A Lesson From Guild Wars 2

[Svartypops]

Guild Wars 2 has a good mass PvP mode which is inspired by that of DAoC. It's called WorldvsWorld, or WvW.

The mode has changed over the years because of powercreep. One problem came when they introduced mounts, allowing quick movement from one location to another. This was welcomed by the community as a convenience, but it means that a single group is able to change locations so quickly that it's become almost impossible for smaller groups to perform small-scale actions in the game-mode.

This is a question of balance. Doling out faster mounts as part of an event might seem harmless, but the impact is significant, and I think the developers should bear this in mind when doing so. I love fast mounts, but not if it means a very delicate balance becomes broken.

Are mounts the only problem? No, but I'd like to see a test event where mounts travel at a slower speed for a weekend, and see whether or not it has an effect on the "blobbing" problem.

What do you think?

[RORquest]

game caters to 6man premades that farm pugs in sc and solo players in rvr

[Sulorie]

What faster event mounts you are referring to?

[Garamore]

Hes probably talking about wyverns - in t1 and t2 scens they make a difference. Outside of t1 all mounts should have same move speed. Seems harsh that the weakest characters get the slowest mounts.

[Caduceus]

A while back I made a post about mounts in RoR.

In my view, since mounted combat is not a part of RoR it is strange that players ride into battle on mounts (giving them a massive tactical advantage) and then flying drop kick into the backs of their enemies.

Another aspect is RoR's small vision range (coupled with load-in lag), which further compounds the threat of being flanked by unseen, mounted enemies.

I think the role of mounts in RoR PvP could be tweaked. Perhaps a longer cast time on mounting, or a penalty for being dismounted by an enemy (like a KD or slow). The effect would be to decrease the effect mounts have in combat, while also giving players counterplay to being flanked by mounted warbands. Right now, the options to stop charging warbands are very limited.

Slower mounted speed could also be considered, since it would simply increase the relative size of the RvR lakes (which in turn increases strategic depth). This could be a good thing, since I think at times the lakes can feel rather cramped.

[Svartypops]

Hes probably talking about wyverns - in t1 and t2 scens they make a difference. Outside of t1 all mounts should have same move speed. Seems harsh that the weakest characters get the slowest mounts.

That's interesting and important, but it's not the point of the OP.

This thread is about the impact of travel speed (be it mounted or running or teleporting) on zone dominance.

• If large zergs can move around quickly, it encourages more people into the monoblob. Not just because of safety in numbers.
• There should be things for smaller groups to do - that's what the supply mechanic is about.
• If one large group can stop all enemy supply runs - it's a problem.
• There should be a down-side to being all in one big group. One such down-side should be [not being everywhere at once].
• One way to make the blob [not be everywhere at once] is so curtail mount speed so that enemies can be assaulting several BOs at once with smaller groups and be effective.

[Everdin]

I wonder how far some players will go to find excuses for loosing.

[Banjomissen]

game caters to 6man premades that farm pugs in sc and solo players in rvr

This is the way

[rejndjer]

reason why zerging is OP in gw2 is because there's no collision. your task is to blob all people in exactly same spot as leader and move with him, while spaming aoe ****. oh and dont remind me about mass invisibility. there are some things that gw2 does good, and it's good to look up to these. but reducing mount efficiency in any way i think would be detrimental to solving "zerg issue" in ROR. imo it would be better if mounted people were granted some kind of skill that would be very helpful in zerg flanking. since that's a real life counter to zerg.

another real life counter to blobs that's absolutely supernerfed in this game is artillery. if artillery was buffed to play a meaningful role in game, it would go a long time to decimating blob fights in some popular places - like martyrs square praag, etc. but i know that will never happen because pro ror players are against the idea of one solo player actually having an influence on rvr.

[juzziex]

Im pretty sure from my admittedly hazy memory that GW2 just like all the other open world pvp games that ive played had classes that could buff the speed of the entire group. So they essentially travelled at or close to mount speed anyways.