Curse

JoDiamonds · May 11, 2006, 08:40 PM // 20:40

This assumes the reader understands the basic rules of Alliance Battles. I refer to control points as shrines.

This discusses how group size affects Alliance Battles. It is relatively elementary, but hopefully is of use to players new to Alliance Battles.

Group Size
The size of your groups is vitally important in Alliance Battles. There are two major goals for managing group size:

Take as many control points at once as possible. This goals makes having many groups desirable. This also includes being able to defend as many control points as possible, if that turns out to be viable at some point during the match.
Be able to hold your own or win battles against other groups as necessary. This makes having more characters in a single group desirable (and therefore fewer groups).
- As a minor part of this, groups need to be able to defeat enemy NPCs that protect the shrines on the map. The primary consequence is that characters generally cannot all go solo.
- If you can win while avoiding fighting enemy humans, then this isn't really an issue.

Here's a couple of examples of how group size affects battles (and what is meant by group size if isn't already clear): If all players on Team Alpha stick together as one group of twelve, they will generally defeat any other group except for another group of twelve. (Exceptions to this are ignored for this disucssion.) The best they can expect when facing another group of twelve is a tie, essentially leaving it up to luck.

However, if the enemy Team Bravo splits up into three groups of four, Bravo will be able to capture three control points almost as fast as Alpha can capture one. Enemy NPCs at shrines don't put up a huge fight by themselves, and go down almost as quickly to four humans as twelve. If this continues for very long, soon Bravo will control most of the shrines on the map. Any shrine that Alpha attacks it will get, and Bravo will be forced to retreat in the face of overwhelming firepower, but that doesn't matter for the purposes of actually winning the battle. If Bravo can generally hold on to five of the shrines while Alpha has two, Bravo will win quite easily, giving little faction to the enemy at all.

Let's consider instead that Alpha tries switching to a grouping strategy of 3 + 3 + 3 + 3. Here, they have more but weaker groups than Bravo. In theory, they can take more shrines than the enemy. However, it's unlikely they can avoid combat entirely (especially with three groups of Bravo roaming around), and when combat does happen they will probably lose (since Bravo's four will generally beat Alpha's three). These combat losses on Alpha's part will probably allow Bravo more freedom to take shrines, and will probably result in Alpha's loss (though probably far less dramatically than if Alpha had stayed in one 12-man group).

The optimal configuration for fighting enemies using 4 + 4 + 4 is uncertain, but it may be 6 + 6 (taking shrines slightly slower than the enemy but generally winning all battles), or perhaps 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 (taking shrines twice as fast but losing all battles), or possibly even 5 + 5 + 2 (winning 2/3s of all battles and taking shrines just as fast, in theory).

Obviously all of these configurations have their own issues, and each one of them should theoretically prompt a response by the enemy. Should the enemy run six groups of two each, you would almost certainly benefit greatly by running four groups of three (taking shrines 50% slower but having 50% more manpower in each battle).

This isn't nearly the whole story, of course. Actual builds matter (strangely enough), and six groups of two will never be far from each other, possibly allowing any one group to call for backup and become a group of four when needed. And in many cases, a single solo character can be quite effective (and some class combinations are certainly capable of taking out NPCs on their own). Of course, there are only seven shrines, so having twelve solo characters makes little sense.

Hopefully this was informative for some people (if simple), and hopefully someone smarter or more experienced than myself can add to the knowledge base for Alliance Battles.

See you on the Jade Sea.

Marcus Varrus · May 11, 2006, 09:16 PM // 21:16

You have explained the details of the possible group size advantages and disadvantages if the 12v12 model was reimplemented. In the current 4v4v4 - 4v4v4 with its limiations on coordinating and support outside of the basic 4-man unit. We are forced to use that as the the only vialble option as it is today.

just rude · May 12, 2006, 03:47 AM // 03:47

I thought the point was to get as many ppl in one place and fight, so the MM on each side can make a huge army. That isn't where points come from?

enough humor, seriously something like that should be made into a quest at the isle of the nameless. To show ppl how important it is for the seperate groups to work as individual groups rather than 1 huge mass.

It is horrifiying to see the dog chasing its tail and winning. Both sides gets in huge groups, 1 side loses the big battle and spends the rest of the time capping just before the other group still in a huge mass recaps. Instead of breaking off into smaller groups to cap other shrines far from the big group. They just continue on running in the same circle.

answer me this why does a small group of ppl attack a larger group. Mending aint that good.

The more ppl in 1 place the less chance of have ppl in other places especially if the teams are limited in size.

You wonder why we've only seen 2 boards. Luxon is aweful, just plain bad. Even if there isnt 5 everyone agrees that Salspray is the middle.

/disgruntled luxon

JoDiamonds · May 13, 2006, 11:13 PM // 23:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marcus Varrus

You have explained the details of the possible group size advantages and disadvantages if the 12v12 model was reimplemented. In the current 4v4v4 - 4v4v4 with its limiations on coordinating and support outside of the basic 4-man unit. We are forced to use that as the the only vialble option as it is today.

It is quite diffucult with the current UI to do anything other than 4-4-4. That doesn't mean it can't be done, especially if you want to do 2-2 or 3-1 units.

Of course, all of this is an argument for ArenaNet to change the system to make it more flexible and interesting and fun.