Thoughts on the Zerg?

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Looking to spark some #general-discussion #game-feedback

Been level 60 for awhile now. I have been joining a nightly “ZERG” on my server to basically fly through and farm all the chests in a few of the highest level zones. Now, to me… its actually “kinda fun” - there is still that feeling of having a TON of people together… I mean its almost a “RAID night”. Sorta… no, not really at all.

I guess what I am interested to hear about… from others is:

  • Do you think the Devs intended this content to be done like this?
  • For those that have done this - Do you think its FUN?
  • Does this sort of organized ZERG have a long lasting appeal? and Why?
  • Thoughts on the economy impact when 100’s of players are gaining access to materials this way?
  • For the #developer-corner game-feedback WAS this what you expected?

Part of me thinks that this happens in the game because finding a solid group of 5 people to do the hardest content is just SUPER difficult. Expeditions seem to be “okay” at finding a group. But the Elite Zones and Arenas are just impossible to find a group. and then if you do find a group for Arenas, the chances of getting people that are well equiped enough and with the right pots is hit or miss. (also hear the drops in Arenas tend to make them unworthy of the effort)

Its a little sad flying through these zones in a MOB of people, and really just missing out on some of the great design that they built. The Reekwater one especialy had an amazing environment and seemed like it would have been A LOT more fun if I was on discord organizing strats and taking our time to clear it. At least from what I could tell, as we plowed through the whole place in under 15minutes. LOL

What are some ideas that could be done to change this content?

  • make it only accessible for 5 people?
  • tone the drops when its a “ZERG” to make people want to have a normal group?
  • make it 10 person content?

I think as a whole there is a lot here to unpack… but the biggest enhancement I would like to see implemented is a GROUP FINDER tool. Not a automatic click and port you tool. But a listing that you can toss yourself out there to try and find a group to hang with to do specific content for the night.

What do you think?

TLDR: Is the ZERG thru Elite Zones content that you like and did the Devs create this content to be played this way?

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I doubt it, the game is very bad on PVE group content.

Its conventient, because there is zero danger and its fast. Doing it because its “required” for HWM and crafting.

Not to me, its no actual content, though its part of the game as is.
If there is no new story elements or other additions, this is going to run out of steam fast.

There is no economy and was no economy. It wont change a thing.
Some players are just bad at keeping their coins together because they dont know how to trade.

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Appreciate the response. I am looking at this through the lens of making NW better. I really do believe that this game has so much potential, and despite the rocky start, I do not see myself stopping playing anytime soon.

Interested to hear more about what you said about it being “required” that is the potential change that I think could use tweaking. This to me, doesn’t seem like what they intended for the best way to enhance your HWM. (I believe this was mentioned in the DEV blog as well)

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Not a fan, personally. I mostly dislike the way people tend to skip past all the mobs and just grab the chests. We are already 30 players, it would not be difficult to fight our way through. It feels less like playing the game and more like mindless farming. And I happen to actually enjoy playing the game. This has been a pretty consistent issue for me in a lot of multiplayer games: people overoptimizing the way they engage with the game until it doesn’t really feel like you are even playing anymore.

Of course, when you do fight mobs, there are so many players that a lot of them simply are not going to get kill-credit. Which pretty clearly indicates that this is not how the game is supposed to be played. I would say 10 people is pretty perfect for a fun and challenging experience in a Zone like Myrkgard. More than that and the game clearly falls apart at the seams.

Thankfully solutions have been implemented in numerous games already. I am particularly thinking of my old love Guild Wars 2. Endgame content divides into two types of activities: instanced content meant for small parties and event content for entire maps. Pretty much all maps added in the later DLCs feature some kind of major world events, world bosses etc that large groups of players can engage in together for reliable loot. The game also has an in-built group finder and “commander”-tools for players who want to organize those large scale activities.

Sadly I do not think this is going to happen without a complete redesign of those maps. In the short term, I would simply prefer if elite chests were nerfed to a point of becoming unviable for runs the way they are now. The primary source of loot in those zones would come directly from bosses, encouraging players to actually kill them and clear out the mobs around them. It would still be zerging, but fewer exploits and skipping content. Moreover it would be nice if dungeons and instanced content would become more accessible and rewarding, making them the primary source of late game gear and money.

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@Scoric

Thanks for the post, and I love these kinds of discussions rather than the toxic stuff that abounds.

  • intended: No, they didn’t intend this. But this is the unintended consequences of a non-immersive watermark grind that goes on too long. Nightly zerg-fests that cross-faction membership as a means to short-circuit a boring ass grind. You see the same in Eastburn in Great Cleave on faction points.

  • Fun? Hell no it’s not fun, and that’s why I stopped. God mode in Doom was fun for about 90 seconds. But when you’re going to rely on a random number generator (RNG) as a content-less implicit time gate on players, this is the community response as a means of escape.

  • Lasting appeal? No

  • Economic impacts? Not great, but the best stuff is BOP, so that’s helpful. Dump of T5 reagents along with mastery bonuses create perverse incentives in the market where refining output is/will be priced at a loss for new players and a ~3% profit for masters with refining clothing/food/etc.

  • Developer corner feedback: Yeah, I wasn’t surprised, but remain disappointed. Time grinds against RNGs are the least immersive cop-out kind of endgame going. It’s an attempt to buy time, and a belief that if they create a PVP framework they’ll get emergent content between the players for free.

The emergent content theory is great in concept, but must acknowledge the adverse selection problem. The most competitive PVPers (toxic git gud community) have no problem abusing bugs/exploits/etc. as a means to win. This game marketed/offered far too much as a means of making a splash, and it focused on managing the exponentially-increasing surface area of bugs/risks/exploits/imbalance associated with all of those ‘features’ way too little. Often, less is more, and excellent execution beats an expansive reach.

What I ultimately think is that ZERGs are endemic to MMOs until/unless they create formations or means to fight as a group rather than as a collection of individuals. Calls for individuals to ‘group up’ willingly are great but merely serve as the precursor to the next Zerg push when they have critical mass.

The underlying action of Zergs are simple. A desire to steamroll opponents and content gates. In the case of the latter it’s almost always some type of silly RNG grind.

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appreciate the response, and thank you for the kind words.

What are some potential solutions that you see?

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  1. they could disable all chest if there’s an enemy near the area

  2. they could make the open dungeons to an instance, and then add group finder of 5/10/15/20 the larger the numbers the lower the chance to get legendaries, it will be like a raid system

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Ideas

  • More expeditions, with max level caps for entry. Take a lvl 60 into Amrine/Depths/etc and you still have a zerg because of they overpower the mobs.

  • More content options for both PvE and PvP. Outpost Rush is a great concept, and the 1.0.5 path helped a lot. Hopefully the player base will remain viable for another 4-6 weeks of patches to get it nailed down.

  • Far less reliance on low probability loot tables. Farming Lazarus/etc for rare drops of the end boss only lead to zerg behavior as a means of completing the meta of the Expedition (twiddling with a RNG on the final boss).

Ultimately, the last one is the most important, and I see zero signs of a change in mindset by the devs here. If you want a MMO equivalent to Diablo/Path of Exile, etc. where you’re swimming in loot, fighting a RNG to get a perfect roll on the table…you’ll have zerging as a means of escaping the content.

I just don’t get the appeal. I do in the sense of i’m so bored by repeating this content for the 256th time, i’m going to sprint/risk death even harder, while hoping I win the RNG lottery this time. That’s the mentality that create Zergs, and wherever you see repeated content and RNGs, there will be Zergs.

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probably intented…i mean its outside. on my server it’s pretty much a scheduled event. People literally post in global things like “i’ll go to the 7pm run” etc etc

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I tried to Solo Kite a boss elite… I just can’t. The “arenas” are flat, so the boss will always go direct to me. The boss is super fast, insane dmg, insane CC, insane Atkspeed (not enough stamina to avoid all attacks), and the hitboxes are bugged.
I was using a musket and made the count, probably 300 HS to kill it… “yupi”… so fun.

The only way is… Group, Tank healer Dps… there is not other way to do higher level monsters, even when you have level advantage.

there is no… Solo Dps, solo tank, Kite, or Duo kite, duo tank heal… If you play fair without abusing exploits… you only have the zerg way of doing Elite content, not my vibe to be honest with you.

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myrkgard and all 64+ elite zone are easily doable with 5 man.

The only thing really hard to do at 5 are the invasion major portal 65+.

So Zerg is defintely not the only way. But since there is only few spot to farm GS and since pvp/tag is disable most of the time. yeah Zerg is inevitable.

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But the 5 man will be “tank heal dps”… Always the same. You can’t explore other ways of doing it.

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I think they were probably more optimistic about how many people would run dungeons alongside the elite zones, but right now all the dungeons are way too expensive to run and therefore leaves just the elite zones for everyone to farm which makes them more crowded.

I think running the elite zones on scheduled time with the company is alright but sometimes it is way too crowded and you can’t even hit enemies because theres 10 people in the way lol.

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I don’t even know the zones yet. I join a group everyday and just follow as quick as I can since they seem to know it by heart. If I fall behind I just get lost lol.

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I currently have 588 hours and some change, at least as of this posting, and I honestly can’t stand the zerging all over the map. It’s just large mobs of chaos hobo killing things and looting chests.

However, it is almost required in some of the level 60+ elite areas which are required for the weapon quests. (By the way, the life staff is garbage, don’t waste your time on that 580 weapon quest chain unless you just want the money. The sword, which is nearly impossible to gain without a zerg group of 10+ or exploiting a stuck bug, the spear, and the hatchet are fairly nice though. The tower shield looks like a kite shield. The rest I haven’t finished yet.)

I don’t think the content was meant to be played this way, but I also don’t think that everything was meant to be on a minute or less timer, with corruption portals sometimes spawning right back nearly 30 sec after you clear them, invasions that more or less can’t be beaten, trash mobs in shattered mountain with 50-200k hp, nerfed healing, nerfed resource quantites, etc. and so on. To be quite honest, things worked 100 times better in closed beta save for the influence gain, the flagging, and the duping/xp exploits. Everything else seemed fine.
The state of the game is now a product of oiling the loudest wheel, so to speak.

Granted I tried a zerg, was it fun? No, not really. It wasn’t even organized chaos, just mob mentality and running over things and trying to bulldoze stuff with dps. It was honestly a waste of time.

The zergs will probably last a month or so at longest, then those involved heavily will burn out, get bored, and then leave the game. The money from these things is. . .minimal at best, the xp has a level limit, and the resources once not sellable (which is real soon) will then have no value to collect.

The economy itself is already trash to be honest. Such minimal foresight and effort went into designing the stability and productivity of this games economy that I’m surprised the people who came up with it have jobs in such a field. (Mind, my opinions of economy come not only from numerous mmos but also holding a business management degree.) The minimal coin gained from killing mobs, doing portals (.38 cents to .58 cents), salvaging (.28 cents to 4 gold depending on item), and the ungodly boring faction and board missions. At no point do the npcs in towns say ‘hey, we’d like to upgrade are ugly wooden walls, bring us x amount of bricks’ and have the community at large help with an actual change and feel some sort of accomplishment. No, it’s currently just upgrade benches, get the snot beat out of you in an invasion, everything down grades, blow more money, get beat down again, over and over and over again. This is not rewarding, this is frustrating and discouraging. Then, after a long day of hunting, gathering, or what not, you go back to your house that you scrimped and saved for, even got the ‘taxes reduced’ by 30% or more, and it’s still over 400 gold for a medium house, which by the way, can only hold two friggin chests.
The inventory issues in this game are almost identical to failout 76.

Now, there are things which would remedy some of these issues. The first being engaging content, quests with choices and options, consequences and outcomes based on these choices, making people feel like what they do actually matter, even if it doesn’t. The suspension of disbelief and immersion needs to be encouraged.
Story line needs to be presented in a better way than notes all over the place. Once more, a failout 76 tactic, which by the way is just laziness.
The economy needs npc merchants. I put a suggestion to fix this without causing too many issues here: Part feed back/part bugs - #14 by Sudhri

Crafting needs to be fixed as well, there is literally no point in raising levels when 75% of the stuff is bind on pick up or rng. Master craftsperson who can’t even tailor gear to their clients, it’s a joke.

A group finder should be added for dungeons, since they require at a minimum 3 people due to the ‘puzzles’, if that’s what you want to call it, in them. Though honestly, everything from depths down can be soloed without the puzzles/3 person requirement things.
The devs should look at how ddo (dungeons and dragons online) did some of their dungeons if they need some inspiration on puzzles, traps, tricks, and engaging content in that area. For story line with options and interesting and amusing outcomes they should look at stwor (starwars the old republic).
For more pvp content they should look to naval battles (which I believe is already being considered) (add swimming first. . .for the love of the gods, add swimming. At least while wearing light and med armor.), set up new zones for minor capture the flag stuff in future expansions, have competitions for archery, muskets, etc. Mind, pvp is not my forte.

Raids should be added, well thought out, not rushed, and tested before adding, but 10, 15, 20+ people raids should be added to this game.

Legendary recipes need to be fixed so that they are beneficial for the time and effort it takes to make them. Who ever designed half of the items for said ‘legendary and epic’ items should simply be fired for lack of attention to detail on what each item needs to be useful.

Ah. . .end rant. I’m sure some people enjoy the zergs, personally I find them very boring and a waste of time.

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Appreciate the response. In between your rant there are certainly some great ideas. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Hopefully things that are being considered.

I feel like one of the biggest issues with the Zerg is the mentality that the majority of the player base gets. : which is: there is no value in 5 man outdoor content. Which is the most disappointing portion to me.

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I think you are absolutely right on that. It is very disappointing.

Some actual dungeons which are open world would be nice, but considering how myrk was done, I’m a bit leery of suggesting anything on that front. Things should be enjoyable, but not so near impossible that you need a ten + person team to even explore them.

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Good luck killing mister fiery sword guy with 5 people consistently…

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One other thing I will mention (Holy Smokes almost 600 hrs!!!) :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

One big problem I see for the dev team is creating content that isn’t gating - but also is long lasting. I will give some credit to them… if you have 600 hours in already… Clearly you LIKE the game! Which is why I originally created this discussion.

I believe that they really have the makings of a game that can last! I want to be able to take my time, enjoy the game, meet people and create relationships with people that will enjoy the content in a NON-ZERG manner.

and right now… the way its implemented - no one will do that because it’s BRAINLESS ZERG/BURN/ and inevitably QUIT.

Which I want to see changed

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