Did the NPC's in massive PVP cause the zerg mentality?

filmoret

Looking at games with massive PVP like ESO and GW2 made me wonder if they promoted the zergs by putting NPC's in the middle of the crowd.  For example the castles are all defended by NPC's.  So there is little need to leave a big group of players to defend a castle.  And even smaller need to keep players spread all over the map defending various points.  Usually these games result in 1-3 large blobs of players who zerg around capturing castles and the likes.  If they made the only thing to fight in these games is other players wouldn't that make it a different story or just the same thing we have right now....  Nearly all pvp games for some reason think that we the players want a bunch of NPC"s in the middle of our battles.  Is this something we wanted or something they forced us to do?

filmoret

I mean if one person shows up to an empty castle then he should be able to claim it without having to fight a bunch of npc's.  It would create an entirely new atmosphere and game if players had to actually communicate on how they were moving on the map and what they were defending so stuff like that didn't happen.

anemo

I can't imagine how painful it would be for the player stuck as a member of the watch.

Or how painful it would be for a game that didn't have enough of a player base to keep a watch.   Even EvE doesn't really have enough players to keep a watch in their game of SOV,  It usually revolves around letting your defences fail the first time around to a dedicated attack so that the next one has to be scheduled by some other "hard mechanic".

Iselin

Being as how when cave men first started fighting each other zerg vs. zerg was also their way, no, MMO NPCs are not the cause

barasawa

Players in that stuff want action. Is sitting on the gate of a castle just in case somebody attacks action? 
To put it simply, no. 

But what if someone attacks? 
Well since the majority of your forces are in a 'zerg blob', there will be very few there. You can bet the enemy is doing the same thing. You'll probably get steamrolled before you can even send out a non-macroed alert message. 

But why do I have to fight npcs? 
Are the npcs too tough for your zerg? If so, find another zerg. 
I keep hearing pvpers whining that npcs are too easy. If that's true, then those npcs aren't there to stop you, they're there to slow you down giving the other side time to rally to the defense, or maybe continue crushing yours. 

In short, have fun storming the castle.

FlyByKnight

"Zerg mentality" is basic human nature.

I think OP is asking the wrong questions.

Loke666

FlyByKnight said:

"Zerg mentality" is basic human nature.

I think OP is asking the wrong questions.

I don't think so, I think the problem is more that zerging is more rewarded  ingame. Currently you will get several times the XP and loot in the games in question if you join a zerg then run a small group behind enemy lines.

Most people are greedy and go for the best rewards. Both GW2 and ESO is missing the risk Vs reward here, it is clearly far more risky to run a small group and should be rewarded accordingly instead of punished, if you do that the number of zerges in said games will decrease fast.

Another thing to consider is if it is possibly to actually use many players orderly in battle instead of the chaos of a zerg. Battle formations will destroy any IRL zerg fast and could offer a rather interesting alternative for some games if you solve how the commanders actually can tell the players where to stand and what to do. That would require a RTS like UI for the commanders though and isn't easy but it certainly is worth considering.

MMOs sadly fail any massive battles at the moment due to chaos. It would be interesting to have a MMO by someone who have experience from RTS games and historical knowledge and try to add this to a MMORPG (Malazan, book of the fallen would make a cool military themed MMO to mention one).

filmoret

Loke666 said:

FlyByKnight said:

"Zerg mentality" is basic human nature.

I think OP is asking the wrong questions.

I don't think so, I think the problem is more that zerging is more rewarded  ingame. Currently you will get several times the XP and loot in the games in question if you join a zerg then run a small group behind enemy lines.

Most people are greedy and go for the best rewards. Both GW2 and ESO is missing the risk Vs reward here, it is clearly far more risky to run a small group and should be rewarded accordingly instead of punished, if you do that the number of zerges in said games will decrease fast.

Another thing to consider is if it is possibly to actually use many players orderly in battle instead of the chaos of a zerg. Battle formations will destroy any IRL zerg fast and could offer a rather interesting alternative for some games if you solve how the commanders actually can tell the players where to stand and what to do. That would require a RTS like UI for the commanders though and isn't easy but it certainly is worth considering.

MMOs sadly fail any massive battles at the moment due to chaos. It would be interesting to have a MMO by someone who have experience from RTS games and historical knowledge and try to add this to a MMORPG (Malazan, book of the fallen would make a cool military themed MMO to mention one).

Add those ideas with friendly fire and unit collision.  Would be quite the challenge to make it fun at the same time would be interesting to see someone actually pull it off.

Loke666

filmoret said:

Add those ideas with friendly fire and unit collision.  Would be quite the challenge to make it fun at the same time would be interesting to see someone actually pull it off.

I never said it would be easy, but if you do it right it would offer a type of PvP battle no other genre could offer. Small scale battles have been taken over by Mobas and zerging just ain't particularly fun so there certainly is a huge untapped potential there.

Iselin

Loke666 said:

FlyByKnight said:

"Zerg mentality" is basic human nature.

I think OP is asking the wrong questions.

I don't think so, I think the problem is more that zerging is more rewarded  ingame. Currently you will get several times the XP and loot in the games in question if you join a zerg then run a small group behind enemy lines.

Actually that's not the case in ESO. You get much better AP and XP (the PVP alliance point currency) in a small group but people still do it.

Anyone that has ever made a concerted effort to become emperor (where you have to be the top AP earner for your alliance when your alliance gains control of the 6 inner keeps that surround the Imperial City) and knows the ropes will at most tag along with a zerg but not be part of it to maximize the AP they get for kills, healing, etc. The XP and AP you get for killing someone is divided among group members: the smaller the group, the more you get.

Also the XP and AP you get for defending a keep successfully or capturing one is divided equally among all participants, so once again, the smaller the number of players participating the larger your reward.

But the majority there will still zerg for basically the same reasons that it happened in real life in ancient times (and still does to some extent in modern warfare): the fighting advantage of numerical superiority, safety in numbers and hiding individual deficiencies.

AAAMEOW

People follow zerg to capture empty castle because it's the easiest way to get rewards.

They should make defending, killing, dieing more meaningful.  

I like the pokemon go gym system, rvr games should follow that.

filmoret

AAAMEOW said:

People follow zerg to capture empty castle because it's the easiest way to get rewards.

They should make defending, killing, dieing more meaningful.  

I like the pokemon go gym system, rvr games should follow that.

Pokemon Go is perma-death.

FlyByKnight

Loke666 said:

FlyByKnight said:

"Zerg mentality" is basic human nature.

I think OP is asking the wrong questions.

I don't think so, I think the problem is more that zerging is more rewarded  ingame. Currently you will get several times the XP and loot in the games in question if you join a zerg then run a small group behind enemy lines.

Most people are greedy and go for the best rewards. Both GW2 and ESO is missing the risk Vs reward here, it is clearly far more risky to run a small group and should be rewarded accordingly instead of punished, if you do that the number of zerges in said games will decrease fast.

Another thing to consider is if it is possibly to actually use many players orderly in battle instead of the chaos of a zerg. Battle formations will destroy any IRL zerg fast and could offer a rather interesting alternative for some games if you solve how the commanders actually can tell the players where to stand and what to do. That would require a RTS like UI for the commanders though and isn't easy but it certainly is worth considering.

MMOs sadly fail any massive battles at the moment due to chaos. It would be interesting to have a MMO by someone who have experience from RTS games and historical knowledge and try to add this to a MMORPG (Malazan, book of the fallen would make a cool military themed MMO to mention one).

OP is asking if a video game is promoting human nature by adding something that doesn't have to do with zerging. Zerging is human nature in general. NPCs aren't to blame for human nature.

It's the wrong question. The question is what can the developer do to discourage overly large groups from congregating on points of interest.

Does this mean distributing the blobs across several POIs? Negative reinforcement for being in a blob?

Asking the correct questions helps us to immediately realize NPCs aren't a cause but rather an additional obstacle put infront of a goal so zergs don't easily overpower to them. Its like asking if the cliche gate door infront of the keep is the cause for the mob out infront of it. The answer is no.

Also it's not "greedy" to go for the best rewards in a game. Again, it's human nature to take the most profitable course of action if it's available.

I get what the ask is, but no genre of game has been able to mass herd humans and make them "behave" yet so I wouldn't blame NPCs or call it a failing of MMOs either.

Saxx0n

Iselin said:

Being as how when cave men first started fighting each other zerg vs. zerg was also their way, no, MMO NPCs are not the cause

I believe Ghengis Khan perfected it, and actually the last time it was used was during the Korean Conflict in the 1950s.

A noteable mention should go to the Zulu Nation effectively using this tactic against British colonialism in Africa. They effectively used superior numbers in massed attacks against completely superior weapon technology used by the British Expeditionary forces during this campaign to rout British positions and strongholds.

Post 1950s weapons became advanced and lethal enough to completely decimate large groups of enemies almost instantly, which caused the cessation of this type of tactic in warfare. 

edit correction - There were confirmed reports of Iran zerging troops against Iraqi forces in the Iran Iraq war(1980), but Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons(mustard agents) delivered by artillery shells to obliterate these attacks, and this was the last known reports of zerg warfare.

Beezerbeez

The "zerg" represents one of the 9 principles of war: Mass. It's fundamental to the human condition and I imagine the only way to eliminate it would be to give single people the qualities of a zerg: massive health pool, world boss powers, mechanical advantage, and more. Some games do have, or have had healthy pvp roaming communities, but even there if you had to choose being on a team with 5 vs a team with 10, you'd probably rather be on the team with 10.

Iselin

Saxx0n said:

Iselin said:

Being as how when cave men first started fighting each other zerg vs. zerg was also their way, no, MMO NPCs are not the cause

I believe Ghengis Khan perfected it, and actually the last time it was used was during the Korean Conflict in the 1950s.

A noteable mention should go to the Zulu Nation effectively using this tactic against British colonialism in Africa. They effectively used superior numbers in massed attacks against completely superior weapon technology used by the British Expeditionary forces during this campaign to rout British positions and strongholds.

Post 1950s weapons became advanced and lethal enough to completely decimate large groups of enemies almosrt instantly, which caused the cessation of this type of tactic in warfare. 

edit correction - There were confirmed reports of Iran zerging troops against Iraqi forces in the Iran Iraq war(1980), but Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons(mustard agents) delivered by artillery shells to obliterate these attacks, and this was the last know reports of zerg warfare.

Yup, Weapons of mass destruction pretty well put an end to the zerg in real warfare.

filmoret

ESO has a map that encourages small groups.  Matter of fact on that map if you ran around with 3 zergs vs 20 smaller groups they would lose the map because the score evolves around things that small groups can capture.  The map isn't very popular either because the players when given the option of hanging out in huge groups or smaller ones they choose the huge groups.  So naturally they play on the map that rewards the huge groups more then the smaller groups.

If players were rewarded for simply keeping watch over castles then they would gladly be doing it.  Sure it would be come stale if the playerbase was smaller, but then they could just put people on a smaller map so they would run into each other.  I think of GW2's massive fail on their new borderlands.  They turned it into a massive PVE area and the players weren't too happy they had to fight against environment constantly and other players rarely.

Iselin

filmoret said:

ESO has a map that encourages small groups.  Matter of fact on that map if you ran around with 3 zergs vs 20 smaller groups they would lose the map because the score evolves around things that small groups can capture.  The map isn't very popular either because the players when given the option of hanging out in huge groups or smaller ones they choose the huge groups.  So naturally they play on the map that rewards the huge groups more then the smaller groups.

If players were rewarded for simply keeping watch over castles then they would gladly be doing it.  Sure it would be come stale if the playerbase was smaller, but then they could just put people on a smaller map so they would run into each other.  I think of GW2's massive fail on their new borderlands.  They turned it into a massive PVE area and the players weren't too happy they had to fight against environment constantly and other players rarely.

I've been in a lot of fights in ESO where a handful of us with strategically placed anti-personnel siege (love those cold-fire ballistas for that purpose) with some oil and caltrops have choked off whole zergs at an inner keep wall breach and wiped them... those are always great fights.

But my favorite thing of all is to go off with a small group and pick-off reinforcements travelling to a hotly contested zerg v. zerg fight or finding their forward camp and burning it

Vermillion_Raventhal

I think if they made combat more "ground" in reality the effect of the zerg my not be as bad.  More realistic momentum based movement, strategic formation and the like would make it less chaotic. Have less area affect attacks would help some.

But nothing can prevent zerging in general. 

Aeander

Vermillion_Raventhal said:

I think if they made combat more "ground" in reality the effect of the zerg my not be as bad.  More realistic momentum based movement, strategic formation and the like would make it less chaotic. Have less area affect attacks would help some.

But nothing can prevent zerging in general. 

Reducing AoEs would make zerging worse. Part of the reason for the zerg precense in Guild Wars 2 is the 5-target cap on AoEs. Without the cap, entire zergs could potentially be mowed down by a few skilled players.

Dr_Shivinski

Who here remembers Warhammer Online? It had open world PvP with "castles" to siege. It had unit collision (read: tanks standing in doorways creating shield walls) and great siege mechanics.

I think one of the best things about the open world pvp was that there weren't too many places to have to defend or attack. It was very easy to concentrate forces and move around when necessary and that's a huge thing that is lacking in modern owPvP. 

It's too bad the game was generally shit. But I'll be damned if that PvP wasn't the most fun I've had outside of EVE's PvP

cameltosis

Nyctelios said:

No, no, no, no, no....

What causes  "zerg"/"blob"/"train" mentality is the lack of collision.

You have aoe damage and buffs with no restriction to numbers if the skill doesn't say so. So people stack together.

You have no collision, so for example, you won't stand and fight, because nothing is holding you from entering that castle besides the fear of death. So you stack, heal up, shield up, buff up, GO IN AND UP! IN AN UP, GO DAMN IT! 

The result is quite simple: With no collision to hold (or to force them to spread) a certain force, it can strike as one and walk as one, taking position wherever it wants to if they keep buffing and healing up.

If you would have collision, as everyone thought ESO would have, if would be complete different.

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning had collision detection, didn't stop the zerg from happening. 

The zerg is human nature. We're social creatures, so we like being with other people. Most people are sheep (lacking initiative) and so follow others around instead. There is safety in numbers and in combat, 90% of the time greater numbers will win a fight so it is a winning strategy. 


So, I don't think you'll ever see the zerg disappear. Its just not in our nature. All you can do is implement functionality to help counter the zerg. Collision detection is one method - it allows defenders to use natural bottlenecks to stop the zerg steamrolling defenders. Multiple objectives is another, giving the zerg valid reasons to split up and head separate ways. Deep combat system / intergroup skills is yet another, allowing well coordinated groups to overcome the zerg with superior skills. 

BeansnBread

No.

Scot

If you want good sieges, one faction needs to be defending the fort etc. You can have npcs as placeholders or targets for the opposition to kill to take the fort but npcs should only be able to stop small groups of opponents. So you need a large group to take it.

Loke666

Iselin said:

Actually that's not the case in ESO. You get much better AP and XP (the PVP alliance point currency) in a small group but people still do it.

Anyone that has ever made a concerted effort to become emperor (where you have to be the top AP earner for your alliance when your alliance gains control of the 6 inner keeps that surround the Imperial City) and knows the ropes will at most tag along with a zerg but not be part of it to maximize the AP they get for kills, healing, etc. The XP and AP you get for killing someone is divided among group members: the smaller the group, the more you get.

Also the XP and AP you get for defending a keep successfully or capturing one is divided equally among all participants, so once again, the smaller the number of players participating the larger your reward.

But the majority there will still zerg for basically the same reasons that it happened in real life in ancient times (and still does to some extent in modern warfare): the fighting advantage of numerical superiority, safety in numbers and hiding individual deficiencies.

Running in the zerg or tagging along it, same thing. Now, if the small team would run alone behind enemy line it would deserve far more XP then one leeching on the zerg.

Ancient warfare actually rarely used zergs, zergs is chaos while actual warfare needed strategy and tactics. If you could figure out a good way to bring that to massive battles that would actually be even better then promoting small groups. Alexander proved what a disciplined small army would do to a small undisciplined over and over.

As for keeps, since it is way faster for a zerg to capture one they tend to get more XP in the same time, a zerg can capture many keeps fast. Not that I have PvPed much in ESO so I do not have any exact numbers on how much XP you would get each hour in a small group compared to a zerg. I do have a lot in GW2 though. You certainly would get more XP for each objective in a small group in both games but when that objective takes 5 or even more times as long to do they still reward the larger groups more.

FlyByKnight said:

It's the wrong question. The question is what can the developer do to discourage overly large groups from congregating on points of interest.

Does this mean distributing the blobs across several POIs? Negative reinforcement for being in a blob?

Asking the correct questions helps us to immediately realize NPCs aren't a cause but rather an additional obstacle put infront of a goal so zergs don't easily overpower to them. Its like asking if the cliche gate door infront of the keep is the cause for the mob out infront of it. The answer is no.

Also it's not "greedy" to go for the best rewards in a game. Again, it's human nature to take the most profitable course of action if it's available.

I get what the ask is, but no genre of game has been able to mass herd humans and make them "behave" yet so I wouldn't blame NPCs or call it a failing of MMOs either.

Well, I do think that the npcs that defend a structure could use the scaling dynamic event mechanics so zergs would meet many tougher npcs while smaller groups would meet fewer. If you get the difficulty right that would mean zergs just can't overrun keeps in minutes and take away a lot of the problem.

And yeah, it is greedy but we humans are kinda programmed for that. The problem is when greed makes us play in ways that isn't fun, then we tend to play that way and then quit since it is boring. Games need to reward us for doing hard stuff, not for doing something as easy as possible.

The games mechanics should mean that you will get several times the reward for doing hard things as easy in the same playtime. That is not punishing people in zergs, that is rewarding according to risk. Just like a hard raid dungeon is more rewarding then doing an easy 5 person dungeon, basic logic. Sadly, MMOs tend to loose logic when it comes to PvP.

Jill52

I don't think NPCs have much to do with the zerg (ganking) mentality at all.

Instead, I have a theory about the zerg or ganking mentality...

In a MMORPG you have a different types of PVPer. There are hardcore PVP players who play solely for the thrill of having a good fight with another real person. To these kinds of PVPers zerging or ganking would spoil the fun. They enjoy fighting against the odds and will often choose the underdog's side for the added challenge. Many of this type of PVPer prefer somewhat evenly matched fights most of all. PVE, to them, is widely considered to be boring and predictable. They endure it for the sole purpose of reaching the endgame where their real fun begins.
A good number of this type found their somewhat fair fights with even matched teams elsewhere in the MOBA genre. There they need not grind through the boring PVE to get to their fun part. 

What does that leave us with?...

Obviously there are the hardcore PVE players who have no interest in PVP whatsoever. They try to avoid combat and endure the PVP aspects so they can attempt to enjoy the PVE content of a game.

Then there are the PVE players who occasionally enjoy casual PVP or a duel here and there. They mainly play for the PVE content (quests, raids, crafting, exploring, etc.). While they do PVP sometimes for the same reasons as the hardcore PVPer they still spend most of their time enjoying the PVE aspect instead.

Lastly we have the gankers. These are PVPers who do not fight for the thrill of a challenging fight. Instead they prefer it when the odds are overwhelmingly in their favor by having superior level, gear, number of players or all of these. A ganking party will purposefully seek out the weakest possible targets that pose them little or no threat.
You might ask "Why do they do this?".
 For some the answer is as simple as trying to gain bragging rights by padding their stats with more kills (which they lack the talent to get on their own). For others?... they just enjoy seeing the reactions of the players they kill. They love it when someone they just killed goes on the global chat and starts complaining about it. They love it if their victims log off because of what happened... No matter what reaction they get it is always something they can't get from killing a NPC. Either way they are not interested in learning to fight properly nor do they care about the game's community. They instead choose the easiest possible path to killing other players (which is usually ganking or zerging) because they are only interested in what happens after the kill than the actual fight.

So, with the rise of MOBA popularity there has been a noticeable simultaneous decline in the number of truly talented hardcore PVPers in MMORPGs. This theory coupled with how game makers design their PVP systems to be so balanced that the best and most obvious way to gain any advantage in PVP is superior numbers is more likely why ganking and zerging seem to be more prevalent in today's MMORPGs