Mobs needs to start using battle tactics in world events.

[Lady Rhonwyn]

I find it sad that so many players only care about the reward.

Welk, ANet made or like that, by making amour repairs and waypoints gold sinks... If I die in a tactical battle, where I might never do damage, I will get poor fast....

[CHIPS]

That would be brilliant.
Imagine Centaur forming up lines for Norman style cavalry charges.
Sons of Svanir in Viking shield walls, wheeling right/left, boarsnout for charge.
The Nightmare court wouldn't change much, with the Welsh influence in their lore, the pre-roman Celts fought pretty much as the AI does now.
Human republicans being the AngloFrancs... Pike walls knights & cannons.

The AI for the battle tactics would be interesting

The Nightmare court should be masters of jungle warfare. They would ambush the daylight out of their enemies. Teutoburg Forest would be an good example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xEne0M9r9M

Charrs are fully mobilized. Lightning War would be their game.

So, how would you implement this so it's interesting at the single-player level? I mean, sure, strategy games are fun, but it would be less fun if you are one of thousand of pawns, being commanded by others...

Would it be sufficient if the foes used better tactics but that you, as a hero, don't necessarily need formations etc to beat, just better awareness and exploiting of local weaknesses?

I think it depends. In minor world events, I would say the players should be expected to fail the first time they try. The second or third time they try, better awareness and exploiting local weakness should be enough to win. The idea I am trying to get though is, un-organized human balls shouldn't just win the first time they try some new world event.

In major world events (e.g. Karka), the players would need to organize themselves ahead of time to have any chance of winning. Eventually, it would take a community effort to change the world. This will be a one step at a time process to slowly train up the players to be better skilled and better organized.

One of the reason why people didn't like the Karka event, except for the loots, is that the mobs had zero chance of winning against human balls. There were at least 5 Lion's Arch districts in each server world, and there were 52 server worlds. That makes 260 Karka events. However, from my knowledge, not even one of the 260 Karka groups managed to beat the human balls. That is a clear indication that the Karka had no chance of winning.

This shouldn't be happening. I repeat for the hundredth time, a group of disorganized human balls shouldn't win 100% of the time!

Epic battle only happens if the players can lose. And if planning is needed, the players will eventually adapt. And that's where, in my opinion, fun should come from.

Once again, gang banging and one hit kills are out of the question. So mobs must outsmart the humans in order to win. If the mobs plan well, they don't need to outnumber or out-power the players to win. Hannibal didn't.

I see this more for WvW. This would remove all casual play from the game. "Sorry, you cannot go here unless you are part of an army". We're heroes, not soldiers...

You will not be forced to get organized. You can fight anywhere and however you want. But you will be much more effective if you do get organized. And as a community the organized players can achieve something greater then themselves.

Most players, even in the smaller events, have less tactical awareness than the AI. For example, watch some event where a handful of players are defending a town from assault. Do they split up, with a team for each gate? No, because nobody wants to give up loot, so they run back and forth between gates, letting the enemy get a foothold and down some of the NPCs before they can get to that gate. Do they array themselves inside the gate and take advantage of NPC support, with some placing cripples and traps in the bottleneck to group up the wave and damage them as they enter? No, because everyone is concerned with tagging as much as possible, so the battle gets carried further and further outside the gates as everyone tries to be the first to meet the next wave. This gives the wave more maneuvering room, so the whole thing degenerates into a dogfight. Meanwhile the wave that entered the other gate has now taken control of the town and the event fails.

I fear that most players don't find their fun in the battles, but put up with them only as the means to the end of killing more stuff and getting more loot. Getting them to think about tactics would not be an easy task.

Battle tactics were not needed because the mobs were mindless zombies. Of course that, currently, the players find the fun purely in the loots and not in winning the battle itself. The battles were so easy. There is no satisfaction there at all.

That's why I am begging Anet to do this. Crush the disorganized players with battle tactics, just once, in a world event. Destroy the players' pride of invincibility. Some players will undoubtedly get angry. But many would think back and say "Yes losing sucks. But hey the mobs didn't even cheat. We were so disorganized, what did we expect?"

Only with the most crushing defeat will the players improve and remember the fun of winning itself.

you have to remember that GW2 is kinda based on the 100AC time period of europe, that that time armies were not so organized.
the most organized ppl were the roman empire and they lost battles just as much, flanking the army is pretty easy with them because they focused more on what they see then what might happen.
also, in GW2 you don't have an event with a real army attacking, it's maybe 6 enemies per wave depending on how many players there are so it's pretty easy to take them down.

events can be improved by adding something more then gathering things from enemies and killing waves of enemies, what about setting up a trap for the enemy or preparing for battle other then standing on one place and zerg your way trough.
in fact, i think that it's better to separate the strategic players from the mud balls, ppl who just stand there and expect to win trough zerging are more prown to damage then ppl who are standing on places that wins this battle.
add places for every player that heightens the chance to win, the more players the better the chance.

i think that the reason why allot of events are so boring and easy is because players can simply zerg trough the hordes and win easily, kinda punish the zergers and you see ppl cooperate allot more.

That's exactly my point mate. Zergs shouldn't win.

No one sets traps because it wasn't crucial to victory. When it isn't needed, no one will do it. Let's just mindlessly zerg!

I don't think the age itself is 100 AD. Given that we got guns and tanks, I would say the age is closer to 1,700 AD in a steampunk world. But the way the mobs do battle, its probably before 10,000 BC or zombie apocalypse. :P

Welk, ANet made or like that, by making amour repairs and waypoints gold sinks... If I die in a tactical battle, where I might never do damage, I will get poor fast....

I am sure they can remove armor damage and waypoint costs just for major world events. Similar to the Mad King. You can die as often as you want in there and its free.

[Alaris]

I didn't so much disagree, as I was curious on how to achieve it while keeping the game from becoming work. The main reason I remain a casual player is that I don't have the time to invest getting organized in my play time.

So while yes I would love scenarios where thinking is needed to play, I think it would be really difficult to make those for zergs that would actually end up fun as opposed to frustrating or bugged.

[EnoughAlready]

I am optimistic enough to think that player tactics would improve to match & surpass the AI.
It might even encourage proper communication.

Sorudo, GW2 technology levels indicate more like 1800's rather than 100's and even then the tactics weren't that bad.
Although perhaps shift the Centaur to Hum, instead of Norman

[Xycury]

It sounds like this might be 10-15 main size real world raids... not sure if I'd want that.

[Lady Rhonwyn]

It sounds like this might be 10-15 main size real world raids... not sure if I'd want that.

Me neither, at least not in my casual PvE. Those are tactics for WvW. And I think if there was a sizable group that was really organized (like an army unit) and had a good commander, they would rule WvW and you'd get some awesome battles.

[EnoughAlready]

Difficulty could scale with numbers in the area, to keep it manageable.

Welsh-Teutons? Teutonic-Cymry? So the Sylvari are all of the pre-roman celts. Ambush warfare suits.

As for charr lightning warfare. Blitzkrieg. The charr blitzkrieg. I'm not going to type the word, but you realise what that makes them

[CHIPS]

I didn't so much disagree, as I was curious on how to achieve it while keeping the game from becoming work. The main reason I remain a casual player is that I don't have the time to invest getting organized in my play time.

So while yes I would love scenarios where thinking is needed to play, I think it would be really difficult to make those for zergs that would actually end up fun as opposed to frustrating or bugged.

To start it would be something simple. For example, let's say there are locations A,B,C and D.

A...B...C...D

The players are asked to protect an ambassador at location A. The mobs would raid location A for a bit and be defeated and retreat. Event A is finished.

The quest starts a chain that asks players go attack location B while the mobs are disorganized. The ambassador complains that this attack would weaken his personal protection. The camp commander brush him off, calling the mobs easy to deal with. After the players takes over location B, Event B is finished.

Seeing how weak the mobs are, the commander asks the players to kill the mob's chief at location D. But to do that the players first need to clear out the mobs at location C. The fight was very easy, and the commander is surprised at the lack of defences the mobs puts up. Either way he will push on. Event C is finished.

Players follows the commander to location D. Event D is finished. And to their surprise the mob chief is nowhere to be seen. A message arrives at location D to inform the commander that location A is under heavy attack by the mobs. The commander asks the players to hurry back to save the ambassador.

From location D back to A is a long walk. Most likely the players won't make it back to location A in time. If the ambassador dies, event E fails. However if the players managed to save the ambassador, they will be heavily rewarded, probably 10 times the reward of one normal event.

Note: Event E is much easier if the players stayed in location A and skip events B, C and D.

Why this works: The mobs, right from the start, planned this whole attack to kill the ambassador. They attacked the camp and then quickly retreated to fake their weakness. They intended to led the overconfident players away from the camp, so the ambassador can be assassinated. The mobs are intelligent and planned the whole thing out. They didn't cheat with one hit kills or gang-banging. It was the "foolish" players who got tricked.

Of course, the next time this chain event happens, the players would smarten up and stay in location A. And that's exactly my goal. The players shouldn't win in these world events the first time they try. It should take them two or three tries to get it right.

[Alaris]

The charr blitzkrieg. I'm not going to type the word, but you realise what that makes them

Technology-based efficient war machines?

The analogy stops there, because they don't seem to care about ideology-based genocides.

Of course, the next time this chain event happens, the players would smarten up and stay in location A.

I understand where you're going with that, but I think this would be perceived as bad design. Here's a few things to consider...

If players can't correct their play while they play to achieve success, the event might appear bugged, or worse, linear in the "guess what I want you do to" kind of way... which is perceived as bad because even though your foes didn't cheat, players will feel as though the scenario is impossible. If they feel a scenario is impossible, they might wiki it... you don't want players to wiki each event chain.

Instead you want a scenario where the event gets into a standstill or makes progress difficult, and then if they play smarter they can make progress a lot faster... and some hint that they might not be fighting well enough.

[CHIPS]

Technology-based efficient war machines?

The analogy stops there, because they don't seem to care about ideology-based genocides.



I understand where you're going with that, but I think this would be perceived as bad design. Here's a few things to consider...

If players can't correct their play while they play to achieve success, the event might appear bugged, or worse, linear in the "guess what I want you do to" kind of way... which is perceived as bad because even though your foes didn't cheat, players will feel as though the scenario is impossible. If they feel a scenario is impossible, they might wiki it... you don't want players to wiki each event chain.

Instead you want a scenario where the event gets into a standstill or makes progress difficult, and then if they play smarter they can make progress a lot faster... and some hint that they might not be fighting well enough.

Keep in mind that even in the first play though, nothing stopped the players from staying in location A. In fact the ambassador warned the players against going out to attacking location D right from the start. So it wasn't impossible at all. The players just got to think and decide on what needs to be done.

The players that got tricked still got rewarded for 4 events, A though D. They just didn't get that juicy reward of event E, which worth 10 normal events, that's all.

Encouraging thinking, smart game play and battle tactics will make this game much better. This is what would separate GW2 from other MMOs. Disorganized human balls winning everything will never get this game anywhere.