Small Scale Fighting WVWWVW - Yes or No? Why (Not)?

[shinta.8906]

smallscale allways was at max a full group in core times - so 1 - 5 people. everything above was considered zerging or raid.

 

still relevant btw

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"Ghostof Luzifer.6159" said:

> > @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > Three 25 man squads can already dominate a border where the other sides only have 50+ man borderzergs. A single zerg simply cannot be everywhere at once. A matchup is won by PPT, not zergs. I've seen situations where two enemy sides only have smaller squads and it's the zerg is just running around loosing ground constantly, because if you are on a keep there are literally 4-6 sizeable groups running around elsewhere and there are no one on your side capable of fighting any of them other than with the full zerg. Like chasing shadows, take one objective and loose 3.

> >

> > So the game already encourage smallscale. That most players are scared hamsters that prefer to ignore this and bunch together in a single borderzerg is a whole other matter.

>

> So winning should be more meaningfull, in order to push people more towards smaller zergs. I wonder if alliances and guild pride will be an incentive enough in order to make winning matter. Probably leader boards for alliances would be a great incentive or other visual effects.

 

I imagine anything that does away with the server nonsense will help WvW as it's one of the major barriers keeping players who otherwise might be willing to get into it from trying it. But will it change the way the game is played? I doubt it. WvW lacks structure. There is no ultimate goal beyond holding the most territory, no series of steps to reach it, and no meaningful rewards to provide incentive toward doing so. I don't think alliances are going to change that.

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > @"Ghostof Luzifer.6159" said:

> > > @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > > Three 25 man squads can already dominate a border where the other sides only have 50+ man borderzergs. A single zerg simply cannot be everywhere at once. A matchup is won by PPT, not zergs. I've seen situations where two enemy sides only have smaller squads and it's the zerg is just running around loosing ground constantly, because if you are on a keep there are literally 4-6 sizeable groups running around elsewhere and there are no one on your side capable of fighting any of them other than with the full zerg. Like chasing shadows, take one objective and loose 3.

> > >

> > > So the game already encourage smallscale. That most players are scared hamsters that prefer to ignore this and bunch together in a single borderzerg is a whole other matter.

> >

> > So winning should be more meaningfull, in order to push people more towards smaller zergs. I wonder if alliances and guild pride will be an incentive enough in order to make winning matter. Probably leader boards for alliances would be a great incentive or other visual effects.

>

> I imagine anything that does away with the server nonsense will help WvW as it's one of the major barriers keeping players who otherwise might be willing to get into it from trying it. But will it change the way the game is played? I doubt it. WvW lacks structure. There is no ultimate goal beyond holding the most territory, no series of steps to reach it, and no meaningful rewards to provide incentive toward doing so. I don't think alliances are going to change that.

Well its not supposed to. It's only supposed to level out the population variances of monolithic servers.

 

I'm hoping that we will *finally* actually get to show our "world" (alliance in this case) on claims and the like. One of the core issues with the link system has always been single representation of the world.

 

[Strider Pj.2193]

@"Dawdler.8521" is right. The mechanics are in place to allow smaller groups to control structure holding in order to win the matchup.

 

It won’t become more prevalent until the commanders’ perspective on what ‘winning’ means. Many commanders find ‘winning’ meaningful only for the fight they are in or are going to get in. Some others view a win being holding a large structure against a larger force.

 

Until winning the matchup or winning the skirmish has more meaning or value, groups will continue to stay large as the current mechanism makes a larger Zerg (mostly) more effective vs a smaller Zerg. (With some obvious exceptions)

 

Which brings many potential problems to the forefront...

[Ghostof Luzifer.6159]

> I'm hoping that we will *finally* actually get to show our "world" (alliance in this case) on claims and the like. One of the core issues with the link system has always been single representation of the world.

>

 

I think it would be great if everyone could see guild and alliance influence through claims. It would encourage guild/alliance pride and maybe encourage more defense of claims.

[Kraljevo.2801]

Small scale fights emerge when there's a reason to win the matchups (Source: WvW tournaments).

 

Alliances need to be added first, I think that is obvious. Once that is done, I hope that they explore new ideas for weekly rewards and tournaments but that's just wishful thinking on my part.

 

 

[SexyMofo.8923]

Small scale fights happen all the time. There are just less havoc groups now because all the smaller organized guilds have quit the game. All that’s left are pugs who don’t have any idea how to contribute as an individual, so they follow the Zerg. It’s a dead game mode.

[juno.1840]

You can small scale team all you want -- you simply have to make it happen.

 

15-person teams can make a significant impact on the skirmish score... but that's not going to be from PPK.

 

Don't expect to find other small groups 100% of the time, or to not be rolled by map queues. That's the nature of the game mode and it won't change.

 

[Ghostof Luzifer.6159]

> @"juno.1840" said:

> You can small scale team all you want -- you simply have to make it happen.

>

> 15-person teams can make a significant impact on the skirmish score... but that's not going to be from PPK.

>

> Don't expect to find other small groups 100% of the time, or to not be rolled by map queues. That's the nature of the game mode and it won't change.

>

 

> @"SexyMofo.8923" said:

> Small scale fights happen all the time. There are just less havoc groups now because all the smaller organized guilds have quit the game. All that’s left are pugs who don’t have any idea how to contribute as an individual, so they follow the Zerg. It’s a dead game mode.

 

I know that there are small scale fights and it technically is possible to have an impact as a small group. However I am more interessted if you would like it if the game mode would encourage/force smaller groups? Basically that smaller group are as necessary as bigger zergs

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"Ghostof Luzifer.6159" said:

> > @"juno.1840" said:

> > You can small scale team all you want -- you simply have to make it happen.

> >

> > 15-person teams can make a significant impact on the skirmish score... but that's not going to be from PPK.

> >

> > Don't expect to find other small groups 100% of the time, or to not be rolled by map queues. That's the nature of the game mode and it won't change.

> >

>

> > @"SexyMofo.8923" said:

> > Small scale fights happen all the time. There are just less havoc groups now because all the smaller organized guilds have quit the game. All that’s left are pugs who don’t have any idea how to contribute as an individual, so they follow the Zerg. It’s a dead game mode.

>

> I know that there are small scale fights and it technically is possible to have an impact as a small group. However I am more interessted if you would like it if the game mode would encourage/force smaller groups? Basically that smaller group are as necessary as bigger zergs

I thought we already made that point? They already "encourage" smallscale in the sense that you want to fight in a group to take objectives. But its not like its *necessary* to bring an 80 man zoneblob to a T0 tower defended by one enemy. This is all soft encouragement around the objective capping and PPT system. There is plenty of other things that work like this. Hell, even mounts now encourage you to run in small groups just to dismount enemies and stop them advancing, which of course encourage *them* to bring larger groups deeper into borders.

 

If you want some sort of hard encouragement that says well you can only cap a tower with more than 10 but less than 20 people in the circle I would definetly be against it.

 

[lodjur.1284]

> @"shinta.8906" said:

> smallscale allways was at max a full group in core times - so 1 - 5 people. everything above was considered zerging or raid.

>

> still relevant btw

>

 

Whenever people talk about 15 man groups being smallscale I can't stop laughing tbh.

[bigo.9037]

From a game design perspective I think anet should have done something about this a long time ago. Small group is 10 times better for the community and gameplay than 30+ sized groups.

 

If the same number of people played, but split into smaller groups of.. about 5-10 players instead of 20+ per squad, it would make each player more willing to improve and be more fun as their actions matter far more. If you are only 1 player out of 50.. you can only do so much. You are only 2% of the squad, so you barely make a difference. But if you are 1 out of 5, you are 20% of the group. You could be the one that makes your team win a fight.

 

What gw2 wvw should have been was an automatic queue system like wvw is already, but where you fight small guilds on a smaller battlefield. Perhaps the max amount of people in the match 24 hours allowed to be in the match at any given time would be 10, so it's relatively easy for a decently sized guild to have an equal amount of players on all sides.

 

That would make skill and strategy super important rather than a numbers game where you just need a server with as many people playing as possible throughout 24 hours..

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"bigo.9037" said:

> What gw2 wvw should have been was an automatic queue system like wvw is already, but where you fight small guilds on a smaller battlefield.

But why would we want that when we are already fighting small guilds on a bigger battlefield?

 

[Fat Disgrace.4275]

> @"spectrito.8513" said:

> We already have ganking squads running in green and blue BL.

> Just look for one.

>

Why do you say that? i bet your zerg will chase them down.

 

[Absconditus.6804]

I see a lot of small 5-15 groups in WvW every single day on EU at least. Maybe it's just the current matchup, though it were the case in the one before it too. I think it were in the one before that as well, but my memory is getting a bit hazy. I even see a good number of duo/trios running about who are more than happy to fight. Maybe it's because I attack them on my own and they know they can probably kill me :)

[bigo.9037]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > @"bigo.9037" said:

> > What gw2 wvw should have been was an automatic queue system like wvw is already, but where you fight small guilds on a smaller battlefield.

> But why would we want that when we are already fighting small guilds on a bigger battlefield?

>

 

Because 1 smaller guild doesn't necessarily have a big impact on the match. You need several guilds to win the weekly matchup. Or one huge guild I guess.

 

It just needs to be made easier for small groups to achieve meaningful results that impact the outcome of match.

 

There's no reason for a bunch of newbies to join a wvw guild when they can just be pugs, follow pug commander, have basically 0 input in the match cus they are only 1 person out of 150-200 people during a weekly match. So to the newbie he might feel like wvw is boring because he doesn't contribute to anything really. And so he also doesn't really care about winning. There's no sense of community.

 

If instead he started with a wvw guild for beginners, he is a much bigger part of the match and he directly contributes to the outcome. This is more engaging for everyone.

[LucasC.4016]

I'm a new player and as such don't have loads of experience with wvw, but here's one wild idea: what if aoe skills could hit more targets?

 

I mean, to promote small scale fights, zerging should be heavily punished in some way... And being able to hit only 5 players with aoe strongly encourages zerging, as players are _safer_ when tightly stacked in a blob.

 

Some concerns with this idea:

* wouldn't this get scourge damage just way too out of hand, more than it already is?

* i've found an old forum post that mentions technical problems with this, as it could mean way too much information for the server to handle if 50 players are hitting the other 50 players each at the same time. That would have been the reason the cap exists in the first place.

* defenders advantage would be greatly increased with this, as tight choke points could be exploited

 

 

Well, consider this:

- aoe damage could in deed get out of hand, _but only if players kept stacking tightly in a blob_. If they spread out, damage would be manageable

- same goes for the server problems... _if players spread out_, there wouldn't be many situations of 50 players hitting 50 players each. Maybe in those choke points, sure, but not on open field.

- as of what i've seen and heard, players don't defend structures that much anymore. And when they do, they are usually vastly outnumbered. This change would mean that a handful of players could actually stand a chance of defending against an enemy zerg. This encourages a more tactical approach to the fight (as good positioning and smart movement would be even more important) and makes way to a smaller team outwitting the opponent instead of battles being won by simply outnumbering your opponent. Also, it could encourage build diversity as the attacking zerg would greatly benefit from having a number of players dedicated to protecting the zerg when going through choke points, with barriers, reflects and such skills. And maybe dps elementalists would have a better place in the game as well (as they need).

 

I really don't understand the technical issues in all their technicality, and I'm sure this is not a simple issue, but i'm guessing it's also not that much of a stretch to ask for an increase in the cap, if a cap really is necessary. Zerging is the one thing that turns me off from wvw, and I think the game mode could really be rekindled if zerg vs zerg would become a larger skirmish style battle.

 

What do you guys think?

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"bigo.9037" said:

> > @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > > @"bigo.9037" said:

> > > What gw2 wvw should have been was an automatic queue system like wvw is already, but where you fight small guilds on a smaller battlefield.

> > But why would we want that when we are already fighting small guilds on a bigger battlefield?

> >

>

> Because 1 smaller guild doesn't necessarily have a big impact on the match. You need several guilds to win the weekly matchup. Or one huge guild I guess.

>

> It just needs to be made easier for small groups to achieve meaningful results that impact the outcome of match.

>

> There's no reason for a bunch of newbies to join a wvw guild when they can just be pugs, follow pug commander, have basically 0 input in the match cus they are only 1 person out of 150-200 people during a weekly match. So to the newbie he might feel like wvw is boring because he doesn't contribute to anything really. And so he also doesn't really care about winning. There's no sense of community.

>

> If instead he started with a wvw guild for beginners, he is a much bigger part of the match and he directly contributes to the outcome. This is more engaging for everyone.

The point of WvW is to give us a playground. What happens with the community - and how guilds contribute to the matchup - is all up to the community. WvW definetly encourage the community to get engaged and form guilds.

 

I find it kind of amusing that people keep bringing up the "meaningful results" and "outcome" of WvW matches since pretty much every guild in existance claim they dont care about that. Not to mention a vast majority of commanders. Hell we even see them saying to *loose intentionally* just because they want to stick to brackets where the good fights. And we still have those playing daily.

[bigo.9037]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > @"bigo.9037" said:

> > > @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > > > @"bigo.9037" said:

> > > > What gw2 wvw should have been was an automatic queue system like wvw is already, but where you fight small guilds on a smaller battlefield.

> > > But why would we want that when we are already fighting small guilds on a bigger battlefield?

> > >

> >

> > Because 1 smaller guild doesn't necessarily have a big impact on the match. You need several guilds to win the weekly matchup. Or one huge guild I guess.

> >

> > It just needs to be made easier for small groups to achieve meaningful results that impact the outcome of match.

> >

> > There's no reason for a bunch of newbies to join a wvw guild when they can just be pugs, follow pug commander, have basically 0 input in the match cus they are only 1 person out of 150-200 people during a weekly match. So to the newbie he might feel like wvw is boring because he doesn't contribute to anything really. And so he also doesn't really care about winning. There's no sense of community.

> >

> > If instead he started with a wvw guild for beginners, he is a much bigger part of the match and he directly contributes to the outcome. This is more engaging for everyone.

> The point of WvW is to give us a playground. What happens with the community - and how guilds contribute to the matchup - is all up to the community. WvW definetly encourage the community to get engaged and form guilds.

>

> I find it kind of amusing that people keep bringing up the "meaningful results" and "outcome" of WvW matches since pretty much every guild in existance claim they dont care about that. Not to mention a vast majority of commanders. Hell we even see them saying to *loose intentionally* just because they want to stick to brackets where the good fights. And we still have those playing daily.

 

Well, that's exactly what I mean. If the matches were e fun and engaging and winning, other than leaderboards and bragging rights, provided some rewards then maybe more people would care.

Contrary to what you said, the general population of my server is currently trying to win, and succeeding, even tho certain commanders don't want to win because if we do we'll have a tough matchup next week.

[spectrito.8513]

> @"Fat Disgrace.4275" said:

> > @"spectrito.8513" said:

> > We already have ganking squads running in green and blue BL.

> > Just look for one.

> >

> Why do you say that? i bet your zerg will chase them down.

>

 

Personal experience.

I was solo roaming yesterday, capped a camp then there was a thief and a soulbeast(blue team) starring at me from bay's outter wall, i started to dance trying to taunt them, but didnt worked, they only came for me when a DH showed up, i couldnt handle a 3v1 ,so i fled.

When i was getting close to the ruins there was a group of 7-8 players (green team) hanging around near the sentry when they saw me running desperately, for one moment i thought they would help me, but no.... if its red is dead...they killed us all, except the thief, he managed to escape.

I was ganked by this group 3-4 times when trying to cap a sentry/camp.

Opened my roaming guild panel "last online 1month"

Switched over to EB, there was no tags running i logged off.

Sad but true history

[Shroud.2307]

> @"SWI.4127" said:

> > @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > Three 25 man squads can already dominate a border where the other sides only have 50+ man borderzergs. A single zerg simply cannot be everywhere at once. A matchup is won by PPT, not zergs. I've seen situations where two enemy sides only have smaller squads and it's the zerg is just running around loosing ground constantly, because if you are on a keep there are literally 4-6 sizeable groups running around elsewhere and there are no one on your side capable of fighting any of them other than with the full zerg. Like chasing shadows, take one objective and loose 3.

> >

> > So the game already encourage smallscale. That most players are scared hamsters that prefer to ignore this and bunch together in a single borderzerg is a whole other matter.

>

> Of course you can do a lot with smaller squads PPT-wise, but the thread is about small scale fights. If you have 15 or less, there are very few "fair" fights you're going to get in this game unfortunately. Few and far between.

 

Looking for fair fights is the issue, imo. Too many people are hellbent on only engaging what they believe has high potential for success or avoiding fights all together unless they have a significant advantage.

 

Though I understand the nature of self preservation and picking your battles, I don't understand why people suddenly stop enjoying themselves if they lose. The excitement is in the fight, victory should be the goal not the standard. There are many fights I have a lot of fun with even when I lose, and when I'm with a couple friends, we often make multiple attempts on encounters that don't favor us until we're certain it's suicide. Though even then, there are many times we try anyway because combat is fun.

 

Of course, I'm not saying it doesn't suck to slowly get overwhelmed or to only find groups triple your size. I am saying that I see too many people blaming losses on the advantages of their enemies rather than looking for ways to exploit those advantages. A small group may not be able to handle a full zerg straight on, but there are plenty of ways to avoid those scenarios to gain an upper hand. Success feels a whole lot better when you overcome odds.

 

I don't like getting zerged when I'm alone or +1'd (or +10'd) when I'm having a good fight just like anyone else. But it's the nature of an open world. You can't be prepared for everything and you can't expect every encounter to have balance, be that by numbers, skill, profession or otherwise. But you can always try again.

[Ghostof Luzifer.6159]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > @"Ghostof Luzifer.6159" said:

> > > @"juno.1840" said:

> > > You can small scale team all you want -- you simply have to make it happen.

> > >

> > > 15-person teams can make a significant impact on the skirmish score... but that's not going to be from PPK.

> > >

> > > Don't expect to find other small groups 100% of the time, or to not be rolled by map queues. That's the nature of the game mode and it won't change.

> > >

> >

> > > @"SexyMofo.8923" said:

> > > Small scale fights happen all the time. There are just less havoc groups now because all the smaller organized guilds have quit the game. All that’s left are pugs who don’t have any idea how to contribute as an individual, so they follow the Zerg. It’s a dead game mode.

> >

> > I know that there are small scale fights and it technically is possible to have an impact as a small group. However I am more interessted if you would like it if the game mode would encourage/force smaller groups? Basically that smaller group are as necessary as bigger zergs

> I thought we already made that point? They already "encourage" smallscale in the sense that you want to fight in a group to take objectives. But its not like its *necessary* to bring an 80 man zoneblob to a T0 tower defended by one enemy. This is all soft encouragement around the objective capping and PPT system. There is plenty of other things that work like this. Hell, even mounts now encourage you to run in small groups just to dismount enemies and stop them advancing, which of course encourage *them* to bring larger groups deeper into borders.

>

> If you want some sort of hard encouragement that says well you can only cap a tower with more than 10 but less than 20 people in the circle I would definetly be against it.

>

 

I understand your point and I think you are right. However currently people are running around mainly in zergs at least from what I experience. Therefor something would need to change in wvw. What you argue is that it is allready supported enough through the game modes structure. What other people pointed out correctly is that in order to get people to use all the advantages of small groups one should care about winning. A change to wvw that incentivses winning would be one solution. That is what I want to discuss. The people I answered to did not tackle this question imo thats why i repeated myself. I used the orginal question since they may have a different solution apporach. :smile:

[Ghostof Luzifer.6159]

> @"LucasC.4016" said:

> I'm a new player and as such don't have loads of experience with wvw, but here's one wild idea: what if aoe skills could hit more targets?

>

> I mean, to promote small scale fights, zerging should be heavily punished in some way... And being able to hit only 5 players with aoe strongly encourages zerging, as players are _safer_ when tightly stacked in a blob.

>

> Some concerns with this idea:

> * wouldn't this get scourge damage just way too out of hand, more than it already is?

> * i've found an old forum post that mentions technical problems with this, as it could mean way too much information for the server to handle if 50 players are hitting the other 50 players each at the same time. That would have been the reason the cap exists in the first place.

> * defenders advantage would be greatly increased with this, as tight choke points could be exploited

>

>

> Well, consider this:

> - aoe damage could in deed get out of hand, _but only if players kept stacking tightly in a blob_. If they spread out, damage would be manageable

> - same goes for the server problems... _if players spread out_, there wouldn't be many situations of 50 players hitting 50 players each. Maybe in those choke points, sure, but not on open field.

> - as of what i've seen and heard, players don't defend structures that much anymore. And when they do, they are usually vastly outnumbered. This change would mean that a handful of players could actually stand a chance of defending against an enemy zerg. This encourages a more tactical approach to the fight (as good positioning and smart movement would be even more important) and makes way to a smaller team outwitting the opponent instead of battles being won by simply outnumbering your opponent. Also, it could encourage build diversity as the attacking zerg would greatly benefit from having a number of players dedicated to protecting the zerg when going through choke points, with barriers, reflects and such skills. And maybe dps elementalists would have a better place in the game as well (as they need).

>

> I really don't understand the technical issues in all their technicality, and I'm sure this is not a simple issue, but i'm guessing it's also not that much of a stretch to ask for an increase in the cap, if a cap really is necessary. Zerging is the one thing that turns me off from wvw, and I think the game mode could really be rekindled if zerg vs zerg would become a larger skirmish style battle.

>

> What do you guys think?

 

Interessting idea. As a coordinated small zerg you could burst bigger zergs and punish them quickly maybe... I think however that zerging should still be part of the game just not as the dominant playstyle. If your approach would work it would destroy zerging and other people who rather enjoy blobbing would be angry.

[SWI.4127]

> @"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:

> > @"SWI.4127" said:

> > > @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > > Three 25 man squads can already dominate a border where the other sides only have 50+ man borderzergs. A single zerg simply cannot be everywhere at once. A matchup is won by PPT, not zergs. I've seen situations where two enemy sides only have smaller squads and it's the zerg is just running around loosing ground constantly, because if you are on a keep there are literally 4-6 sizeable groups running around elsewhere and there are no one on your side capable of fighting any of them other than with the full zerg. Like chasing shadows, take one objective and loose 3.

> > >

> > > So the game already encourage smallscale. That most players are scared hamsters that prefer to ignore this and bunch together in a single borderzerg is a whole other matter.

> >

> > Of course you can do a lot with smaller squads PPT-wise, but the thread is about small scale fights. If you have 15 or less, there are very few "fair" fights you're going to get in this game unfortunately. Few and far between.

>

> Looking for fair fights is the issue, imo. Too many people are hellbent on only engaging what they believe has high potential for success or avoiding fights all together unless they have a significant advantage.

>

> Though I understand the nature of self preservation and picking your battles, I don't understand why people suddenly stop enjoying themselves if they lose. The excitement is in the fight, victory should be the goal not the standard. There are many fights I have a lot of fun with even when I lose, and when I'm with a couple friends, we often make multiple attempts on encounters that don't favor us until we're certain it's suicide. Though even then, there are many times we try anyway because combat is fun.

>

> Of course, I'm not saying it doesn't suck to slowly get overwhelmed or to only find groups triple your size. I am saying that I see too many people blaming losses on the advantages of their enemies rather than looking for ways to exploit those advantages. A small group may not be able to handle a full zerg straight on, but there are plenty of ways to avoid those scenarios to gain an upper hand. Success feels a whole lot better when you overcome odds.

>

> I don't like getting zerged when I'm alone or +1'd (or +10'd) when I'm having a good fight just like anyone else. But it's the nature of an open world. You can't be prepared for everything and you can't expect every encounter to have balance, be that by numbers, skill, profession or otherwise. But you can always try again.

 

Well I agree. My guild doesn't turn down the chance to fight against the odds. Fighting outnumbered makes you improve IMO. At a certain point though, odds just can't be overcome. I've died so many times just getting W-keyed by a group of 50 where they don't even have to dodge or use any of their skills in a competent manner...they simply just have way more people. That's what can get disheartening and it would be good to give some incentive to splitting up into 10-20s, 20-30s groups instead. It makes for more engaging fights (my opinion of course), and hey...the game would be overall less laggy if it wasn't always omniblob v omniblob v omniblob.

[jakt.9381]

Its hard to incentivize small scale fights where there is no incentive to WvW in the first place.