember.

 

5 hours ago, enkidu.5937 said:

You are right. But what you suggest already exsists. I already tag 3 to 20 enemies with most of my skills.

That is not the same as hitting 20 enemies thanks to a higher target cap. I hope I don't have to explain the difference here.

5 hours ago, enkidu.5937 said:

Range Cloud is the META, just melt „stack-on-com FB + Zerker Scourge“. Simple math and basic hard-coded game mechanics.

Ranged cloud is the meta against mediocre or poor blobs. It barely tickles proper setup blobs or squads. What it does do is keep blobs/squads more engaged versus them fighting a smaller blob/squad.

5 hours ago, enkidu.5937 said:

If you face a „stack-on-tag zerg“ you can bomb them easily from free-caster position. They move in slow motion and willfully eat your AoE all the time, while the cloud just evades their AoE ticks. Its so boring to be honest. 😏

Yes, that's what the majority of public blobs play like.

[Hotride.2187]

I preferred it when 10-15 good players could stealth bomb a 50 player zerg that was half asleep. Its not just the numbers game, boonrip has also been nerfed. IMO zerg fights have devolved into a pve experience (and one that is inferior to designed encounters in raids). Not much left to wvw but to afk in it.

[Cyninja.2954]

36 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

I preferred it when 10-15 good players could stealth bomb a 50 player zerg that was half asleep. Its not just the numbers game, boonrip has also been nerfed. IMO zerg fights have devolved into a pve experience (and one that is inferior to designed encounters in raids). Not much left to wvw but to afk in it.

True.

The approach to treat Spvp and WvW the same way as PvE and use boon creep to equalize performance disparity does not work well in competitive modes. In PvE it works well to bring up the bottom performing players, for competitive modes doing this results in less disparity too but that just means good players are less able to outperform. In WvW this leads to things just coming down to numbers more and more.

At the very least, if reducing boon creep is not a thing, giving players the ability to counter boons better could introduce again a skill element which shifts this balance. Until then, boons will dominate (irrelevant of which area of WvW, there is a reason the strong roaming builds currently all self provide a ton of boons while running celestial).

Edited May 11, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Dawdler.8521]

44 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

I preferred it when 10-15 good players could stealth bomb a 50 player zerg that was half asleep. Its not just the numbers game, boonrip has also been nerfed. IMO zerg fights have devolved into a pve experience (and one that is inferior to designed encounters in raids). Not much left to wvw but to afk in it.

The pain of now needing 20-25 for it instead. 

A large part of the early zergbusting was also because there was no established meta vs guild raids. 

Even Red Guard fell once people realized they could cloud them rather than stacking half asleep on one point.

[RisenHowl.2419]

Sanctuary needs its target cap reduced from 20, pinball meta blows

[subversiontwo.7501]

In general: Target caps doesn't work the way you think they do when you make threads like this. Similar to many boon-oriented discussions, (when/if-) the perspective only take into account what you want to do to others, not what it will allow others to do to you.

If you increase the target caps you will only push scale upwards and further from what personal sustain allows you to weather. Basically, it is easier for a group of 5 to deal with a group of 15 at a cap of 5, than it is for a group of 10 to deal with a group of 30 at a cap of 10. It will also do very little to help a group of 10 to fight a group 50, even if you only consider the attacking-end of the exchange.

Ultimately, if your goal is to make it easier for a smaller group to fight a larger group - you end up making it harder for a smaller group to fight a larger group this way.

Edited May 11, 2023 by subversiontwo.7501

[Riba.3271]

Léts see, are you applying any of the following advances strategies to beat larger groups, or are you just expecting to "outskill opponents":

• Engaging from unknown position by blasting stealth with smoke fields: It is easy to fit in 1 thief or bomb kits (Glue bomb isn't bad)
• Coordinating  large amount of damaging siege (gravel catas, trebutchets) to land their first hit at same time
• Coordinating fiery greatswords for warriors/revenants before bombing
• Setting up mesmer portal to escape prior to bombing

Now I would claim that you're probably not using these strategies if you complain about larger zerg always winning

Of course when you go away from your own towers and keeps, this becomes much harder. And indeed, balance feels terribad because when defending the combat is ruined by million strategies, ton of stats, respawns, tactivators and siege available which you don't have otherwise. The balance was already very defender heavy when the bonus stats and tactivators didn't exist.

I just think it is wrong to think that smaller groups need buffs to work together against larger group. Fighting 2-3 guilds at same time is already one of the hardest experiences you will find out there.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Riba.3271

[Zyreva.1078]

32 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

Léts see, are you applying any of the following advances strategies to beat larger groups, or are you just expecting to "outskill opponents":

[...]

In short: "just bring enough people". Got it.

[Zyreva.1078]

1 hour ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

If you increase the target caps you will only push scale upwards and further from what personal sustain allows you to weather. Basically, it is easier for a group of 5 to deal with a group of 15 at a cap of 5, than it is for a group of 10 to deal with a group of 30 at a cap of 10. It will also do very little to help a group of 10 to fight a group 50, even if you only consider the attacking-end of the exchange.

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Even when benefitting from target caps yourself, eg having 10 players with a cap of 5, you can't just sit there and factetank 3x your numbers freecasting on you. Being able to counterpressure larger numbers more effectively would reduce the incoming dmg for the smaller grp way more than target caps could ever do.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[enkidu.5937]

13 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

Okay, I'll expose my ignorance, how do you manage that outside of siege weapons?

As Guard:

Staff 5 stabstrips / CCs up to 10 ppl

Sanctuary up to 20

basically no target limit for Wall of Reflection

or F1 passive spreading burn and cripple when proccing multi-hit traps or symbols 😚

 

9 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

It barely tickles proper setup blobs or squads.

As I said, just do some math, its obvious 😏

 

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, enkidu.5937 said:

As I said, just do some math, its obvious 😏

 

Ah I was mistaken, care to share some of the math because I was under the impression that specializing roles allowed for better synergies.

[TheGrimm.5624]

20 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

I've seen a lot of grumbling about WvW devolving into whoever has the larger zerg/blob wins, sometimes called the numbers game.  It seems to me that a logical way to address number imbalances is through target caps. 

This sounds good on paper but it makes assumptions. Would more players be able to be hit if stacked, yes. But that assumes they weren't standing still and AOEing as well, so would the bomb be able to get there to land? That is questionable. So without caps I think you might end with boonballs that now do more AOE which would mostly just burn things down faster while those with boons would still be soaking the damage. Stacking is the real issue which can not solved as far as we know. Granted some past ideas like Fractal instabilities would be an interesting test. So the next thing is the item they said they are working on and that is the balance in boons vs conversion/strips/removals. 

[blp.3489]

3 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Stacking is the real issue which can not solved as far as we know.

Would small area high target count aoes be effective?

[apharma.3741]

5 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Ah I was mistaken, care to share some of the math because I was under the impression that specializing roles allowed for better synergies.

Honestly it strikes me that the person hasn't come across a proper unified server blob like WSR used to have years ago. You couldn't do anything against it because they had 40% of the entire group as support throwing out enough heals to literally just stand there and take the enemy pug commander then roll them. They were also stacked very tightly so the damage was distributed very evenly and even if by chance someone went down it was an insta rez.

You're completely correct about how the meta is, the boons, everything but you also forgot the most annoying part of the current meta, pull, immob, strip and bomb (already dead usually) against the cloud. Even a ~20 guild group doing this kills far more than when they eventually lose half their players due to co-ordinated spikes or usually excessive siege like trebs firing at them, looking at you Gandara.

[Johje Holan.4607]

Yea, people have been asking to get rid of or make larger, the target caps since they put them in (one of the Betas I believe, I think it was always 5 after launch).  They added the caps for performance reasons (and we thought lag was bad even with the caps).  While it would make it easier for smaller groups to defeat larger groups I don't see them changing it.

What we could ask for is a new skill/something to blow up balls.   Heck add it as a trap or trick.   Like someone said above; small area high target count.  A proximity bomb or something.  I would call it the Blob Bomb.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Johje Holan.4607

[MarzAttakz.9608]

2 hours ago, Johje Holan.4607 said:

Yea, people have been asking to get rid of or make larger, the target caps since they put them in (one of the Betas I believe, I think it was always 5 after launch).  They added the caps for performance reasons (and we thought lag was bad even with the caps).  While it would make it easier for smaller groups to defeat larger groups I don't see them changing it.

What we could ask for is a new skill/something to blow up balls.   Heck add it as a trap or trick.   Like someone said above; small area high target count.  A proximity bomb or something.  I would call it the Blob Bomb.

Yes they did lower targets caps across the board (both DPS and support caps) to improve performance (slide show three ways at a garrison were not fun) - but then what did they do after that: add more kittening buffs like Presence of the Keep etc, added more stats like Expertise, Ferocity and Concentration and added in more boons (and the new classes that applied them even faster) as well as  conditions. In other words: even more server side calculations to keep track of.

The whole target cap low = better performance excuse falls flat when you factor in the above. The bottom line is that they're too lazy, too incompetent and too cheap to really give a kitten about a game mode that outside of transfer costs (which probably barely cover their running costs) makes them no profit.

[Eudaimonia.8695]

Of course it would be the logical way OP, but they have mentioned in the past that doing this would fry the servers, and, considering that they already had to allow fewer player into the maps to make them playable, I don't think this will be possible.

 

Believe it or not, they already have solid server infrastracture, better than some other online games. I'm not sure they see it as a priority to make upgrades on the server side when things are running mostly well now.

 

I'd love 80 man blobs and no target cap back, but they really did make the game unplayable. 2 minute lags were not unusual.

 

 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Literally every other RvR game I've played for the last two decades has had a larger offensive cap than defensive cap. Half of the replies in this thread don't really map to my experiences in those games, in which it was almost always advantageous for the smaller group to have a larger offensive cap.

 

That said, those games also all have real resurrection systems and skills, not just reviving downs. Believe it or not, the downstate system is one of the biggest advantages a zerg has, since they can just rub everyone back to life, whereas with a proper resurrection system you have to deal with cooldowns and such (no rallies, no rubbing, only revival skills), and as a result zergs get wittled down much faster by tactics that this game refers to as "clouding". That's not to mention that when you defeat someone, they're instantly out of the picture and can't still throw rocks at you. Mist Form through a portal and so on.

 

If we removed the downstate from the competitive modes and just made revival skills bring dead players back to life with resurrection sickness, it would be alot more balanced. It may not feel that way, but its something you have to experience to understand.

 

So basically, downstate is bad, rallying is bad, rubbing is bad, not having to slot and use your build and skills to bring a defeated player back to life is bad. Even in PvE, its mostly been a mistake that puts allies in danger more often than not, even though it does add flavor there.

Edited May 12, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[enkidu.5937]

11 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Ah I was mistaken, care to share some of the math because I was under the impression that specializing roles allowed for better synergies.

Yup, thats the common misconception from fight guild players. In the common zerg it doesnt really lead to synergies but detrimental dependency. Works in fight guilds, but in publics, it causes dependency on the skill level or even presence of one single player that has to fullfill a specific role, providing most of the stab for the group, or most of the soft CC counter etc.

 

Instead of trying to face tank AoE ticking damage and group CCs there is also the option to spread and get around the bad red circles. So you dont need half of the squad on support and the other half hope that the enemy cloud does the favor of staying in 900 range ticking circles (which they usually wont) or catch them with big tells from rev hammer 2, 3, 5 (which they usually wont do either).

 

Sure its viable if you stack experienced fight guild player in a squad and farm unexperienced PvE ppl, as you already mentioned. But I'm pretty sure that there is not a single PvP game where this would be regarded as "the Meta".

 

[Cyninja.2954]

20 minutes ago, enkidu.5937 said:

Yup, thats the common misconception from fight guild players. In the common zerg it doesnt really lead to synergies but detrimental dependency. Works in fight guilds, but in publics, it causes dependency on the skill level or even presence of one single player that has to fullfill a specific role, providing most of the stab for the group, or most of the soft CC counter etc.

 

Instead of trying to face tank AoE ticking damage and group CCs there is also the option to spread and get around the bad red circles. So you dont need half of the squad on support and the other half hope that the enemy cloud does the favor of staying in 900 range ticking circles (which they usually wont) or catch them with big tells from rev hammer 2, 3, 5 (which they usually wont do either).

 

Sure its viable if you stack experienced fight guild player in a squad and farm unexperienced PvE ppl, as you already mentioned. But I'm pretty sure that there is not a single PvP game where this would be regarded as "the Meta".

 

So in short: no math, but simply anecdotal evidence which can be summarized as: player experience needed. Gotcha, exactly what I had said.

As far as clouding working, that's because the majority of blobs do not adapt to the cloud via adjusting their skills or builds on dps slots because they are focused on engaging other blobs (imagine running cele against cloud in dps slots for example, pretty much never happens but would make clouding useless).

Going by actual synergies played by experienced players it's pretty unbreakable at current support levels. The main detriment as I had stated is from the immobility and concentrating many players in 1 spot leaving the remaining border open to attack due to slower response times.

Edited May 12, 2023 by Cyninja.2954