A Big Problem: The Sea of Red "Too Many AoEs" = Dull Gameplay + Lag (Potential Fixes Here)

[Aeolus.3615]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:a thought occurred to me. if a certain amount of aoes are persistent in an area, any more and the skill will fail to cast. hard to know how to deal with cascading attacks. a visual indicator above the area would help.

Magic overflow debuf as a mechanic xD.

[Sovereign.1093]

@nthmetal.9652 said:

@Sovereign.1093 said:i think ppl just dont want to adapt and are lazy to experiment.

It's hard to experiment, when a zerg comm only accepts the same five meta builds.But don't purely blamke the comms: Many builds do not offer enough in a zerg context. For example: Surely I could switch from SB to Berserker, and I could even offer some Might generation to my teammates, but the loss in terms of boonstrip is way too great, while the return (more damage, might generation, similar or even better control) is too low.

its not hard. you make your team. if you are under someone's lead, of course your expected to conform and obey. i.e. my team, under me, is under dictatorship. it is not up to discussion.

but if its open, no req on builds etc., players can bring what they like.

be the com that you need.

in the min a group of 3 can experiment.

[nthmetal.9652]

It's not that easy. To be a comm, you have to have quite some understanding of the dynamics of the current matchup, of the situation in the current skirmish. You need to decide, whether you just want to PPT or if you want fights. And fights are not easy. Where to fight, how to fight, looking at the classes you have in your zerg. You need to have understanding on movement, on when to move where, how to bait your enemie's bomb, etc etc.

Every commander deserves our respect. What they do isn't easy :)

[Sovereign.1093]

@nthmetal.9652 said:It's not that easy. To be a comm, you have to have quite some understanding of the dynamics of the current matchup, of the situation in the current skirmish. You need to decide, whether you just want to PPT or if you want fights. And fights are not easy. Where to fight, how to fight, looking at the classes you have in your zerg. You need to have understanding on movement, on when to move where, how to bait your enemie's bomb, etc etc.

Every commander deserves our respect. What they do isn't easy :)

it is not easy to command, but it is doable to experiment outside of the public zerg. you will need atleast 3 players, you included to test. make sure one has stealth, and the other has blast. =)

[Baldrick.8967]

Want to make a change to the sea of red? Make scourge circles etc only targeted around themselves, or make them have a cast time like MS that roots them in place and/or shorten the range to 600, and shrink the circles and reduce the numbers hit per pulse. That way the enemy team (and your own) will be forced to engage rather than spam from distance.

[RedBaron.6058]

The main problem with AoE attacks is that they all have a circle format, no matter to where the character using them is pointing at. This provides an huge and unfair advantage when compared to the other type of attacks.

The simplest way of balancing things will be to give AoE attacks a different shape dependent from the direction from where the spell/skill is used.ANet can chose between a semi-circle (180 degrees), a 270 degrees arc of the circle or any value in between for the different types of attacks.

I think that the area shape for any other AoE skill type can be 360 degrees circles but AoE for attack skills should be reduced between 180 degrees and 270 degrees, considering the direction from which the attack comes from.

http://xaktly.com/Images/Mathematics/Circles/CircleMeasurementDegrees.png

[Dawdler.8521]

@RedBaron.6058 said:The simplest way of balancing things will be to give AoE attacks a different shapeWe would all just be complaining about the trapezoids of death then.

[avey.4201]

If your having trouble, buy a stack of arrow cart blueprints as they are really cheap, follow your zerg and stack them in the shades.This will reduce necro shades from 10 target to 3-5, as well as proc traps, and they do 1 damage to enemies eating aegis/blocks.Keep the enemy AoE's siege capped while your zerg steam rolls larger zerg.

[Whiteout.1975]

@"avey.4201" said:If your having trouble, buy a stack of arrow cart blueprints as they are really cheap, follow your zerg and stack them in the shades.This will reduce necro shades from 10 target to 3-5, as well as proc traps, and they do 1 damage to enemies eating aegis/blocks.Keep the enemy AoE's siege capped while your zerg steam rolls larger zerg.

It's not so much that I'm having "trouble" in the way that I think you are implying initially here. Rather it's that I'm having trouble finding the reasoning for this existing passive playstyle with all of it's common consequences (like lag) and why someone would find that acceptable; if they do. A playstyle that I and others have voiced few or many times as a problem. If there was any valid reasoning as to why that's a good playstyle to have exsisting... Well, then I'm sure our general problem with it would go away. Though, I'm not yet convinced this is a healthy playstyle to have given this particular "too many AoE's"/"Sea of Red" scenario and the problems I've at least listed with it.

That sounds hilarious. How well does that actually work though? I mean if I were some low-skilled meatsheild noob (no offence to anyone who is)... I could understand more so because what else better can I do at that point (beside's perhaps trying to play a better build). However, if I'm tossing blueprints that have their own cast time... Is it really worth the trade off of casting my own skills instead? But much more importantly... Is it fun? Personally, I don't think that would be "fun" and therefore should be discouraged rather than encouraged, IMO.

The problem outside of the common lag is again... The dull passive playstyle. Kind of like resorting to tossing blueprints around perhaps. In this scenario, the skill cap lowers almost unintentionally to some degree, but to where we are sort of blindly hitting one another (mostly through AoE's) in a way that becomes less interesting. And some of that passivness is okay to have I think because there can be too much to keep track of /going on in some situations for a lot of people anyways. However, there is this general point with "too many AoE's" where this passive play become's too friendly and rewarding for less effort. Which often ends up feeling not so "rewarding" because we've now then downgraded in our general efforts/ways of playing to achieve something (a win/advancement in a battle) for that lower effort given. Which, again is a scenario that I have trouble in understanding as to why that should be viewed as... Appropriate.

[DeadlySynz.3471]

It's another "I want to run in melee and mash my buttons and win" thread.

Here is the easy way to fix AoE spam, nerf the guardian into oblivion so the AoE spam culprits can't simply charge in and spam AoE's at will. This game's dull meta will not change until the guardian has been gutted 50x over. They are 100% responsible for the "dull passive play style".

If lag/skill calculation is the problem, the simple fix is make all the aoe damage a flat amount: all scourges F skills hit for 1500, and all the lingering conditions tick for 1000, done; no more calculations. Make all the meteors hit for 3000, no power calculation, no crit calculation. That way we can now increase the target cap to 50 with no lag issues whatsoever... but that isn't the problem is it..

Players are too lazy to adapt; they'd rather run in melee range and mash their buttons and live. They don't want to have to even bother slotting in any condition cleanses into their skill bar. They want to somehow live standing in 1 spot with 30-50 players hitting them. They want to blindly follow a commander in and press "R" so they don't even have to touch the "W" key, then when they get close enough, button mash. Can't have a ranger shooting them from the side doing 800 damage.. nope, it's too much, nerf them. Can't have ele's and rev's hitting too hard, lower the overall damage. Can't have scourges corrupting 1 single boon, nor is anyone ever allowed to even drop 1 stack of torment on someone, please nerf scourges until they are driven out of WvW They want to run around with every single boon in the book and mash 1 while drinking a beer with their other hand.

Not one mention of retaliation, yet it's completely out of control (responsible for driving nearly 2 classes out of WvW). No mention of reflects, yet it completely alienates all ranged classes from WvW. No mention to the sheer amount of damage mitigation through toughness. No mention of the ridiculous block up-time, no mention of the volume of "I win" buttons that allow people to cruise in and out of 50+ man blobs while taking no damage. Nope, because if I take any damage whatsoever, I'm not the problem, you are, and you (whatever class you're on), needs to be nerfed.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Sovereign.1093 said:so, no one dies? woot. zergs will be unkillable. :/Well, yes. Thats the point.

If a zerg cant die, that means a zerg cant kill it either so there is no point having a zerg to begin with.

and you just killed wvw. Congratulations. If you want 'small scale' do 5v5 pvp. There, done.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@"Sovereign.1093" said:so, no one dies? woot. zergs will be unkillable. :/Well, yes. Thats the point.

If a zerg cant die, that means a zerg cant kill it either so there is no point having a zerg to begin with. You should be able to say "lol they brought 70 man what a joke... 40 of them are utterly useless and could have squaded up elsewhere to spread out attacks/defense" while your own three 30 man squads completely dominate the border.

I would be more than happen to boost the default AoE to 10 man with this change - or hell even

no

AoE limit so that 1 man can literally AoE 50 man as good as those 50 can AoE 1 man (well assuming they are within range).

Is this not what people want?

hardly...... the other zerg just needs to be BIGGER!!!! Its basic math. If you're healing 1k per second, I just need to more DPS then that... eventually someone will die. And thus the Pirate ship meta is reborn.

[Whiteout.1975]

@"DeadlySynz.3471" said:It's another "I want to run in melee and mash my buttons and win" thread.

(Looks around in confusion)... What? Lol... That's the exact opposite of what I want. I'm talking there being "too many AoEs" as also recognized by @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" here: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/34498/bring-pvp-passive-nerfs-to-wvw/p1 like I stated in the OP. I just happen to agree that there are times where there are again... "Too many AoEs". To me it doesn't matter if you're "melee" or "ranged". Only that this general "too many AoE" situation has negative gaming experiences on the player; regardless of class or build. It's true though I want to "win" about as much as the next guy; I think. However, I don't want to "win" OR "lose" in such a passive uninspiring/uninteresting/pathetic etc. way. That would otherwise keep me interested if more effort was given on my behalf as much as the enemy I'm facing also.

• I mean, I don't have reason to think that the want for there to be more effort... Leading into a creation of greater/better feeling of success among players as a whole (ally and foe)... Is wrong to want here. I want literally everyone to feel better about "winning" when they do win a battle/match or whatever.

All I care about in regards to AoEs right now is this 1 general problematic scenario. No other skills used/present. Not who does the most (because how many of who does the "most" AoEs can easily change due to player choice). Not 10 AoE's on the ground/lesser non-problematic scenarios. Only when there are specifically considered "too many AoEs" in some point/duration of time we can call "The Sea of Red". While having some kind of effective safeguard in relation to that. In order to ensure more skillful play and less lag is far more present than without. That's literally it ?

[nthmetal.9652]

@"DeadlySynz.3471" said:It's another "I want to run in melee and mash my buttons and win" thread.

Oh, and why is "I want to run ranged and mash my buttons and win" better? Because that's what the AoE / Sea of red does.

Here is the easy way to fix AoE spam, nerf the guardian into oblivion so the AoE spam culprits can't simply charge in and spam AoE's at will. This game's dull meta will not change until the guardian has been gutted 50x over. They are 100% responsible for the "dull passive play style".

Suuure, make that happen! I mean, I couldn't play this gamemode anymore without the protective ability of the guards, because I love playing my warrior and without adequate protection there's no way to move into the sea of red anymore at all. But I'd watch the pirate ship resulting from this from the sidelines. Hell, maybe I'd even get a rifle or bow for my warrior just so I could tag some people. I can totally see how the lack of guards will improve the game mode.

[MedievalThings.5417]

Half the random aoe spam, and painting walls red (so they can't be used for defense) could be solved by requiring the skills have a target (and I main a necro). Require line of sight, make it so the enemy actually has to play not just button mash and win with a blob. About to bomb and enemy stealths, well, guess you can't cast till you reveal them or they appear. Make intelligent play win fights, and not just most scourges and firebrands win