Countering zerging in T2/3

[Grumpbot]

Honestly, I think that when most people use the term "zerging" it's an excuse to suggest that the other side won through numbers rather than skill. Sometimes the numbers are hopelessly imbalanced, and there is nothing you can do to avoid the possibility of that situation other than control the number of players on each side (scenarios).

I think people can and do underestimate the degree of skill that it takes to PUG.

In an organized group -- be it a scenario premade, organized 6 man or warband+, you are trying to leverage an advantage by controlling as many things ahead of time as you can. You ensure you have an ideal composition, the best gear possible, active lines of communication (frequently over voice), etc. This takes some degree of skill, but it's organizational skill rather than pure gameplay skill.

When you pug, you can't rely on easy communication or expect your group members to have tuned, geared characters. You can't count on an optimal composition. Instead, you have to adapt to what you do have. You have to play your character the best you can while reading the flow of battle and making decisions on the fly that you can't necessarily check with others. This take skill, and a PUG of people that can do this well are going to do a lot better than a PUG that doesn't.

I haven't been playing this particular server for long, but I've seen vast variations already in PUG warband skill even in just the first few tiers. I've seen outnumbered players successfully fight a tactical retreat while blunting the enemy's push, turning it and routing the enemy back to their warcamp. I've also seen warbands crumble and rout at the slightest sign of danger. You can't claim that individual player skill didn't factor into that. Similarly, trying to organize and lead a pug is difficult. Some people do it a lot better than others. Leading a premade is hard too, but in very different ways.

Consider an analogy: music. There are some musicians that are absolutely brilliantly talented but can't really play well with a group. Still other musicians play well in an established group but can't jam to save their life. Still others can pick up with a handful of other musicians and sound fantastic even though they aren't as technically proficient. All of these are different kinds of skill, and all are valid.

Ultimately, I think this comes down in large part to elitism. People who view themselves as skilled don't like losing to people they view as unskilled, and many people only recognize the kind of skill that they themselves have. There is a large tendency in players to disrespect the playstyle of others who play the game in a different way. Ultimately, forcing a game to cater to one playstyle over all others is unhealthy to the game. If you set up a game such that premades have a strict advantage that can't be countered even through numbers, then more casual players will stop playing. Additionally, new players will be turned off PvP because there is no space to learn in.

Similarly, if you cultivate an atmosphere where bandwagoning and playing lazy has no consequences, then players who enjoy a more engaged and dynamic experience will stop playing.

The challenge for the devs is to find the right balance, and that will always be a work in progress. Live servers faced this challenge in that some players would always try to join the winning side, so servers tended to be quite imbalanced. Here we have the same problem in the form of crossrealming. It's an extremely difficult problem to fix in a two faction game.



EDIT: Epo, I totally agree with you. You can't be afraid to die. Armies lose when they rout, and that comes from fear. The most fun PVP for me comes when there is a back and forth, advancing and retreating. Sometimes you get that in this game, sometimes you get PvD.

[Eathisword]

[stuff about McDonalds that my french brain cant understand...]
One of the biggest problems in my opinion is just the fact people are scared shitless of getting killed.

So much this.

Zerg is a necessary part of the game : new players, lowbies, guildless people need open WB to have strength in numbers. Then alliances WB are needed to coordinate stuff and cap zones. Where it goes wrong, is the very very good players surfing on those big blobs to get killcounts of 30, 40, 50-0 in every zones, instead of actively seeking tougher fights.

@Original poster : I think that movement creates opportunity. Any design that would make people move more and more often would help give fight opportunity outside of zergs. To that purpose, I think that reducing the cap time on BO could help. 15 min is a long freaking time during which there is no way to break the keep funnel.

Maybe that could be explored. Having BO lock timer increase/decrease with AAO. This way, past let's say 150% AAO (random number), the BO don't have lock timer for the bigger team so they need constant surveillance.

[Grumpbot]

Maybe that could be explored. Having BO lock timer increase/decrease with AAO. This way, past let's say 150% AAO (random number), the BO don't have lock timer for the bigger team so they need constant surveillance.

This is a fantastic idea. I think it would need to be coded so that it wouldn't be exploitable (IE: strategically abandon the zone to unlock BOs, then come back with regular numbers), and I'm not sure that's possible. If it IS possible though then something like this would be a fantastic mechanic to consider.

I totally agree that movement is key. Anything that encourages players from both sides to be at multiple places on the map at the same time would enhance the RvR experience for basically all playstyles.

[Gerv]

Spoiler:

Can you stop, I mean seriously. You keep talking about how this game is competitive and always relate to skilless zerging, I think its time you realised that zerging is the game, no matter how much you want to change it, it will always remain. Also you seem to jump from 'RoR is competitive blah blah' to 'No competition here, looking for more 6 mans to fight'.

Firstly, Are you not that guy who used to run around the RvR zones spamming in /say "fumanchcu" and "come get zerged" back in t2 and t3?

Secondly, If you think zerging has a place in the game, then look no further to Azreal's RvR plan, I am pretty sure that it is heading in the direction to not catering to zergs. The definition of zerging being "Zerg is a slang term for a group of low-level gamers who depend on overwhelming numbers to achieve victory, rather than relying on technique or strategy/structure."

Zerging, while by the definition of PvP is exactly that, it is player v player. I do not see how you can call using over whelming numerical odds to beat your opponent a good thing and something that should be promoted in-game. While it will always will be present, there should be things done to address it because;

1) causes players on the underside to cross-realm and/or leave the RvR aspect of the game because there is little to no chance of successfully defending anything, minimizing the volume of PvP. In the aspect that you and others, fairly so, claim is the major design of the game.
2) In such a large numerical advantage, the level of skill is reduced to minimum, spamming AoE heals or damage while vastly out numbering someone is not hard. This is subjective to people's thoughts.
3) It creates a depressing environment to log into and players / guilds will leave the game as we saw in live when servers were dominated by one side. This also happens in other games, please don't come out and say it does not.

Spoiler:

There is ZERO difference between a zerg killing a smaller group, and a smaller group killing solo players, which happens all the damn time.

This is true, but using the numerical definition above, you can fight back against 6 people in a single group. The notion of being a premade in voice chat is a whole other aspect. You can not fight back against 3-4 WBs if you are a group of 12 if this is all you have. Now I know, I am scaling here, but you can see, a group of 6 will not take a keep. thus, getting "zerged" by a 6man as a solo'er is not a big deal in the grad scheme, you can find 1-2 more solo'ers and stop a keep take. However, defending a keep, against 3-4 WBs with just 12, highly unlikely. This is why it is bad, because there is a point at which the numbers become too large to fight against.

Spoiler:

I have taken apart of small scale pvp, so ill give you the benefit of the doubt on ignorance. My opinions are perfectly valid on the matter, there are but a couple of guilds that don't do this. Perhaps I should look over the 6v6 caledor woods videos you have? Perhaps rip a section from your stream? Or even grab some of my own footage to prove that this happens every....single....time.... It's always cheese tactic, and consider you used it to try and skyrocket your guild up here on the forums.. damn that's another facepalm right there.

Surely you also then ran the fotm groups in your guilds and ran the BiS gear and used the spec's that gave you the best chance of winning when you did small scale. Surely you can not deny this Ade?

Spoiler:

There's a reason im derailing this thread to respond to you, because I want you to know, and others of similar nature, that guess what, we get it! Yes you don't like zerging, we get that you think the game should play in other way, but for the love of god do not bring up the same damn stuff in every thread that is made, and don't translate it into game bashing those who do it, trolling is one thing....

Playing devils advocate, why do people continue to bring up the same threads each and every time when there is a search function to see if this thread has not been brought up 5 days ago?
Why do you not just lock the threads or post a link to another saying read this, then post?

[Dabbart]

Spoiler:

I remember the chu's and Come get zerged. Which is why it was weird that peterpan3 is acting like adei and fu isn't kinda known for small scale shenanigan's. Didn't they used to kite :| WBs in t3? T4 changes things a bit, but ganking is ganking. There is a reason danielita is topish RR, constantly solo-ganking. Also one would imagine that getting a fancy title means one should cut back on the banter a bit. Lead by example and all that crap.

Zerg is a term widely used, to white-wash a whole portion of WAR. Same with Premades and PUGing or DPShealer. It obviously has a general term, and then a way that each of us think of it. My "Zerg" is 2 masses that push forward, then retreat for no particular reason as the opposite side pushes about an equal distance, then also. Retreats for no particular reason with stragglers dying on either side. Mass blobs standing in front of WCs/Keeps semi-afk or spamming AoE/grp heal. That is my "zerg", not just a bunch of people that entered the lakes cause they saw a keep take was imminent, and try to offer "help" as best they can.

I entirely agree with the usage of search function. However, I have been caught by it a few times. Unless you are quite specific, and a little patient, it can backfire. But at least look...

[Vigfuss]

Siege weapons are not a very good antizerg mechanic. It means that the best way to fight larger numbers is holed up in a keep. This actually causes all the players to come to one place. Isn't that the gameplay we should be trying to get away from?

Here's what I think might help:
Players need more incentive to play in small groups (SC renown gain is really low). If they have some incentive you should also see more small groups in the lakes. If you form a SC grp, usually you end up out in the lakes too. If you form a WB you are in the lakes and you don't care about SC. SC players play both, and WB play only RVR. Incentivizing more SC grps should mean better ORVR as a positive spinoff.

IMO guilds should leave zerging to the open warbands. Organized players should never play with more than 12, to keep the PVP aspect of RVR.

[lawfol]

Playing devils advocate, why do people continue to bring up the same threads each and every time when there is a search function to see if this thread has not been brought up 5 days ago?
Why do you not just lock the threads or post a link to another saying read this, then post?

The people not using the search function are DIFFERENT people with the SAME issue.
Ade was talking about the SAME guy writing the SAME stuff every time he gets half a chance to shoe it in becuase his pov is so important to him he thinks it should be the goal of the development.

[Gerv]

Playing devils advocate, why do people continue to bring up the same threads each and every time when there is a search function to see if this thread has not been brought up 5 days ago?
Why do you not just lock the threads or post a link to another saying read this, then post?

The people not using the search function are DIFFERENT people with the SAME issue.
Ade was talking about the SAME guy writing the SAME stuff every time he gets half a chance to shoe it in becuase his pov is so important to him he thinks it should be the goal of the development.

If people used the search function and did not make the same thread over and over, it would limit Peter's ability to post it every where . . .

[Gachimuchi]

I stopped right here. Bait? This was not smart. You have the audacity to call that bait considering you are pretty much standing on the single toe of your last leg since you have been previously perma banned and you only need 1 more strike to be gone once again. You could have said whatever you wanted, but accusing me of baiting you is a joke, neither is your constant attitude swings towards me, either continue to kiss my ass in game like you have been doing, or hate me in both in game and forums, the choice is yours, I could care less for such two faced players of the community.

By all means get cocky with me, you can sit there for hours trying to articulate fancy ways to create your post, but the minute you start accusing me of baiting you, and then start using the terms you have in your own post, you seriously are playing with fire.

Not to be a 'backseat moderator' or anything, but it seems to me that GMs would be beholden to uphold their own rules. Meaning, not further derail threads with personal attacks. Bringing his account standing into this is uncalled for. The not-so-subtle waving of the scepter of authority doesn't make for a good impression either.

Ade of 'Fu-Man-Chu', the guild who so does love to troll is bristling with indignation and threatening to ban someone over saying he is baiting. I hope the irony isn't lost on anyone else.

[Grolar]

There's a handler for a debuff called "Diminishing Rations", which gradually increases damage taken by a side which suffers disproportionate losses against a smaller force.

Doesn't this encourage people to create smaller groups rather than large forces? I ask because lately I see players on Destro roaming in small independent packs. Does the handler take into account the total number of enemies in a zone versus friendly? Also the BO's that are taken? or some other factors?
Is there a full description somewhere on the forum? I'd be interested in reading something like that. Thanks