Anet Stance on the Efficiency of Mindless Zerging*

[Blockhead Magee.3092]

> @"Threather.9354" said:

> 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

 

I do not see a single beneficial item in that list. All to the benefit of the door pounders.

[Burnfall.9573]

> @"Cambeleg.7632" said:

> 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.

 

+1

 

Hard Naked Truth In A Nutshell

[Dawdler.8521]

People seem to be missing the fact that there are three servers. If we go hardcore into the idea of a zoneblob vs scattered groups on a fully populated map, its not "60 vs 3x 20". More like 80+ vs ~8x 20. And let me tell you - its practically impossible for the zoneblob to defend against. Why? Because they will have little to no eyes and ears on where the enemy is - even if one of those 20 mans is "easily spotted" running past bay, you have another 140+ players somewhere else on the map that no one has scouted. By the time you reach bay, hills is contested. By the time you reach hills, garrison is contested. By the time you reach garrison, bay flipped. By the time you siege bay, garrison is attacked again. By the time you scare the smaller group from there, hills is flipped. Etc and so on. Yeah the zoneblob might win every "fight" but thats about it.

 

*We've been there*. And its just as stupid running around in circles for easy roflstomps every time. The most amusing thing is when people in the zoneblob start going "take back camps!" and demand roamers do their "job". Yeah and every time you go to a camp with 2-3 people because there is no more available, you meet a 20 man organized group.

[subversiontwo.7501]

The issue in this thread same as any other related issue is tied to population imbalance.

 

Like a couple of people already have pointed out: For PPT purposes spreading out is actually superior.

 

So why are so few people invested havoc capturing? Well, no one cares about winning, so there's no incentive to go out and capture things. Since no one cares about winning, no one really cares about defending either and that takes the wind out of havoc capturing as well since it is rather easy to capture undefended objectives with a party of 5. The thrill of havoc capture comes from the risk of being overwhelmed and from being able to draw largers groups from other things they do on the maps, as such making an impact on the underlying gameplay of the mode.

 

So why have we ended up here? Well, both taking things and defending things feels rather pointless when they will almost always be reset in a drastically more population-imbalanced night time. If you spend effort and resources either taking or defending objectives you can almost be certain that all your effort is wasted by the time you go to bed. That makes winning pointless. That stops people from putting in the effort to either take objectives or defend them with an undermanned force. It makes people focus only on the content that is here and now, and it is far more effortless and rewarding to just run a capture-train or a bag-train then, or possibly compete in BvB.

 

Solving population balance solves **all** these issues. The game mode is inherently broken until they do, until they do the mode will shape another behaviour in the players than what was always intended with the mode. When the game first released we had all these interacting subsets of players because the imbalance had not yet been noticed or grown severe. The more time that has past all these diverse types of player groups and the content that they produce have become more and more scarce. It's not like pickups didn't exist in vanilla but you had far more premades that represented a much larger variety in size, scale and behaviour. After all, if people defend then people will capture and if people tries to capture then there will be targets for roamers etc. All of these things spiral into something positive whereas keeping the broken systems unattended spirals everything into something negative. That is a pretty big deal but ArenaNet does not treat it with the priority or urgency that is reasonable. The reason that it isn't being done is likely a combination of internal competence and preference with player behaviour and stability.

[Sviel.7493]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> People seem to be missing the fact that there are three servers. If we go hardcore into the idea of a zoneblob vs scattered groups on a fully populated map, its not "60 vs 3x 20". More like 80+ vs ~8x 20. And let me tell you - its practically impossible for the zoneblob to defend against. Why? Because they will have little to no eyes and ears on where the enemy is - even if one of those 20 mans is "easily spotted" running past bay, you have another 140+ players somewhere else on the map that no one has scouted. By the time you reach bay, hills is contested. By the time you reach hills, garrison is contested. By the time you reach garrison, bay flipped. By the time you siege bay, garrison is attacked again. By the time you scare the smaller group from there, hills is flipped. Etc and so on. Yeah the zoneblob might win every "fight" but thats about it.

>

> *We've been there*. And its just as stupid running around in circles for easy roflstomps every time. The most amusing thing is when people in the zoneblob start going "take back camps!" and demand roamers do their "job". Yeah and every time you go to a camp with 2-3 people because there is no more available, you meet a 20 man organized group.

 

That's pretty accurate, which is why it's basically impossible to hold the entirety of your home BL in an even, fully populated match-up--but that's a function of being outmanned by design. It doesn't translate practically because we rarely see those kinds of numbers online, there's a significant disparity in defensive stalling ability based on group size, and there's no obvious pathway towards several competent and distinct groups forming and splitting up while communicating with each other and reconverging when necessary. Not to mention, you don't need to hold the southern portion of the map to win. Actually flipping Bay/Hills doesn't need to happen in a 3-way because you're going to be winning the map as long as you hold your northern triangle. Flipping them increases your margin of victory and decreases enemy ability to stage assaults, but you never need to overextend yourself to pull it off. From a PPT perspective in a fully populated match-up, there's never a reason to defend the side keeps if doing so endangers your northern triangle. This is especially true on ABL where the minimum-flip time for the side keeps is super low and the upgrade time for the northern towers is super high.

 

But another thing you pointed out is that a blob cannot work without an appropriate number of eyes and ears on the map. This is absolutely true. No strategy (except karma-training) works without scouts. In addition to relaying information, they must also be able to buy time when an objective is assaulted. The side whose scouts are able to buy more time has a significant advantage in the map. In the same way, the split server(s) must also have scouts. They need to see the zerg coming from as far away as possible to give enough warning time and have any chance to stall. That's why I left room for scouts in the examples I gave.

 

---

 

The main contention that this thread has come to revolve around is whether zerging is more efficient for PPT. There is clearly disagreement on that front.

 

But since PPT doesn't have much of an in-game purpose right now, I'm more curious if anyone believes that zerging isn't more efficient for rewards. Right now, rewards are driving player behavior much more directly than PPT--especially since Anet's idea of reviving WvW is to periodically lure PvE players in with the promise of some shiny thing or another.

[God.2708]

> @"Sviel.7493" said:

> ---

>

> The main contention that this thread has come to revolve around is whether zerging is more efficient for PPT. There is clearly disagreement on that front.

>

> But since PPT doesn't have much of an in-game purpose right now, I'm more curious if anyone believes that zerging isn't more efficient for rewards. Right now, rewards are driving player behavior much more directly than PPT--especially since Anet's idea of reviving WvW is to periodically lure PvE players in with the promise of some shiny thing or another.

 

The most efficient thing to do for rewards is to AFK on an outnumbered map near a camp that you flip back n forth with that one other enemy on the map whilst you learn to code on a second monitor.

[lodjur.1284]

> @"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.

 

You're completely correct about 50 people playing well always crushing 5 people playing well. No matter what changes they do. This isn't really a problem, the smaller group should be obviously be at a disadvantage, or playing outnumbered would stop being fun.

 

But what can be changed is how many "mindless" players that a small organized group can take on and how arbitrary some benefits a bigger group has feels.

 

There is currently a lot of mechanics that favor zergs in an arbitrary way, more so than just more dmg/healing etc, the main ones I can think of are.

 

AoE caps (on offensive skills)

Downstate (mostly the sheer speed of ressing)

Retaliation (often 20%+ of all dmg I take in outnumbered fights)

The state of CC spam

 

Obviously changing one or even all of these things will not magically start making it so that 5 strong players can beat 50 mindless ones, but it would definitively make a difference.

 

It would however make 5v15-25 more common (and in extreme circumstances maybe more).

 

Another route is adding more things that favor the outnumbered, we currently have a small number of those

 

Permeating Wrath is an example that's heavily discussed atm

Rune of Tormenting is another

 

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"lodjur.1284" said:

> > @"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.

>

> You're completely correct about 50 people playing well always crushing 5 people playing well. No matter what changes they do. This isn't really a problem, the smaller group should be obviously be at a disadvantage, or playing outnumbered would stop being fun.

Thats not what I meant at all.

 

The point was that anything which makes small groups stronger, make large groups stronger as well. Because its still a group consisting of the same players.

 

Like saying buff class X it needs to be better at 1v2 and then gets confused when you still loose against two class X.

[lodjur.1284]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > @"lodjur.1284" said:

> > > @"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.

> >

> > You're completely correct about 50 people playing well always crushing 5 people playing well. No matter what changes they do. This isn't really a problem, the smaller group should be obviously be at a disadvantage, or playing outnumbered would stop being fun.

> Thats not what I meant at all.

>

> The point was that anything which makes small groups stronger, make large groups stronger as well. Because its still a group consisting of the same players.

 

Well there are some things that would benefit a smaller group much more, but yes overall most things a small group can use a bit group can use better (the exceptions are the ones I wrote)

 

> Like saying buff class X it needs to be better at 1v2 and then gets confused when you still loose against two class X.

 

That I mostly agree with, some classes do excel at outnumbering however, such as ranger/deadeye for example.

[XenesisII.1540]

There's room in wvw for all size of groups and play styles right down to roamers, the people who come in here thinking it should only be for one group type need to learn to play with the numbers and look for appropriate fights for themselves.

 

Wvw was designed to be big and hold a lot of people, which it hasn't even done in years as most maps are empty most of the day, if you wanted small group only and no zergs then go to spvp or the arenas, or a map that's not ebg, or other games that have instanced battlegrounds.

 

Wvw was meant to be a giant war between three servers, how you participate in whatever role in that war is up to you. Play the game mode for what it is and stop thinking every encounter you have should be a 300! moment.

[Chorazin.4107]

Game was against small groups from the onset. It improved a little with the rally changes, 1 for 1. But the mounts sort of cancelled that out with the auto stomp in the large groups vs small groups debate. And losing one from your 5 man has much more of an impact compared to that zerg losing one in it's 20-30 ppl.

 

Mounts were not needed in WvW, you could get everywhere you need to go in a reasonable time frame with way points and swiftness. Id argue gliding wasnt needed either. This is strictly from a WvW perspective, in PvE I love the roller beetle and ability to glide on a magic carpet.

[Threather.9354]

> @"Blockhead Magee.3092" said:

> > @"Threather.9354" said:

> > 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

>

> I do not see a single beneficial item in that list. All to the benefit of the door pounders.

 

Guild golems and shield gens are both offensive tools used by blobs. Shield gens are obviously busted because they block even trebs and mortars making it so that you don't even have to use time to clear some defensive siege. Anyways defending is busted in general, thats why large zergs dominate. Small group can't take anything right now and that is why blobs can just ignore them. For example lord being sturdier and defenders stronger obviously benefits just blobbing it up as you need more players to take things in reasonable timeframe..

 

Lets say small group wants to push bay on enemy bl to pull them off garrison. 1 guy can shield gen, Yes! as you see currently shield gen is only defensive tool against small groups not big ones, their trebs/catas so they can't use trebs or long range catas. And not only does the lord take ages to kill, there are ewps and very few defenders needed to wipe them because 800 extra stats.

 

Upgrade times should be longer because how do you upgrade SM? Blobbing it up! You just need 1 strong blob for 2 hours and everything is T3 in your BL and even SM, possibly one keep on enemy BL. Before HoT upgrading SM was all day thing and required dedication.

 

You must understand that strong overstacked server blobs can always flip things regardless of balance. Making it harder for them to defend things and allocate resources will also make it harder for them to stay constantly on offense. Keeping keeps/towers lower tier for longer periods of time benefits smaller groups more. And make it so that everyone doesn't have to stack on same server just to flip something.

 

You seem to have this conception that objectives should be impossible to take regardless of how strong/smart your group is, I actually believe in the opposite; As long as you're stronger and/or smarter you should be able to take an objective. Each server will have more highs and lows throughout day.

[joneirikb.7506]

No one has ever agreed with anyone else about what mechanics is helping large/small scale vs which is hindering large/small scale.

 

(The only mechanic I can say 100% support large scale is the target limit)

[Sovereign.1093]

There is no more efficient and easy means to beat everyone except to Zerg and be tanky. I have not met any opposition to date that is able to beat a one team organized blob. None.

 

The only way to make zergng not a thing is to change game mechanics.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

hm, 'mindless zerging' - is that worse than mindless ganking? 5v1 people?

 

Apart from that, clever commanders can do a lot with small squads - and you don't need a blob to defend a keep against a blob. You do not even need a tag.

[Burnfall.9573]

> @"subversiontwo.7501" said:

> The issue in this thread same as any other related issue is tied to population imbalance.

>

> Like a couple of people already have pointed out: For PPT purposes spreading out is actually superior.

>

> So why are so few people invested havoc capturing? Well, no one cares about winning, so there's no incentive to go out and capture things. Since no one cares about winning, no one really cares about defending either and that takes the wind out of havoc capturing as well since it is rather easy to capture undefended objectives with a party of 5. The thrill of havoc capture comes from the risk of being overwhelmed and from being able to draw largers groups from other things they do on the maps, as such making an impact on the underlying gameplay of the mode.

>

> So why have we ended up here? Well, both taking things and defending things feels rather pointless when they will almost always be reset in a drastically more population-imbalanced night time. If you spend effort and resources either taking or defending objectives you can almost be certain that all your effort is wasted by the time you go to bed. That makes winning pointless. That stops people from putting in the effort to either take objectives or defend them with an undermanned force. It makes people focus only on the content that is here and now, and it is far more effortless and rewarding to just run a capture-train or a bag-train then, or possibly compete in BvB.

>

> Solving population balance solves **all** these issues. The game mode is inherently broken until they do, until they do the mode will shape another behaviour in the players than what was always intended with the mode. When the game first released we had all these interacting subsets of players because the imbalance had not yet been noticed or grown severe. The more time that has past all these diverse types of player groups and the content that they produce have become more and more scarce. It's not like pickups didn't exist in vanilla but you had far more premades that represented a much larger variety in size, scale and behaviour. After all, if people defend then people will capture and if people tries to capture then there will be targets for roamers etc. All of these things spiral into something positive whereas keeping the broken systems unattended spirals everything into something negative. **That is a pretty big deal but ArenaNet does not treat it with the priority or urgency that is reasonable**. The reason that it isn't being done is likely a combination of internal competence and preference with player behaviour and stability.

 

**+10+**

 

including everything you stated, this is the 'Holy Grail' root cause problem of it all

[Sovereign.1093]

I really like the 10 man teams. If there's something a small group can do to get stuff it's separate and focus on one target even if they die. Multiple groups of 10 can achieve it.

 

10 for bay hills. Towers camps Gary. And group up to take the last remaining structure.

 

But, ppt isnt re warding. Because we all can get the same rewards. So, as you say, we need a reason to ppt.

[Captain Kuro.8937]

If they raise the 5 target cap to 10 , then even the enemy zerg will benefit from that .

Maybe the commander has a ''chance'' to get a random siege weapon that is highlighted in gold and is ready to deployed . It can be used 3 times (preferable from the person in his group) and then is destroyed or becomes a ''rock'' can you can hide behind , or ''bowling push/kick '' it to the enemy . The chances + availability increase on how few Buildings you have captured .

Or the rarest cases (like the Blue Shell) , a golem for 10 sec that automatically will move in the direction that the commander will point him at the start (cannot redirect anymore) . And change his color with a 5 sec cd , where green removes conditions every sec , while blue creates a circular Guardian Warding that the enemy cannot pass . And in the end Red that creates a area (layer on the air) where the enemy cannot place his ground aoes on your feet . Or Rush straight and self destruct .

 

About splitting ...hmm

For the Attacker : Attacking a Building , you get a message from a scout that an nearby Building have reduced Fortifications and is weaken . Capturing both in 13 min offer 300 Server PPT and a chance for all the server to get a chest containing a pre-weapon..how you called it ? Dusk ? .

For Defenders : defending a place for 4 min , place a aura on his server Commanders for 15 min , (stacks 2 times) that increase siege weapon damage to Buildings

 

Or Rams no longer cost supplies , but you must have captured a nearby Suply Deposit base . If you have outnumber or less than 25% of the World Buildings , or Offhours there isn't a backfire . Suply Deposits Lord immortality/cannot be flipped cd is reduced by 30 sec (from 4:30 sec) , for each time a nearby enemy Ram is hitting your Building .

Rams can have maxed damage when:

a) Supply Deposit is yours

b) When The Supply Lord is alive

 

Maybe a Defender every time he is doing 5k damage on the zerg , then another a random player will have 5 sec to push''teleport to Building for Defence'' . The more ppl are summoned , thay way , the more damage is needed to summon others .

The first defender can soulbind the Building and teleporting ot it in a danger . Sucrificing 50 silver and gets 1 silver back every 30 sec (max 8 min) , as long as the Building is not flipped to the enemy