152 replies to this topic

[Herr Roy Raven]

It's becoming Alterac Valley from WoW.     Again, this is just beta, I get that, and we have seen very little footage, I also get that.  That is why this is a concern, not a problem.

But watching the videos I have seen, it seems to me this is looking just like Alterac Valley from WoW (I may have that name wrong, been awhile since I played that terrible game).

The problem here is a big group mobs up.  Okay, fine with that.  Teamwork is essential from what we hear.   But, when two opposing mobs meet, there is about a 30 foot gap between both sides, a bunch of AoE spells/channeling spells in that gap with hardly anyone doing any damage and not much progression until one team gets anxious and tries to charge in with melee, leaving the wide open gap.

This gameplay, at least in my WoW experience, encouraged players to spam 1 skill over and over, sit behind other players, and this isn't really how the game should be played.  It also discourages teams from playing with melee weapons.

So my question to all the folks is this:  Is this how you want the game to be played?  It appears mobbing is being encouraged by the way the testers have played so far, rather than having maybe 1-2 people trying to do things.   Would you rather have these massive, spam all AoE skills battles, or would you rather have it more like we've seen from Conquest PvP, where people are using all skills and engaging in the battle?

On a side note to any Arenanet devs - can you please get some pros or film yourselves playing with the press?  I hate to be rude, but I've been watching videos ever since they started being released, and I'm getting sick of watching people look completely clueless.  When I played at PAX Prime, I expected the controls to be a bit difficult, and the combat to take some practice before getting use to based on the videos I've seen over the years.  It's really not as hard as people are making it.  I appreciate the press videos, and love watching them, but it'd be nice to see more "pro" gameplay like we saw when ArenaNet was playing PvP.  I'm kind of getting sick of seeing the typical, "Watch dynamic event in the background while the person filming looks at something shiny and doesn't engage in the actual event".   It's hard to market the game when people aren't playing the way that we'll all play after about 5 minutes of gameplay.  Sorry if this is rude, just being honest.  Oh well, I'm crabby.  I work graveyard and Portland only scored 7pts in the first quarter in a pathetic display.

[Mizarus]

Welcome to World PvP that's how it works, if you want organized PvP play it on smaller scale

[Veles]

WvW can be very very hard to master and organization can take skill and effort. Just depends on how people will want to play this game and WvW in it.

And no, this is nothing like AV.

[Herr Roy Raven]

Mizarus said:

Welcome to World PvP that's how it works, if you want organized PvP play it on smaller scale

And you have played the game to be able to tell me this?

[Mizarus]

Herr Roy Raven said:

And you have played the game to be able to tell me this?

Any game with large scale PvP is like that.

you can have smaller groups of organized players doing well and winning, but most of the time it will be huge zerg groups clashing against each other in pure and total chaos

[Goldenrice]

There are many ways to run past/get around zergs so that you can roam around in enemy zones and do teh gonking


Pretty sure battlegrounds in WoW had alot of forced turtle necking zerg fights.  Not really the case in GW2.  If you wanna avoid the zerg, plenty of ways to get around.

[Kable]

Herr Roy Raven said:

It's becoming Alterac Valley from WoW.     Again, this is just beta, I get that, and we have seen very little footage, I also get that.  That is why this is a concern, not a problem.

But watching the videos I have seen, it seems to me this is looking just like Alterac Valley from WoW (I may have that name wrong, been awhile since I played that terrible game).

The problem here is a big group mobs up.  Okay, fine with that.  Teamwork is essential from what we hear.   But, when two opposing mobs meet, there is about a 30 foot gap between both sides, a bunch of AoE spells/channeling spells in that gap with hardly anyone doing any damage and not much progression until one team gets anxious and tries to charge in with melee, leaving the wide open gap.

This gameplay, at least in my WoW experience, encouraged players to spam 1 skill over and over, sit behind other players, and this isn't really how the game should be played.  It also discourages teams from playing with melee weapons.

So my question to all the folks is this:  Is this how you want the game to be played?  It appears mobbing is being encouraged by the way the testers have played so far, rather than having maybe 1-2 people trying to do things.   Would you rather have these massive, spam all AoE skills battles, or would you rather have it more like we've seen from Conquest PvP, where people are using all skills and engaging in the battle?

On a side note to any Arenanet devs - can you please get some pros or film yourselves playing with the press?  I hate to be rude, but I've been watching videos ever since they started being released, and I'm getting sick of watching people look completely clueless.  When I played at PAX Prime, I expected the controls to be a bit difficult, and the combat to take some practice before getting use to based on the videos I've seen over the years.  It's really not as hard as people are making it.  I appreciate the press videos, and love watching them, but it'd be nice to see more "pro" gameplay like we saw when ArenaNet was playing PvP.  I'm kind of getting sick of seeing the typical, "Watch dynamic event in the background while the person filming looks at something shiny and doesn't engage in the actual event".   It's hard to market the game when people aren't playing the way that we'll all play after about 5 minutes of gameplay.  Sorry if this is rude, just being honest.  Oh well, I'm crabby.  I work graveyard and Portland only scored 7pts in the first quarter in a pathetic display.

What you have seen does not show fully skilled players that know the maps and strats yet.

You compare this to WOW but there are 3 factions here. There are 4 maps to battle in with a huge amount of areas to be held and battled over. The strategies here will be all across the board.

First off we have supply areas. Without supply it will be hard to fend off a larger force. So if the players inside a keep don't have enuff supply and don't control the supply areas they will lose the keeps.

Secondly if you attacking you will need to employ siege weapons. These take a bit to make and need to also be protected.

Third there are npc's you can assist and they will join your side and attack an enemy settlement.

Things will quickly change once people unlock deeper skills and unlock extra weapon abilities. There are shields that protect against range projectiles, There are temporary invulnerability skills that melee can use to allow them into a pile of ranged enemies to start close combat. Give the game some time and we will see alot of amazing battles between skilled and organized guilds and great tactical play.

[thelius]

I would tend to agree with you, so far the WvW I've seen is either the press observing from the distance or the filmer participating in a massive zerg where it's hard to tell what's going on and if anyone is even winning.

I'm holding judgement on whether I like what WvW currently is until we get a video that is actually well made, with someone explaining what is going on so I can judge for myself whether there will be strategy or just zerg tactics.

I remember in the mmorpg.com WvW "Preview" the commentator mentioned that the green team's European guilds had launched an attack and took quite a few keeps. Also he mentioned the red team had done something earlier just like that. I would love to see that with some thoughtful commentary explaining what is actually going on and what the strategy is, etc.

[Shoros]

I don't think there are any videos out yet which really show WvW...in most of them I see the occasional zerg, but I never see for example zerg vs. zerg or even group vs group. This will change oviously in release when you have more players and longer time to play the game.

Obviously, there will be a zerg. Obviously, there is less skill or attention needed when capping keeps with huge zergs. If you don't want to play like this, don't. There will be many ways to go around the zerg and try to cap different objectives.

My only concern is whether you can actually evade the zerg or not. If they spot you from afar, how do you escape if they follow you? Zerg has actually perma-swiftness, as many swiftness buffs are AoE spells which affect anyone in range. If you don't have "enough" buffs to keep it up all the time, you are done. But let's wait and see. Still not sure whether the zones are open enough. They are large, true, but there seem to be many limitations in the terrain.

[Minttunator]

Herr Roy Raven said:

So my question to all the folks is this:  Is this how you want the game to be played?  

Yes, it actually is! :D

Some of my most epic WoW memories are from AV. On the other hand, I think it's a bit early to worry about that - I'm sure the battles will become more varied and tactical once players learn the maps and strats. :)

[Shinimas]

AV was small with quite a few bottlenecks. This type of map promotes small groups roaming around, taking objectives, while the zergs bounce between respawn points, pushing each other back and forth.

That's provided ANet makes small objectives actually worth it.

You can't beat the zerg. That's where all the guild-less players go, into the mindless crowd. But if the design of the map is good, you don't even need to fight this headless monster.

[ProjectMars]

Veles said:

And no, this is nothing like AV.

Nothing like Current AV. The Older AV, which could last weeks, mixed with Wintergrasp would be closer to it if you were to describe it using WoW, which isn't entirely true.

moving on, it is way too soon to get a full grasp on it, plus there's time to fix some issues. That said... yeah, once you get a couple holes opened up in the castle, you will see the siege turn into a giant zerg. That seems about right to take a keep that has some defense up, due to how combat tends to work in general.

And yes, i would like to see a couple bottlenecks... provided that's not the only way to get to a certain spot. Bottlenecks are historically easy to hold (Battle of Thermopylae anyone?) and would help with defense.

Edited by ProjectMars, 21 February 2012 - 07:02 PM.

[Miteshu]

-I want tons of siege battles to accomplish this, I want the below.

-I want walls to be destructible. This way, building catapults outside the walls will be strategic. Zergs could still fight in a battle over the lanes/gate while smaller teams make a hole in the wall for another direction to go inside the keep.
-I want siege weapons(Beside trebuchet) to be mobile(but slow). So that those who wants to build can build siege weapons. They are also helping by guarding a keep.  
-I want siege weapons to cost very little to no money at all[Except siege golem, let them be expensive]. Supplies should be the only resource to make them.
-I don't want a endless tug-of-war between two faction of Zergs between two keep.
-I don't want gates being the only chokepoints to inside the keep. All it does is create an endless tug of war.


-I do want the big zerg group to fight the other big zerg group and capture keeps. But let the smaller teams have multiple jobs to help the big zerg. They could be... position siege weapons, destroy the enemies siege weapons, build the siege weapons, and other general small team activities.

[Atlus]

Which video caused you to form these conclusions?  The Spanish video with the backpedaling Warrior?  Probably not the best example of what high-level WvW PvP will look like, no?

[Gwendia]

It's going to be a mix.  Some times you'll be in big battle with lots of chaos.  Other times you'll be fighting someone 1 vs 1 when they try to gank you along a road.

Players can really do what they want in WvW and still be helpful to their server.  Want to sit on a castle wall and use the cannon/mortar to help defend your territory?  You can do that.  Want to go around with a big zerg assaulting enemy keeps/towers?  You can do that too.  Want to go around solo or in a small group attacking smaller objectives and ganking?  You can also do that.  Want to engage in pve combat to help get your side pve allies?  That is also available.

[Epic_Bear_Guy]

Goldenrice said:

There are many ways to run past/get around zergs so that you can roam around in enemy zones and do teh gonking

This, attack the enemies backside and try to kill straddlers who venture to far away from their mob, and after that attack them on their way back to battle after respawning. I know thats what i'll be doing with my thief in WvWvW. This would actually lower the enemy mobs numbers as well...if your not caught that is.

[Grazel]

I do share the concern of melee not being used
as for the giant mobbing zergfest I am not concerned for a couple of reasons:
-in the final game there will actually be coordination by the guilds so there will be big groups and also some smaller ones to get the supplies or mercenaries

-the mobbing is actually needed otherwise you'll never get through the gates of the keeps and definitly not the big center keep

[Klaleara]

I loved the original Alterac Valley.  Was so epic to fight for days, then finally down their stupid Commander.  Friggn Dwarves.

A better comparison would have to be Warhammer Online though, and as a tank character, I had a ton of fun with it.

No you didn't charge up into the enemy, mostly because....that would be dumb, and you would instantly die.  You had to wait for the right moment, go in, pop anything that will help you survive, get a few good whacks in, and back off.  Making sure you protect all the ranged people.

[Atlus]

Klaleara said:

No you didn't charge up into the enemy, mostly because....that would be dumb, and you would instantly die.

Not if you were an Ironbreaker (me) who regularly ran with the best Warrior Priest in the game!  Your basic point is sound though -- solid groups will find ways to crack the Zerg shell.  Unorganized Zergs are absurdly easy to take down and push back, often even if you are significantly outnumbered.  (In Warhammer, prior to nerfs to AOE stacking, you could easily wipe massive numbers of clumped players in just a few seconds.  Hoping there will be similar Zerg-busting tools in this game that will allow small groups to decimate larger number of idiotic players.  I expect there will be.)

[edwinshap]

The difference between a zerg and a RDS (roving death squad) is purely coordination.

A zerg may have up to 100 people (20 groups) rolling around together, but they will most likely be uncoordinated, and will not attack the same targets, making damage/condition pressure almost nonexistent.  

An RDS of 5-10 players will have a group lead that can quickly and decisively choose the optimal player/position to attack and begin an assault.  AoE and channeled spells on an elementalist can be devastating, even more so when the players are all working together to buff each other.

Also, in AV when a player died, they had no issue since the run was a mere 30 seconds by fast mount, but in WvW you'll be running for quite some time, and you'll probably have to do it a lot since the match doesn't end when you finally capture the first keep, you've still got another 30+ objectives to go ;)

[Unknown Pleasures]

To think that melee has no place in WvW is silly.  Part of the allure of WvW is that it is not balanced and very dynamic.  It is true that when two zergs meet it will be a RDS deathmatch, but only until one side's numbers are picked off enough so that the other side feels comfortable moving in for the wipe.  Also think about the keep, castle and tower fights.  Besides initial siege and the courtyard, the rest of the battle for these objectives will take place indoors where melee will shine.  

You can't be effective 100% of the time, especially as a melee class but ranged and melee have their places in WvW.  Although the truth is that we will probably see more open world "zerg" type stand off fights, but that is why Anet gave every "melee" class effective ranged weapons.  Pull out your longbow or rifle, it is not there for looks or pulling.  Are you a thief?  Use Scorpion Wire http://wiki.guildwar...i/Scorpion_Wire to pull people to your side.  Anet gave every class a plethora of weapons not to give us choices on what we want to use, but to be truly effective we will have to learn to use all of them.

[Siamh]

Herr Roy Raven said:

It's becoming Alterac Valley from WoW.     Again, this is just beta, I get that, and we have seen very little footage, I also get that.  That is why this is a concern, not a problem.

But watching the videos I have seen, it seems to me this is looking just like Alterac Valley from WoW (I may have that name wrong, been awhile since I played that terrible game).

The problem here is a big group mobs up.  Okay, fine with that.  Teamwork is essential from what we hear.   But, when two opposing mobs meet, there is about a 30 foot gap between both sides, a bunch of AoE spells/channeling spells in that gap with hardly anyone doing any damage and not much progression until one team gets anxious and tries to charge in with melee, leaving the wide open gap.

This gameplay, at least in my WoW experience, encouraged players to spam 1 skill over and over, sit behind other players, and this isn't really how the game should be played.  It also discourages teams from playing with melee weapons.

So my question to all the folks is this:  Is this how you want the game to be played?  It appears mobbing is being encouraged by the way the testers have played so far, rather than having maybe 1-2 people trying to do things.   Would you rather have these massive, spam all AoE skills battles, or would you rather have it more like we've seen from Conquest PvP, where people are using all skills and engaging in the battle?

On a side note to any Arenanet devs - can you please get some pros or film yourselves playing with the press?  I hate to be rude, but I've been watching videos ever since they started being released, and I'm getting sick of watching people look completely clueless.  When I played at PAX Prime, I expected the controls to be a bit difficult, and the combat to take some practice before getting use to based on the videos I've seen over the years.  It's really not as hard as people are making it.  I appreciate the press videos, and love watching them, but it'd be nice to see more "pro" gameplay like we saw when ArenaNet was playing PvP.  I'm kind of getting sick of seeing the typical, "Watch dynamic event in the background while the person filming looks at something shiny and doesn't engage in the actual event".   It's hard to market the game when people aren't playing the way that we'll all play after about 5 minutes of gameplay.  Sorry if this is rude, just being honest.  Oh well, I'm crabby.  I work graveyard and Portland only scored 7pts in the first quarter in a pathetic display.

It sounds like your wanting carebear arena-pvp style combat, or warhammer online oriented pvp (ew!) I'm guessing you've never played such World PVP games, Darkfall Online to name one past title, I doubt you would have survived very long, playing that game without unsubscribing by the sounds of your rant, as Darkfall's World PVP was very strict and open ended to whatever tactics the players decided.

Awfully pessimistic  to assume WvWvW will be broken because of zerged grouping in one areas, and spamming one spells?... What? Lol. Combat differentiates from WoW for one, in that most people aren't generally "spamming" one spell.. ugh.

[Misce]

ProjectMars said:

Nothing like Current AV. The Older AV, which could last weeks, mixed with Wintergrasp would be closer to it if you were to describe it using WoW, which isn't entirely true.

moving on, it is way too soon to get a full grasp on it, plus there's time to fix some issues. That said... yeah, once you get a couple holes opened up in the castle, you will see the siege turn into a giant zerg. That seems about right to take a keep that has some defense up, due to how combat tends to work in general.

And yes, i would like to see a couple bottlenecks... provided that's not the only way to get to a certain spot. Bottlenecks are historically easy to hold (Battle of Thermopylae anyone?) and would help with defense.

99% of people that played WoW HATED AV battlegrounds and Winterspring. And for a good reason, too. They were horrible and uninteresting, the only incentive they had were the awards. In a way they were forced to play it.

Old AV was even worse, to tell you the truth. And people who haven't played vanilla WoW and TBC WoW have NO CLUE what REAL open world PvP is. WvWvW is nothing like it, sadly.

[chaosdude]

Honestly, I loved old AV in WoW.  The battles taking forever, actual pve task that helped out the battle overall.  Now its a giant zerg fest to the enemy commander.

[Spids]

First, you cant really compare WvW and AV.

Secound, so far we havent really seen proper WvW in any released video, though I admit it would be nice to see a video of 5 well coordinated players roaming the mists looking for trouble.

My only concern regarding WvW, is the incitaments for killing enemy players.
Warhammer made a huge mistake in their open world pvp. To obtain gear you had to kill keep lords, thus making it more important to bash on doors and keeps, than killing players. I experienced numours times in Warhammer where opposing groups simple ran by each other, because there was no reward associated with killing enemys.

The realmpoints system from DAOC was really great and it gave a really cool incitament for killing players + it gave bonuses to players trying to shirmish away from the zerk. You were rewarded 1000 realmpoints when solo killing an eneny, 150 points when killing a player along with your 8 man group, and 20-30 realmpoints when killing a player while being in a friendy zerg. It really helped the WvW in DAOC not becoming a big zergchaos 24/7..

I am not saying that killing players should be more inportant than taking keeps, or that killing players solo should be rewared more than zerging, but you have to balance it out, and I believe a system that rewards killing should be implemented...

[DutchAres]

Mizarus said:

Welcome to World PvP that's how it works, if you want organized PvP play it on smaller scale

Bullshit, its called bad designed WvW.

If there is no balance between range and melee this will happen.
-Range need to have abilities to get away from a melee train.(group CC, teleport)
-Melee need to have abilities to close a gap(without getting killed by 100 ranged targeting you) and prefered abilities with teamwork in mind. For example:
Like one class/role has an PBAOE shield that protects everyone behind him for 10 seconds or untill he, or someone behind him does damage. Second class/role has a snare abillity. 3th class has a group PBEAO speed boost ability that makes everyones running speed increase for 3 seconds.

I hope they will fix it, not to hard to add these abilities. Only problem i see is adding roles/teamwork since GW2 is designed for solo play (everyone can do all roles, need to be able to hold/capture an objective/flag in structed PVP solo)

Edited by DutchAres, 24 February 2012 - 12:41 PM.

[Dutchsmurf]

The problem with melee fights in WvW is that it works best in organized groups. 1 warrior running up to another group is going to get targeted and killed. 10 warriors will all take about 1/10th of the total damage. The more melee characters present and coordinated, the more dangerous they become. The most dangerous groups in WAR were all melee/PBAoE based who rushed right into a zerg.

[MrAnderson]

But the big problem with zergs is they are all concentrated into one group, and the map is kinda big. That means that smaller squads of 5-10 people can slip past the zerg group, and attack their keeps or raid the surrounding area.

Death is a pretty big thing - you have to walk all the way back. So zergs will basically get weaker and weaker as time goes on because of them getting killed. A 20 man zerg rush isn't that powerful...

[dutch_gamer]

Misce said:

99% of people that played WoW HATED AV battlegrounds and Winterspring. And for a good reason, too. They were horrible and uninteresting, the only incentive they had were the awards. In a way they were forced to play it.

Old AV was even worse, to tell you the truth. And people who haven't played vanilla WoW and TBC WoW have NO CLUE what REAL open world PvP is. WvWvW is nothing like it, sadly.

If people hated old AV so much then why do so many people think of it fondly? And I honestly do believe that people who have been able to play old AV know exactly what real open world PvP because old AV was a lot like RvR in DAoC, the prime example of true open world PvP. And yes, I have played DAoC and old AV resembled Emain Macha RvR, which is where most RvR took place.

----------

Spids said:

The realmpoints system from DAOC was really great and it gave a really cool incitament for killing players + it gave bonuses to players trying to shirmish away from the zerk. You were rewarded 1000 realmpoints when solo killing an eneny, 150 points when killing a player along with your 8 man group, and 20-30 realmpoints when killing a player while being in a friendy zerg. It really helped the WvW in DAOC not becoming a big zergchaos 24/7..

DAoC was still mostly zerg versus zerg even with the realm points system. Sure, there were guild groups roaming around but the vast majority of the player base still ran around with the zerg.

----------

DutchAres said:

Bullshit, its called bad designed WvW.

If there is no balance between range and melee this will happen.
-Range need to have abilities to get away from a melee train.(group CC, teleport)
-Melee need to have abilities to close a gap(without getting killed by 100 ranged targeting you) and prefered abilities with teamwork in mind. For example:
Like one class/role has an PBAOE shield that protects everyone behind him for 10 seconds or untill he, or someone behind him does damage. Second class/role has a snare abillity. 3th class has a group PBEAO speed boost ability that makes everyones running speed increase for 3 seconds.

I hope they will fix it, not to hard to add these abilities. Only problem i see is adding roles/teamwork since GW2 is designed for solo play (everyone can do all roles, need to be able to hold/capture an objective/flag in structed PVP solo)

Someone who focuses on pure melee is still going to get killed by 100 players focused on killing him if the melee decided to close the gap, no matter how if he has a skill for closing gaps or not. WvW is not broken if a melee is going to die too fast because any profession will die rather fast if the player fails to understand how to play.

There is really nothing to fix other than the mentality of some players who think a melee should be able to be useful at times when range is the key. Pretty much every profession has the ability to use range and nothing stops a Warrior to use a ranged weapon instead. A melee oriented character also shines if they know how to help out the ranged oriented characters with their support skills. This is also how you played as melee in DAoC, especially in relic raids. A melee character focuses on making sure the ranged character can do its job or they focus on utilizing siege weapons (ranged oriented character shouldn't use siege weapons when melee oriented characters are available).

[Stargate]

Veles said:

WvW can be very very hard to master and organization can take skill and effort. Just depends on how people will want to play this game and WvW in it.

And no, this is nothing like AV.

If you are arguing that the Mist is different and much bigger then Alterac Valley you speak some truth. That said Alterac Valley from WOW is absolutely the Battleground that reminds me most of the Mist PvP!

Alterac Valley   vs   The Mists
* Both have mines that affect the outcome of victory with resources.
* Both have NPC:s including some monsters that are not humanoid.
* Both have castles and towers.
* Both have PvE... originally the mines are guarded by a neutral faction of humanoids in Alterac Valley and there are wolves and stuff in the terrain. There are even PvE quests in Alterac Valley.
+ The Mists has underwater combat.
+ The Mist has siege weapons and defense weapons(but that did WOW Wintergrasp PvP also have).
+ Alterac valley has max limit of 80 players and The Mist PvP has 2000 players and naturally The Mist area is much bigger then Alterac Valley.

Neutral:
Exactly how players will choose to fight remains to be seen... that is hard for me to judge.

In my mind the Mist sees like an advanced and HUGE form of Alterac Valley. Please also keep in my mind that this was the comparison of what WOW Battleground mostly reminds of the Mist PvP.

dutch_gamer said:

If people hated old AV so much then why do so many people think of it fondly?

I did not hate or love the AV. However I liked that AV for once was so big that you actually could play and fight PvE stuff without running into enemy players for the first minutes. Even then towers and mines were not infested with players it was usually small scale scirmish where actually melee classes had a big chance in thight quarters.

I liked small scale PvP Battlegrounds in WOW also, but for thats exist the Structured PvP in Guild Wars 2. The only thing I miss and hope that they add in expansions regarding PvP is some other forms of Structured PvP like for example Capture the Flag maps.

Edited by Stargate, 25 February 2012 - 08:27 PM.