The Impact of Strategy and Coordination in Group vs. Group Combat

Hey everyone,

I’ve been thinking a lot about group PvP dynamics in MMORPGs and how different games handle the balance between group size and skill. In Ashes of Creation, it’s clear that large-scale battles will be a significant part of the game, but I’m curious about how smaller, more organized groups might fare against larger, less coordinated ones.

For example, in Guild Wars 2, a smaller group with high synergy and well-practiced combo skills can often take down larger, less organized groups in PvP. The key there is the ability to effectively chain abilities, like using a fire field with a blast finisher to maximize damage or control the battlefield. This kind of depth allows skilled players to outmaneuver and outplay larger forces through better coordination and strategy.

So, what do you all think? Will Ashes of Creation offer a similar opportunity for smaller groups to shine against larger ones through superior strategy and teamwork? How do you feel about the balance between group size and skill in PvP? Do you have any thoughts or examples from other games that might be relevant?

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Comments

Ludullu

Yes, I hope party synergies will allow well-coordinated groups to defeat larger groups of enemies.

Ungohil

Hopefully that turns out to work, otherwise it will be an AoE fight, smashing ranged and AoE effects all over again and again.

But, this will be the huge, and I mean huge, part of the balancing continuously to be done. Balancing is never a point of time, but a cycle. There will be classes (class-combinations) that are overpowered solo, or overpowered in small groups or overpowered in large scale fights. That's the job of intrepid to work continuously on that, because there will always be somebody (some class) on the throne. After ~20 years of MMO experience I cannot remember one single game and point of time, where a perfect or optimal balance was reached. And that's okay, because it's too complex (and players find out every single meta build ;-) to handle it at every single moment.

iccer

Yes.

It is hard to coordinate a group of 40 players, especially if it's pugs. With guilds that are on the same page, who can actually practice, it's easier.

And coordination really should and probably will matter a lot, because if half of the raid is too slow to execute commands, then that raid is simply at a disadvantage.

- Let's take an example where it's a slightly unbalanced fight, you are fighting vs 60 people, and you only have 40:
Imagine you want to fall back to a different position. You issue a command to fall back, or to follow the raid leader, and only half of the raid does it, while the other half slacks around or is just slow to do it. In just a few moments, the enemy raid will collapse on that position, and now they don't have to fight 40 ppl, but only 20. Easy win for them, while you now cannot fight them with such low numbers.

- Similarly, imagine you are fighting as a group of 20 people that are highly organized, against a group of 40 unorganized people.
You can pull the enemies around, baiting them to chase you, then turn on them while they're disorganized, you can manipulate where and when you want to fight, and how many of them you want to fight, and it's only easier if they're overconfident due to their superior numbers.

Strategy and teamwork should absolutely play a key part.

mfckingjoker

It's not about if the game allows it, more coordinated groups will always outsmart the less organised ones even if they are more.
Now obviously if you are 20 vs 100 things are gonna be pretty rough.

ReLamas

Chaliux wrote: »

Hopefully that turns out to work, otherwise it will be an AoE fight, smashing ranged and AoE effects all over again and again.

But, this will be the huge, and I mean huge, part of the balancing continuously to be done. Balancing is never a point of time, but a cycle. There will be classes (class-combinations) that are overpowered solo, or overpowered in small groups or overpowered in large scale fights. That's the job of intrepid to work continuously on that, because there will always be somebody (some class) on the throne. After ~20 years of MMO experience I cannot remember one single game and point of time, where a perfect or optimal balance was reached. And that's okay, because it's too complex (and players find out every single meta build ;-) to handle it at every single moment.

@Chaliux
It's interesting that you bring up the challenge of balancing in AoE-heavy PvP environments. One thing that stood out to me, especially when comparing to other MMOs, is the simplicity of large-scale PvP combat in games like Throne and Liberty. In that game, large-scale battles often boil down to the size and strength of the group—bigger and stronger groups almost always come out on top, making the outcome somewhat predictable and less dependent on strategy or skill.

This contrasts with what we're hoping to see in Ashes of Creation, where even smaller, more coordinated groups might have a fighting chance against larger forces through strategic use of AoE abilities, positioning, and synergies. It’s a tough balancing act, but one that could lead to a more dynamic and engaging PvP experience if done right.

ReLamas

iccer wrote: »

Yes.

It is hard to coordinate a group of 40 players, especially if it's pugs. With guilds that are on the same page, who can actually practice, it's easier.

And coordination really should and probably will matter a lot, because if half of the raid is too slow to execute commands, then that raid is simply at a disadvantage.

- Let's take an example where it's a slightly unbalanced fight, you are fighting vs 60 people, and you only have 40:
Imagine you want to fall back to a different position. You issue a command to fall back, or to follow the raid leader, and only half of the raid does it, while the other half slacks around or is just slow to do it. In just a few moments, the enemy raid will collapse on that position, and now they don't have to fight 40 ppl, but only 20. Easy win for them, while you now cannot fight them with such low numbers.

- Similarly, imagine you are fighting as a group of 20 people that are highly organized, against a group of 40 unorganized people.
You can pull the enemies around, baiting them to chase you, then turn on them while they're disorganized, you can manipulate where and when you want to fight, and how many of them you want to fight, and it's only easier if they're overconfident due to their superior numbers.

Strategy and teamwork should absolutely play a key part.

@iccer
Absolutely! I can totally relate to your point about the importance of coordination in group battles, especially from my experience in Guild Wars 2. In GW2, my team often found ourselves outnumbered, sometimes facing groups twice our size. However, thanks to superior organization, communication, and strategy, we were able to turn the tides and secure victories that would have seemed impossible just by looking at the numbers alone.

For example, we would often bait larger, less organized groups into overextending or splitting up. Once they were disoriented, we could engage smaller portions of their force in focused, coordinated attacks. This tactic was particularly effective in GW2's WvW battles, where terrain and positioning are key.

This experience highlights how a well-coordinated smaller group can outmaneuver and outfight a larger, but less organized, opponent. The synergy and execution of a strategy are often more critical than the sheer number of players. This should definitely be a cornerstone in games like Ashes of Creation, where the potential for strategic depth is enormous.

The idea that strategy and teamwork should play a key role, especially in large-scale PvP, resonates strongly with my experience. It's not just about who has more players; it's about who can use their resources most effectively.

Ungohil

It’s a tough balancing act, but one that could lead to a more dynamic and engaging PvP experience if done right.

Yeah, that's what I've meant with my "hopefully that turns out to work" with the huge part of meaningful balancing, otherwise it will be just a matter of group-size and power of ranged and AoE abilities, as we know from several other MMOs with large scaled pvp out there. As long as the group is massive and large, it will zerg down all the rest - up to the point where another huge, large group is showing up. But in between everybody else will be terminated just because size matters.

And balancing for 64 classes and thus hundrets of skills will be no fun. I'm convinced that there will be painful overpowered meta-builds and a small developer like intrepid will face serious troubles in reacting and balancing that as fast as possible.
Just imagine the set of skills (and there is no limit of 5 skills or whatsoever like in other MMOs), but the actionbar is wider, so you can use a lot of skills, with a lot of classes, and a lot of weapons (and skills affecting weapons) and so on and so on. And we have everything we know from other MMOs: Quite all known buffs and debuffs, gap filler, counterspells, espace skills, oh-shit-buttons. It's all there. And that's cool and this complexity will make fun. But it will be a painful way due to lack of possibility to balance this meaningful.
One of the best ways to decrease (not to stop) this meta/fotm builds is not to show a build to another player, so there should be no possibility to check the build of another player ingame (gear perhaps if needed, but not skills). Invested players anyhow will watch offsite the game in youtube/twitch to follow the meta, but normal players won't, because the login, play, logout. Another meaningful way is to reduce bursting as good as possible, because a lot of players tend to like big numbers and will follow classes, combinations and skill that emphasize that. Potent health points can help, so a 1v1 fight should not be over in 5sec. If that is happening, the balance can be a huge issue. It's fun to pop up as rogue and burst your enemy down, I know (I've played rogue since 20y now), but it's bad balancing wise, especially if you cannot avoid being attacked, even not as non-combantant.

For 2v2, 3v3 battles, that's managable. Perhaps in slightly bigger groups. Up from large groups it will be really really hard that it will be no AoE event, where all the ranged AoE classes and playstyles will excel whereas some classes will not have an efficient slot to fill.

I'm very interested in the gameplay of the rogue coming in later alpha stages because this class always is very crucial when it comes to balancing, especially in MMOs where the rogue has real and permanent stealth abilities (and I understood, in AoC rogues will have this). Thereofre their gameplay will show, what they will do in large scaled battles and it will show, how this will work together with open world pvp, corruption and stealth mechanics. I'm looking forward to this with high interest.

Still I hope they will get good data during upcoming test phases and I gues sthey will do their very best to balance as good as possible, but to be realistic, it will not be balanced all over. Yes, there will be AoE machines, yes there will be burst-classes, yes there will be those tanky not killable classes where you need 3 guys to get them down. You cannot avoid this because of the complexity AoC is offering us (which is a good thing).

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