Is It Possible...

[Timarius.2895]

It is possible with the Guild Wars 2 engine to enable collision with player models in WvW? The most common "strategy" I see in WvW is to group into a massive blob using the cleaves and boon spam/shares to lawnmower through opposing groups. By enabling player collision in WvW, you would force players to spread out their forces and have to worry about their positioning and roles.

 

This was a big deal in Warhammer: Age of Reckoning before bad decisions slowly murdered that game, including the removal of player collisions between teammates. Before that (and the keep defense destroying keep redesign) players would place themselves based on their roles with the tanky blockers up front blocking choke points and channeling their defense to lower ranged damage to teammates behind them while healers sat in the back line doing their thing. Ranged DPS would take flanking positions on the sides of the choke point to try and push the enemy force away with constant AoE damage (which eventually got nerfed into oblivion) while melee DPS would often jump down and use the back door to hit and run.

 

Imagine this kind of gameplay in GW2 with shield bearing characters effectively blocking shots and soaking damage for the mid and back line while the mid line positions for flanking shots and players with targeted ground AoEs try to position them well enough to disrupt the mid or back lines enough to force a push.

 

This one mechanic change completely changes the entire dynamic of WvW for the better, in my opinion. It's certainly not the only change I want to see, but it is one of the biggest.

 

EDIT: And yes I am aware of the strain this causes on servers.

[Sovereign.1093]

wouldbt mind a small sample test to see.

[GDchiaScrub.3241]

GW1 had this with fewer players. It often induced '"rubberbanding" making it look like the ones affected by a _bodyblock_ were still thinking they were moving when serverside they weren't. As per your edit you already know the answer is going to be no anyway leaving nothing left for discussion for reality.

 

D:

[Timarius.2895]

> @"GDchiaScrub.3241" said:

> GW1 had this with fewer players. It often induced '"rubberbanding" making it look like the ones affected by a _bodyblock_ were still thinking they were moving when serverside they weren't. As per your edit you already know the answer is going to be no anyway leaving nothing left for discussion for reality.

>

> D:

 

To be fair GW1 had a ton of rubber banding even without worrying about that. It still does have a lot of rubber banding. I still play it.

 

EDIT: To see Guild Wars 1 rubber banding all you need to do is use autorun for a short distance then switch to normal movement. You can go from one end of the zone to the other doing that.

 

EDIT: To see Guild Wars 2 rubber banding, just don't have enough memory to have mount models constantly ready to go so the game doesn't load your mount model while you're traveling leaving your body sitting in the original position, then dismount. Unless you use a mount attack skill you will rubber band back to where you started.

[iKeostuKen.2738]

Would love this outside of PvE and safe zones. Honestly anything to break up this caveman blob mindset would be a nice change.

[Blocki.4931]

There's not just a switch they could pull to change this. Would require a bunch of work for no gain. This would absolutely break the mode as well. It is designed to encourage stacking with target limits. Besides that peopl would block each other all the time, which is not enjoyable.

[Sovereign.1093]

actually body block will make it more of a zerg

 

front tanks mid range and back range.

 

extreme pirate ship.

 

as for blobbing. its simply a matter of finding your small group and getting better.

[Dawdler.8521]

Said it before plenty of times, collision **and** friendly fire.

 

Zerging would be hilarious.

[Sovereign.1093]

if friendly fire, game would change to fps. =p

[Timarius.2895]

> @"Blocki.4931" said:

> There's not just a switch they could pull to change this. Would require a bunch of work for no gain. This would absolutely break the mode as well. It is designed to encourage stacking with target limits. Besides that peopl would block each other all the time, which is not enjoyable.

 

Believe it or not, I have some programming experience and am under no illusion that they could just type in Player.Collision(true) and make things happen. And it's not that the mode is designed to encourage stacking because of target limits but that target limits were designed to prevent two players from destroying an entire blob. Yes, people would occasionally block each other, which is why you would need coordination and good positioning. Blobs carrying every boon in existence like a pack of meth addicts isn't healthy for the game. Gameplay that boils down to "follow the pink tag and smack anything in the way" isn't something that should be encouraged because it's mindless and only fun for one side.

 

My post was specifically to posit the idea to ArenaNet and question if the Guild Wars 2 engine would be capable of handling it. Honestly, without seeing the code for the game itself, I can't make any specific assessments on that. I don't even understand why it was so difficult to make an ammo mechanic for mantras, but, again, I don't know the GW2 engine.

 

> @"Sovereign.1093" said:

> actually body block will make it more of a zerg

>

> front tanks mid range and back range.

>

> extreme pirate ship.

>

> as for blobbing. its simply a matter of finding your small group and getting better.

 

Body blocking will not "make it more of a zerg". A zerg is not defined by their formation but by the amount of units on the field. Body blocking, however, does make choke points like small castle walls SIGNIFICANTLY more important for defenders since it wouldn't be a flood of 20 people stacked on top of each other. Fights would last longer than 5 seconds and feel much more rewarding. And that's before touching on the various issues of AoEs being placed on the sides of walls to hit people on the walls and various other targeting issues.

 

I want you to put yourself in a situation where an enemy zerg of 50 is coming to a battle against your group of 15. You do well to survive on the walls and are pushed back to the capture room. The enemy has to funnel in to meet you, and suddenly their numbers don't mean as much. It becomes a contest of skill and attrition.

 

If you didn't find the mere thought of that exciting, then I am severely disappointed.

 

EDIT: I say this as somebody who, when WAR wasn't completely terrible, managed to hold off an attacking force of 20 with 3 random allies that weren't even grouped with me using proper positioning and targeted attacks on key enemies. We managed to poke a hole in their offense and forced an initial retreat, and then a full wipe on their second attempt. It was epic. SECOND EDIT: This was before they decided to add a second way up to the top of the keep that was a gigantic ramp that could fit an entire warband with little to no way for defenders to stop them because of its size.

[Sovereign.1093]

body block zerg

 

front line shield guards. anything who push will be pushed back by 55.

 

necro shades and wells will give barriers and healing to the guards. nothing penetrates the front line.

 

unless super glassy backline dropping meteors rev 2

 

imagine all the rangers with 2k range behind those guards and warriors impenetrable shield.

 

unless - game changes to either some sort of fps or something massive change in skills.

 

but i am all for it in any case =) willing to try anything

[Timarius.2895]

> @"Sovereign.1093" said:

> body block zerg

>

> front line shield guards. anything who push will be pushed back by 55.

>

> necro shades and wells will give barriers and healing to the guards. nothing penetrates the front line.

>

> unless super glassy backline dropping meteors rev 2

>

> imagine all the rangers with 2k range behind those guards and warriors impenetrable shield.

>

> unless - game changes to either some sort of fps or something massive change in skills.

>

> but i am all for it in any case =) willing to try anything

 

Targeted ground AoEs don't have infinite range, and other ranged attacks will be soaked by front lines (outside of penetrating attacks on Necro staff 1 and Ranger longbow traited [There may be more that I'm forgetting]). This is why positioning would be HUGE. Flanking to hit the mid line or back line would be a strong maneuver and encourage more than just face smashing against each other. As for targeted ground AoEs, they're already made slightly weaker by the fact that player collision will keep playing from clumping up into the AoE. This makes the fight all about coordination and called targets or better strategic positioning. Either your team focus fires a few of the tanks on the front line to cause a break in the defense, or you move a portion of the group to hit them from the sides or behind.

 

EDIT: Checked the wiki... whew! https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Piercing That's a lot of pierce.

[samo.1054]

It simply would not work in GW2, the game was designed not to use collision and it would be one huge c1ust3rfcuk if collision was enabled.

Additionally, servers would have to calculate player collisions besides all the other things which would DEFINITELY increase the lag.

[Chaba.5410]

Everyone turn on "Melee Assist" and fake collision. Go!

[LetoII.3782]

The AoE cap is more to blame for blobbing in gw2.

But yes, collision would be cool. To get rid of these two though we're talking about a different game. Maybe gw3

 

[Strider Pj.2193]

Can you imagine trying to get into the Lords room of hills?

 

4 ballistas and some REALLY tanky toons could hold off a Zerg....,

 

Would be a great video though.,,

[Aeolus.3615]

@Timarius.2895 2 things that server side wont handle well:

 

Colision detection system would push the server to the limits, same has if there was aoe spam of 20 targets, servers would crash for sure, if we already feel the lag, and sometimes skills or data form server will get faulty and wont reach client in time or lack some validation, imagine the stress that would be the server processing all the colision of players, and try to calculate all the aoe at same time.

 

PS: Colision is done actually on client side, dont know if it work lol... the if u have colision on and clash againt a players that dont use it u will be blocked but the other guy will ghost trough you.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

this game isn't built for collision. it wouldn't work. chokes would be impassable. there wouldn't be enough support in the front line to make pushing possible. it would be a 100% ranged pirate ship fest.

> @"Aeolus.3615" said:

> @Timarius.2895 2 things that server side wont handle well:

>

> Colision detection system would push the server to the limits, same has if there was aoe spam of 20 targets, servers would crash for sure, if we already feel the lag,

I don't get why this would happen. we had much lower or no aoe caps when the game started, so why would there be lag now? more skill effect spam?

[Aeolus.3615]

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> this game isn't built for collision. it wouldn't work. chokes would be impassable. there wouldn't be enough support in the front line to make pushing possible. it would be a 100% ranged pirate ship fest.

> > @"Aeolus.3615" said:

> > @Timarius.2895 2 things that server side wont handle well:

> >

> > Colision detection system would push the server to the limits, same has if there was aoe spam of 20 targets, servers would crash for sure, if we already feel the lag,

> I don't get why this would happen. we had much lower or no aoe caps when the game started, so why would there be lag now? more skill effect spam?

 

In first place that how colision works on servers side, imagine the ammount of players coliding wich each other....and all the refresh rate and all the input and ouput data that would be comming form that alone, game sometimes players already loose the walls phisics and can go in and out like a ghost lol, rare but happens.

We had way more players on the start as well, WvW was supporting way more players as well, reason more aoe means less players limit towards WvW queue(Anet ad to reduce the WvW players pool due all the aoe being spammed by bigger numbers was putting lots of stress on server for sure).

The more condi ticks and damage server calculated the more load it gets, also Anet ported part of their services to amazon on recents years as well, and increases their server park for sure, with some improvements probably on the code as well.

Getting all of that to work w/o many issues would be a big $$ bet, it would be huge toll.

[Etria.3642]

I would hate this, at least in pve. Mounts...zooming along on the beetle and someone logs in...might be interesting to try this as a special event in wvw though.

[tontonUB.4687]

> @"Timarius.2895" said:

> It is possible with the Guild Wars 2 engine to enable collision with player models in WvW? The most common "strategy" I see in WvW is to group into a massive blob using the cleaves and boon spam/shares to lawnmower through opposing groups. By enabling player collision in WvW, you would force players to spread out their forces and have to worry about their positioning and roles.

>

> This was a big deal in Warhammer: Age of Reckoning before bad decisions slowly murdered that game, including the removal of player collisions between teammates. Before that (and the keep defense destroying keep redesign) players would place themselves based on their roles with the tanky blockers up front blocking choke points and channeling their defense to lower ranged damage to teammates behind them while healers sat in the back line doing their thing. Ranged DPS would take flanking positions on the sides of the choke point to try and push the enemy force away with constant AoE damage (which eventually got nerfed into oblivion) while melee DPS would often jump down and use the back door to hit and run.

>

> Imagine this kind of gameplay in GW2 with shield bearing characters effectively blocking shots and soaking damage for the mid and back line while the mid line positions for flanking shots and players with targeted ground AoEs try to position them well enough to disrupt the mid or back lines enough to force a push.

>

> This one mechanic change completely changes the entire dynamic of WvW for the better, in my opinion. It's certainly not the only change I want to see, but it is one of the biggest.

>

> EDIT: And yes I am aware of the strain this causes on servers.

 

I so often dream about this feature being added in GW2 ! But i fear that most of peoples prefer the actual 'clownfest benny hill mode' ruling WvW, from roaming to blob / siege.

[Threather.9354]

GW2 PvP system is too movement based for this to work.

 

 

This sounds like it will be just pewpew wars and people at front raging to people at back and other way around.

 

I would not want to get blocked by a terrible friendly player in Choke Wars 2. Currently the good playerbase can just fight ignoring the bad new players in this advanced combat system instead of some "hold shields" combat system where even monkey can do the job.

 

The ranged gameplay would be so meh tho, currently the interesting part of ranged gameplay is POSITIONING and you would take it away by placing some meatshields at front. This gamemode would just die within a month.

 

Unless you plan to make new skills, new character size, new maps , new traits, remove dodge system etc. Ah and rename the game to Warhammer 2 because GW2 without ability to evade and reposition to any direction is not GW2 anymore.

[Edward H Angle.1407]

no need to actually enable collision detection if it strains the servers... just add social awkwardness instability to wvw

[Handin.4032]

So, if anyone has every played Archeage (like myself), you'll know they had to do a lot to specially tune the game for collision detection. For instance, when the game started, they had to slowly trickle in players because if they all spawned in the same places (racial starting zones), it would basically crash the server. Now imagine how that would work in WvW when a raid WPs into a keep?

 

The 'engine' may allow it, but they would have to do A LOT of modifications to the game to not entirely break the servers every time a raid way pointed, or when 2 raids crashed into each other. Even in AA, the fights tended to have a good amount less people. There's other things like pets and clones. Would mesmer clones act like that too? If so, that adds even more models!

[Shagaliscious.6281]

Just have a massive 50 man blob, everyone running full minstrel gear, muahahahaha. HOW DARE YOU TRY TO GET INTO MY KEEP.