Anet Stance on the Efficiency of Mindless Zerging*

[Sviel.7493]

*From 2014

-At 24:55, he's asked 'How do you feel about zergs and stacking?'
His response: "Zergs, to us, we don't mind--we always and forever will not mind big groups, big organized groups that have a lot of fun. That's the point of world v world, right, you want hundred on hundred big epic fights but when it's mindless, you know, when you get a whole lot of people who aren't organized who are just running around--and that's the most efficient way to play? That's not what we like. So we're hoping stuff like this will empower the small group, right? So let's say a group of five guys that are org--or five gals--are really, really, really good at getting in there and taking out small groups or even the zerg they can kill five or six people--if they down five or six people and stomp them out, that's five points, that's essentially, the same thing as one--them killing somebody, and them, giving the score the same amount as...holding a objective [points to camp], right, that's really strong! And it doesn't, again, if a zerg has that, if they stomp out five people they still only get five points but a group of five stomping five players they also get five points."

In short, he hoped that the addition of bloodlust would help even the playing field between mindless zerging and 5-man gank squads. Six years down the road, it's safe to say that didn't work out as planned. Mindless zergs are still the most efficient way to play for both rewards and PPT. If you're looking for fights, your only opponent is probably a mindless zerg so you better have one of your own.

It probably would have worked out better to give players such defensive options that single-point assaults were high risk--not ineffective, but more likely to just do damage than fully succeed. This would drastically decrease the efficiency of mindless zerging. However, multiple groups making a multi-point assault would win out. In that scenario, an organized group can thrive and small-teams groups can thrive, but mindless zergs lose.

Later in WvW development, they did start adding in these defensive tools. Siege Disablers, Supply Traps, Shield Generators, Tactivators, etc. However, those were simply additions on top of an existing system and the playerbase had already adapted to the Mindless Zerg norm. They had some effect, but were widely disliked and were generally not used anywhere near their potential. When they were, players complained rather than adapted.

Other Notes-When he talks about the new Ruins area, he makes constant mention of 'more verticality' and interesting places to juke in and out of. Essentially, the opposite of the flat, open fields demanded by the zerg/gvg crowd. You can see the genesis of what would ultimately become DBL.

-He notes they intentionally tried to prevent the ruins from being useful as a trebbing location to hit the side keeps as they wanted the area to be for small skirmishes instead.

-At about 14:10, he talks about how a certain ruin is great for people who like to knock others off of ledges.

-At 17:00, he commits a war crime.

-At 24:35, he mentions more crimes.

[BeepBoopBop.5403]

Anet has done nothing but empower mindless zergs ever since.

Mounts guarantee that the side with even one more player has the stomp advantage + each additional person with a mount is another 5k dismount to deal with. On top of that, zergs can chase down smaller groups and solos even better than ever by just rotating who will mount up and dismount on the runner to keep them in combat.

The super-patch made sure that outnumbered groups cannot out-damage bigger groups built for abusing downed state. What a disaster.

[God.2708]

Small groups are superior to mindless zerging for PPT. The only instance this isn't true is if the mindless zerg is defending a map full of T3s with scouts in everything.

Frankly small groups that are maximally coordinated are superior to mindless zergs in fights as well assuming each group has at least 30% of the mindless zergs size. But a group even attempting that level of coordination is non-existent now because there's no real 'reward' other than maybe bragging rights in an empty team chat.

[DemonSeed.3528]

I think small groups are what the focus should be on in general, since there is more of that around the whole day than there are zergs or full map queues.

[Dawdler.8521]

Whats Anet supposed to do?

If they make a 5 man group stronger, then by definition 10 of these 5 man groups working closely together will be far, far stronger.

[mindcircus.1506]

@Sviel.7493 said:In short, he hoped that the addition of bloodlust would help even the playing field between mindless zerging and 5-man gank squads. Six years down the road, it's safe to say that didn't work out as planned. Mindless zergs are still the most efficient way to play for both rewards and PPT. If you're looking for fights, your only opponent is probably a mindless zerg so you better have one of your own.2-3 nights a week I run with a small dedicated WvW guild. We generally roll in a group of 10-15. We take out bigger groups than ours (often double the size) all.the.time.The rewards from this playstyle in terms of bags/xp are much higher than rolling with 40 people, trying to get hits in on yaks or veterans in towers.I don't know what game you are playing.Maybe the zergs you are attacking aren't as mindless as you think.Maybe you aren't as good as you think you are.

[Blocki.4931]

@"BeepBoopBop.5403" said:Anet has done nothing but empower mindless zergs ever since.

Mounts guarantee that the side with even one more player has the stomp advantage + each additional person with a mount is another 5k dismount to deal with. On top of that, zergs can chase down smaller groups and solos even better than ever by just rotating who will mount up and dismount on the runner to keep them in combat.

The super-patch made sure that outnumbered groups cannot out-damage bigger groups built for abusing downed state. What a disaster.

Sorry but what are you even talking about? This sounds like a copy paste of the topics we had when mounts were no in the game yet and everybody had wild theories about how the game would die now.

In reality almost nothing of it became true and most of the stuff that did has long been patched out. A person on a mount is not a target. They're worthless. If they afk to get a stomp out then that means it is 1 less person participating in a fight. Zergs dont mount up before attacking, they're never mounting when they can see each other, because this way they can actually power themselves up before pushing. Nobody has an "unfair speed advantage" when it comes to this either anymore. Your entire argument seems to be that small groups now absolutely have no chance beating a larger group because of a movement ability that does nothing in combat.

My guild still regularly beats groups larger than us, mounts haven't changed it. It's because we are actually coordinated and have everybody on discord and a commander that isn't useless.

[Sviel.7493]

@God.2708 said:Small groups are superior to mindless zerging for PPT. The only instance this isn't true is if the mindless zerg is defending a map full of T3s with scouts in everything.

Frankly small groups that are maximally coordinated are superior to mindless zergs in fights as well assuming each group has at least 30% of the mindless zergs size. But a group even attempting that level of coordination is non-existent now because there's no real 'reward' other than maybe bragging rights in an empty team chat.

On offense, small groups are better for PPT in vacuum, but in reality you also have to defend if you want PPT--especially now that upgraded structures give more points. If your zerg is big enough that it can't be stalled so that the small groups can coalesce to defend, then you're going to win the PPT war because you'll get a few things upgraded and the small-group opponent will not. Eventually, this leads to precisely the situation you described with the mindless zerg easily defending T3 structures in between steamrolling the enemy map.

@Dawdler.8521 said:Whats Anet supposed to do?

If they make a 5 man group stronger, then by definition 10 of these 5 man groups working closely together will be far, far stronger.

That is definitely something to watch out for. Bloodlust probably falls in that category.

The way to buff a small group without buffing a large group is to find some sort of hallway principle. Something where bringing more people after a certain number has diminishing returns without resorting to blunt debuffs or anything that would lead to driving excess players away. In a fight, it's similar to a choke. Even if the enemy is very large, you can punish them if they try to squeeze through too small an area. Outside of fights, the best fit in WvW is siege. If bringing 50 people to a siege doesn't largely strip defenders of their ability to stall, then you're not going to break in much faster than if you only had 10 people since the stalling is a bigger factor than the actual wall or gate. Then, it becomes much more effective to attack several places at once so that one or two disablers or shield generators doesn't ruin your whole assault.

In a way, the 50-man group still has an advantage--they've just split into 10 5-man groups like you said. But this gives opportunities for players on both sides to meaningfully interact instead of just one side getting run over.

@mindcircus.1506 said:2-3 nights a week I run with a small dedicated WvW guild. We generally roll in a group of 10-15. We take out bigger groups than ours (often double the size) all.the.time.The rewards from this playstyle in terms of bags/xp are much higher than rolling with 40 people, trying to get hits in on yaks or veterans in towers.I don't know what game you are playing.Maybe the zergs you are attacking aren't as mindless as you think.Maybe you aren't as good as you think you are.

It's always nice to hear about a zerg-busting crew.

The rewards I'm referring to come from pips and participation. Loot bags/xp are nice, but probably not comparable outside of a really lucky pre-cursor or something. To keep participation up, zerg-busting is not the easiest, most reliable method for most players. It might work out for you and your mates, which is cool, but most WvW hours are logged at the player's personal leisure rather than in a structured group.

I don't know where you got the idea that I was personally trying to bust zergs and failing, but that's not the case.

[Riba.3271]

Zergs benefit more from:Shield generators (blocks trebbing from small groups and allows to ignore defensive siege)Claim buff (Don't need as many people to wipe small attacking groups while your big group can overcome small ones)Tactivators (Dragon banner can easily twoshot catas of small group, ewp/watchtowers/Invulrable counter small groups who benefit from every second they can get)Abundant supply (draining objective is harder)Reduced upgrade times (you can upgrade any objectives to t3, even SM, within a few hours)Increased lord HP

When was this all added? With HoT.

How to fix?

• Increase upgrade times by 50% (from 20/40/80 dollies to 30/60/120 dollies), with SM being 100% increased (40/80/160 dollies)
• Make so that packed dolyaks don't count as 2 towards upgrades
• Reduce claim buff down to 30 each stat + 10% Movement speed. Supply increase stays the same.
• Nerf EWP, invuln wall, SM airship and cloaking water duration
• Reduce Iron guards damage reduction from 50% to 30%.
• Make watchtower only activate when objective is contested
• Adjust dragonbanner 5 to deal no damage and grant lot of might in addition to quickness
• Rework shield generators to not work against projectile siege (only ACs) and instead pulse 20% damage reduction that works also on siege.
• Increase guild golem supply cost to 80

With these changes, WvW will be better place

[Raiden The Beast.3016]

@BeepBoopBop.5403 said:Anet has done nothing but empower mindless zergs ever since.

Mounts guarantee that the side with even one more player has the stomp advantage + each additional person with a mount is another 5k dismount to deal with. On top of that, zergs can chase down smaller groups and solos even better than ever by just rotating who will mount up and dismount on the runner to keep them in combat.

The super-patch made sure that outnumbered groups cannot out-damage bigger groups built for abusing downed state. What a disaster.

Delete mounts ... most worse implementation in a competitive gamemode ever.

[bambi.6214]

From my experience the biggest offender for smallscale is the bloody spellbreaker bubble. Reducing target cap to 5 didn't change anything - if it's 10v25 and the smaller group loses 5 players to lack of stability and resistance, it's a guaranteed wipe.

[BeepBoopBop.5403]

@Blocki.4931 said:

@"BeepBoopBop.5403" said:Anet has done nothing but empower mindless zergs ever since.

Mounts guarantee that the side with even one more player has the stomp advantage + each additional person with a mount is another 5k dismount to deal with. On top of that, zergs can chase down smaller groups and solos even better than ever by just rotating who will mount up and dismount on the runner to keep them in combat.

The super-patch made sure that outnumbered groups cannot out-damage bigger groups built for abusing downed state. What a disaster.

Sorry but what are you even talking about? This sounds like a copy paste of the topics we had when mounts were no in the game yet and everybody had wild theories about how the game would die now.

In reality almost nothing of it became true and most of the stuff that did has long been patched out. A person on a mount is not a target. They're worthless. If they afk to get a stomp out then that means it is 1 less person participating in a fight. Zergs dont mount up before attacking, they're never mounting when they can see each other, because this way they can actually power themselves up before pushing. Nobody has an "unfair speed advantage" when it comes to this either anymore. Your entire argument seems to be that small groups now absolutely have no chance beating a larger group because of a movement ability that does nothing in combat.

My guild still regularly beats groups larger than us, mounts haven't changed it. It's because we are actually coordinated and have everybody on discord and a commander that isn't useless.

Your anecdote doesn't mean much to me lol

You've said nothing at all about how a bigger group has both resurrect control due to super patch and finish control due to mounts. Those "little" advantages mean nothing to you at all? Or the free dismount damage everyone gets for showing up?

Fight 10 with 5 see how that goes.

[Len.1879]

I believe a core problem is PPT not feeling rewarding enough. When you go into full PPT mode, your server probably wins the matchup and ascends to the next tier, but that doesn't mean anything, since it is not coupled to rewards. That way players see it as more rewarding to kill enemies and even frown upon doing PPT. Taking the strategic aspect of capturing and holding as much of the map as possible should be the main goal in WvW. I believe that was what the devs were going for, since structure-based PPT gives the most points, most points win the matchup, ergo that's the winning-condition. But since it lacks a clear sense of "yes, we won!", it is not valued by players. I have not once seen this behaviour in other games where you can earn points by killing or holding structures, e.g. the Battlefield series, where it is pretty clear that you have to capture the outpots, not throw yourself into mindless battles at the center of the map to be top of the score board but lose the match anyway.

This ties in directly with the problem of mindless zerging. If PPT itself felt more rewarding, people would try to control a bigger portion of the map more efficienty, which is just impossible to do with one large zerg slowly rolling over the map, versus several small groups that are much more efficient in that regard.

[God.2708]

@Sviel.7493 said:

@God.2708 said:Small groups are superior to mindless zerging for PPT. The only instance this isn't true is if the mindless zerg is defending a map full of T3s with scouts in everything.

Frankly small groups that are maximally coordinated are superior to mindless zergs in fights as well assuming each group has at least 30% of the mindless zergs size. But a group even attempting that level of coordination is non-existent now because there's no real 'reward' other than maybe bragging rights in an empty team chat.

On offense, small groups are better for PPT in vacuum, but in reality you also have to defend if you want PPT--especially now that upgraded structures give more points. If your zerg is big enough that it can't be stalled so that the small groups can coalesce to defend, then you're going to win the PPT war because you'll get a few things upgraded and the small-group opponent will not. Eventually, this leads to precisely the situation you described with the mindless zerg easily defending T3 structures in between steamrolling the enemy map.

Sounds like you are the one playing in a vacuum. A t3 is worth 2.5x the number of points of a t0. 3 Small groups simply have to cap 3x the objectives of a larger one to maintain a point lead. Keep in mind 3 small groups merged can pretty easily stall a large group out of taking a t3 or even a home side t2. It depends on what numbers you're talking about here though. Three 5 man parties are of course not going to be as effective as a 70 man map queue. 3 groups of 15 vs 50? Easily.

[dikkejonko.5803]

@God.2708 said:

@Sviel.7493 said:

@God.2708 said:Small groups are superior to mindless zerging for PPT. The only instance this isn't true is if the mindless zerg is defending a map full of T3s with scouts in everything.

Frankly small groups that are maximally coordinated are superior to mindless zergs in fights as well assuming each group has at least 30% of the mindless zergs size. But a group even attempting that level of coordination is non-existent now because there's no real 'reward' other than maybe bragging rights in an empty team chat.

On offense, small groups are better for PPT in vacuum, but in reality you also have to defend if you want PPT--especially now that upgraded structures give more points. If your zerg is big enough that it can't be stalled so that the small groups can coalesce to defend, then you're going to win the PPT war because you'll get a few things upgraded and the small-group opponent will not. Eventually, this leads to precisely the situation you described with the mindless zerg easily defending T3 structures in between steamrolling the enemy map.

Sounds like you are the one playing in a vacuum. A t3 is worth 2.5x the number of points of a t0. 3 Small groups simply have to cap 3x the objectives of a larger one to maintain a point lead. Keep in mind 3 small groups merged can pretty easily stall a large group out of taking a t3 or even a home side t2. It depends on what numbers you're talking about here though. Three 5 man parties are of course not going to be as effective as a 70 man map queue. 3 groups of 15 vs 50? Easily.

we're talking small vs big. not big divided into multiple small vs big xD you aren't even staying on topic. and then this quote'Sounds like you are the one playing in a vacuum' are you trying to insult him or something?This doesn't mean anything in your context, he was talking about small groups needing a vacuum on map to opporate dude. You throw it around without knowing what he meant. and btw 3x15= 45 which is pretty close to 50 you mùight notice, so yeah 45 can defend a keep from 50 people like you said ... the whole rant has 0 ppiont

[Stand The Wall.6987]

ppl have always stacked cuz sharing the aoe cap has always been the best way to mitigate damage. that's where you gotta start.

[God.2708]

@dikkejonko.5803 said:

@God.2708 said:

@Sviel.7493 said:

@God.2708 said:Small groups are superior to mindless zerging for PPT. The only instance this isn't true is if the mindless zerg is defending a map full of T3s with scouts in everything.

Frankly small groups that are maximally coordinated are superior to mindless zergs in fights as well assuming each group has at least 30% of the mindless zergs size. But a group even attempting that level of coordination is non-existent now because there's no real 'reward' other than maybe bragging rights in an empty team chat.

On offense, small groups are better for PPT in vacuum, but in reality you also have to defend if you want PPT--especially now that upgraded structures give more points. If your zerg is big enough that it can't be stalled so that the small groups can coalesce to defend, then you're going to win the PPT war because you'll get a few things upgraded and the small-group opponent will not. Eventually, this leads to precisely the situation you described with the mindless zerg easily defending T3 structures in between steamrolling the enemy map.

Sounds like you are the one playing in a vacuum. A t3 is worth 2.5x the number of points of a t0. 3 Small groups simply have to cap 3x the objectives of a larger one to maintain a point lead. Keep in mind 3 small groups merged can pretty easily stall a large group out of taking a t3 or even a home side t2. It depends on what numbers you're talking about here though. Three 5 man parties are of course not going to be as effective as a 70 man map queue. 3 groups of 15 vs 50? Easily.

we're talking small vs big. not big divided into multiple small vs big xD you aren't even staying on topic. and then this quote'Sounds like you are the one playing in a vacuum' are you trying to insult him or something?This doesn't mean anything in your context, he was talking about small groups needing a vacuum on map to opporate dude. You throw it around without knowing what he meant. and btw 3x15= 45 which is pretty close to 50 you mùight notice, so yeah 45 can defend a keep from 50 people like you said ... the whole rant has 0 ppiont

No. The topic was on the efficiency of small groups vs mindless zerging. Small groups given a somewhat similar player count have the advantage on all fronts.

Of course one 15 man group is going to fail against one 50 man group. There isn't a worthwhile thing anet can do to change that nor should they. One of the biggest most central points of GW2 was other players showing up and joining in should not be a detriment. Any effort to make a group 'de-scale' when they get to many numbers is just going to result in toxic behavior by players trying to meta-game that numbers system. The issue has always been an issue of rewards vs effort, and it not being worthwhile to properly communicate and PPT when the victor is just going to be the side that has 10 players running around when the opponent has zero some odd hours later.

[dikkejonko.5803]

/10 chars.

[Sviel.7493]

@God.2708 said:Sounds like you are the one playing in a vacuum. A t3 is worth 2.5x the number of points of a t0. 3 Small groups simply have to cap 3x the objectives of a larger one to maintain a point lead. Keep in mind 3 small groups merged can pretty easily stall a large group out of taking a t3 or even a home side t2. It depends on what numbers you're talking about here though. Three 5 man parties are of course not going to be as effective as a 70 man map queue. 3 groups of 15 vs 50? Easily.

The greatest irony is that you quoted me saying that a T3 objective is worth more, then tried to use that as some sort of mic drop.

Let's say we have 70 players on both sides--pretty near the cap for a map. One side has a 60-man zerg and 10 scattered defenders. The other side has 3 20-man groups and 10 scattered defenders. If we're starting on reset night, then the split server will initially win the PPT war because none of the defenders can stall very long in a paper objective and 20 men are going to flip an objective at roughly the same speed as 60. However, the zerg server will slowly upgrade their larger objectives and most distant towers because they have time to come and defend them. As those objectives tier up, it gets easier and easier to defend them which allows the zerg server more leeway on offense. Meanwhile, the split server will have a very hard time defending anything because all 3 20-man groups must converge from w/e they are on the map. Even if they manage to get a tier or two, that's still not going to slow a 60-man group down by very much.

After several hours, you'll find that the upgraded portion of the zerg server's holdings will generate so much PPT that the split server cannot make up the difference just by juggling paper objectives. Or, to put it in your example, the split server will not be able to hold 3x as many things as the zerg server.

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:ppl have always stacked cuz sharing the aoe cap has always been the best way to mitigate damage. that's where you gotta start.

Yeah, that always struck me as silly, but I don't think it's within the purview of the WvW team to change. They barely have any say in balance issues--they're probably not going to get core game mechanics changed.

[ArchonWing.9480]

It's an MMO. Many people that play MMOs are here for large fights. Heck, some would argue there isn't enough mass group content of any value in the entire game-- WvW is the only thing! You may think it's mindless and it probably is, but that's what they like and nothing you shove in their face is going to change that. You can decrease rewards or give random debuffs; that will most likely cause them to stop playing more than anything else. We are closing onto 8 years of this-- it was obvious in 2012 and it should be more in 2020.

if you made small scale fighting and roaming more enjoyable for your average player, you might have a tiny chance of getting it to work. If you made winning and losing matter, people might care. But they never really did when it did. And now that we have mounts, the players have spoken and we just have to accept that reality.

[God.2708]

@Sviel.7493 said:

@God.2708 said:Sounds like you are the one playing in a vacuum. A t3 is worth 2.5x the number of points of a t0. 3 Small groups simply have to cap 3x the objectives of a larger one to maintain a point lead. Keep in mind 3 small groups merged can pretty easily stall a large group out of taking a t3 or even a home side t2. It depends on what numbers you're talking about here though. Three 5 man parties are of course not going to be as effective as a 70 man map queue. 3 groups of 15 vs 50? Easily.

The greatest irony is that you quoted me saying that a T3 objective is worth more, then tried to use that as some sort of mic drop.

Let's say we have 70 players on both sides--pretty near the cap for a map. One side has a 60-man zerg and 10 scattered defenders. The other side has 3 20-man groups and 10 scattered defenders. If we're starting on reset night, then

the split server will initially win the PPT war

because none of the defenders can stall very long in a paper objective and 20 men are going to flip an objective at roughly the same speed as 60. However, the zerg server will slowly upgrade their larger objectives and most distant towers because they have time to come and defend them. As those objectives tier up, it gets easier and easier to defend them which allows the zerg server more leeway on offense. Meanwhile, the split server will have a very hard time defending anything because all 3 20-man groups must converge from w/e they are on the map. Even if they manage to get a tier or two, that's still not going to slow a 60-man group down by very much.

After several hours, you'll find that the upgraded portion of the zerg server's holdings will generate so much PPT that the split server cannot make up the difference

just by juggling paper objectives. Or, to put it in your example, the split server will not be able to hold 3x as many things as the zerg server.

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:ppl have always stacked cuz sharing the aoe cap has always been the best way to mitigate damage. that's where you gotta start.

Yeah, that always struck me as silly, but I don't think it's within the purview of the WvW team to change. They barely have any say in balance issues--they're probably not going to get core game mechanics changed.

How are they upgrading these objectives? A 20 man zerg can literally hold every camp and take every yak on the map by itself while the other 2 groups frolic in the dirt with the 60.

Edit: And this is why I said in a vacuum. Against 3 20 man zergs the 60 man zerg is literally paralyzed. Anything it does will result in the enemy side returning the favor 2 fold. Pushes the keep? They just took garri + other keep. Go back to defend? Still missing a keep and now they've lost camps and the keep is upgrading because they can't take the camp feeding into it. The best it can do it rotate the map and keep everything paper and hope off hours is more favorable for its server.

[Cambeleg.7632]

Anet devs never played really the game mode... and no, streams don't count, 'cos they use to join in prime time, worst timing for really knowing the state of the game mode. Also, they use to join servers with high population/several linked servers, so the perception is wrong and ridiculously distorted. Several years of failure about WvW development are the proof.

Only when they really play it in the rest of schedules and in the other side, then they'll realize the miserable dirt where the game mode is buried.

[Sviel.7493]

@ArchonWing.9480 said:It's an MMO. Many people that play MMOs are here for large fights. Heck, some would argue there isn't enough mass group content of any value in the entire game-- WvW is the only thing! You may think it's mindless and it probably is, but that's what they like and nothing you shove in their face is going to change that. You can decrease rewards or give random debuffs; that will most likely cause them to stop playing more than anything else. We are closing onto 8 years of this-- it was obvious in 2012 and it should be more in 2020.

if you made small scale fighting and roaming more enjoyable for your average player, you might have a tiny chance of getting it to work. If you made winning and losing matter, people might care. But they never really did when it did. And now that we have mounts, the players have spoken and we just have to accept that reality.

Funny thing is, based on comments and posts from the early days of WvW, most people felt exactly the opposite of what you're saying now. That said, I don't have any desire to remove large fights from WvW. I don't want to force everyone into small-scale fighting or roaming. However, I also don't believe that players are some hivemind monolith that all want the same thing. There are plenty of folks who prefer non-zerg WvW activities or that enjoy a variety of playstyles. They tend not to stick around as long because it's much harder to get into the game any way other than zerging (not impossible, just harder).

@God.2708 said:How are they upgrading these objectives? A 20 man zerg can literally hold every camp and take every yak on the map by itself while the other 2 groups frolic in the dirt with the 60.

Edit: And this is why I said in a vacuum. Against 3 20 man zergs the 60 man zerg is literally paralyzed. Anything it does will result in the enemy side returning the favor 2 fold. Pushes the keep? They just took garri + other keep. Go back to defend? Still missing a keep and now they've lost camps and the keep is upgrading because they can't take the camp feeding into it. The best it can do it rotate the map and keep everything paper and hope off hours is more favorable for its server.

If we're talking about the borderlands, the zerg server simply has to focus on the two northern towers, the north keep and the north camp. The NW and NE camps are nice, but not mandatory. They may be able to occasionally flip a side keep, but this is not likely early on. However, once that northern triangle hits T2, they can flip a side keep and still have time to port back and defend their northern section. Conversely, even if the split server's keep hits T2, it doesn't allow them much extra time on offense. This is where the tide starts to turn.

The key is that the time it takes to flip a keep or tower is only roughly equal when they're paper. There is a significant divergence once the walls start to upgrade. On top of that, a T3 northern triangle (two towers and a keep) is 40 PPT. If everything else on the map is paper, it's 36 PPT altogether--likely split between all three servers. Thus, a zerg server doesn't have to put itself at a disadvantage by trying to outcap a split server when everything is paper. It can just hover in a small area where it has a spawn WP until a handful of objectives have enough stalling power for them to go run over an enemy keep.

[God.2708]

@Sviel.7493 said:

If we're talking about the borderlands, the zerg server simply has to focus on the two northern towers, the north keep and the north camp. The NW and NE camps are nice, but not mandatory. They may be able to occasionally flip a side keep, but this is not likely early on. However, once that northern triangle hits T2, they can flip a side keep and still have time to port back and defend their northern section. Conversely, even if the split server's keep hits T2, it doesn't allow them much extra time on offense. This is where the tide starts to turn.

The key is that the time it takes to flip a keep or tower is only roughly equal when they're paper. There is a significant divergence once the walls start to upgrade. On top of that, a T3 northern triangle (two towers and a keep) is 40 PPT. If everything else on the map is paper, it's 36 PPT altogether--likely split between all three servers. Thus, a zerg server doesn't have to put itself at a disadvantage by trying to outcap a split server when everything is paper. It can just hover in a small area where it has a spawn WP until a handful of objectives have enough stalling power for them to go run over an enemy keep.

So a server that sits in garrison all night vs a single other server is going to come out ahead on a map that is specifically designed to favor the 'home' server and somehow whilst it gets all 3 of these t3s defending a single absolutely awful (for supply timeliness) camp, the 3 20 man groups will not have t3ed anything on the map utilizing much faster more effective camps. Your arguments are asinine.

[Sviel.7493]

I said they stayed in the area of the northern triangle, not in garrison, and only for the first 3-5 hours of the match, depending on Yak survival rates. I also said that the split server would upgrade some objectives, but would not be able to hold them later on.

We should probably differentiate between ABL and DBL here.

On ABL, North Camp is very bad, but it is also the only camp that feeds into the northern towers. For this reason, the northern towers take about 12 hours to hit T3. On DBL, NC is by far the highest PPT objective on the map (counting Yak points) if you own the northern triangle. It has separate Yaks for Rampart and the northern towers. On DBL, the Northern towers only take about 5-6 hours to hit T3.

In short, on ABL, a strategy of upgrading your northern triangle will take at least twice as long to start bearing fruit and probably longer because of all the dead space in the northern portion of the map.

However, the differences between the maps don't stop there. On ABL, you can treb Bay without leaving Garrison. This makes the break-in time much shorter. The distance between the objectives is also smaller which gives defenders less options to stall and less warning time. It's also possible to hit multiple walls at once, meaning any siege can be much harder to recover from. Finally, at the southernmost wall, you can use the same siege to hit both inner and outer--an alternate method of reducing the break-in time that also eliminates the primary method by which defenders can stall (pre-siege set-up). The end result is that to hold Bay or even stall for any significant amount of time, you must have a similarly-sized force as your opponent.

Likewise, Hills has multiple cata spots that can hit multiple walls AND hit bother inner and outer. One spot can even hit multiple walls on both inner and outer. There's also the switchback cata spot that is impossible to reach from inside the walls, meaning you have to go out and fight the whole zerg to even get a disable off.

So while upgrading the northern triangle takes longer on ABL, defending the side keeps is also much harder. It also takes far less time to cap a side keep than it does to cap garrison and there are fewer opportunities for defenders to stall.

On top of all that, ABL has a much higher range of visibility. A 20-man group trying to head north will be easily and quickly spotted no matter their path. They also have no choice but to use the east or west switchback to access the northern towers unless they want to run all the way to the northernmost point of the map. This makes it very easy to predict and exploit their path.