Guild Wars 2

1.) Timer should be increased to 20 minutes
50% of my matches ended due to timeout, in many of them one site already broke into the lord room and was aktually attacking him.

2.) Channeling of supply/mist essence gathering should be interupted when taking damage
Obviously classes with less stability/knockbacks are in disadvantage. Had many times where someone just used his elite. 3stacks stability every 3 seconds and you cant stop him from channeling. Should be like on Temple of the silent Storm. Also fights around that would take longer and would be more interesting/important.

3.) Maybe more people for that map
5 is really the minimum for this map. Maybe 8 or 10 Players would make this more interesting.

Not so good.

Went into queuee, choose kyhlo but you forced me to play stronghold by forcing this map despite of vote

No tutorial, no warning, just “here is our new map – go play now” and instead of testing we have 10 players running around like a headless chicken, took only 2 minutes to people to start leaving. Is this really you want?

I want to play normal PVP, im not on the hype train for new map, dont force me.

So don’t go unranked for these 24 hours?

yep, go ranked. same as unranked in the long/short of it.

They put up a notice awhile ago saying that all unranked will be Stronghold for 24 hours. You’ll need to play ranked or practice if you want conquest.

I greatly enjoyed this map. If I don’t manage to make it my favorite by the end of this beta, it will be shortly after it goes live. :P

Edit: seems the forums turn Unicode emoticons into four question marks. :/

First impression? Played it once, it broke my pvp queues :P

Are you really complaining that you have to learn new things? Seriously?

http://i.imgur.com/3khiHwP.gif

You must be really fun at party.

No Walking.6349:

Are you really complaining that you have to learn new things? Seriously?

http://i.imgur.com/3khiHwP.gif

was that 13th warrior? solid ref
+1

No Walking.6349:

Are you really complaining that you have to learn new things? Seriously?

http://i.imgur.com/3khiHwP.gif

lol it is a way to say “Get good!”

No tutorial or warning? They streamed a strategy guide to the map on Friday (I don’t even PvP and I knew about it and watched it). They announced it was coming in a blog and in emails. People on the forums commented about it, both positively and negatively based on how much they’d prefer other information to come out.

I wanted to try it out, as a complete nonPvPer (I can upload an image of my 0 matches played screen if you like, along with my /age …). I especially wanted to try when it’s brand new content everyone’s just figuring out; I just didn’t have guildies available to walk me through it — enjoying new stuff and being completely clueless if attacked are two different things — and I have limited time Tuesday afternoons.

To me one of the great joys of gaming is figuring out new content as a team. I really enjoyed chewing glass on WoW raids (my guild was friendly and laughed together about mistakes instead of going postal). Today is a great chance to do that!

I don’t usually PvP as it’s not my bag, but I really enjoyed Stronghold. We had a guild party of 5 and after 4 or 5 games began to see what worked and what didn’t. Being on TS really helped and by the end of tonight’s trial before bed we hadn’t lost a game. Personally I’d rather play this than pvp on the other maps.

YuiRS.8129:

Really hated it.

It snowballs way too hard, pugging is a nightmare, turret engie cancer is at the strongest, healing cheese (yay eles/engies are even stronger now). Put it in its own queue so it can die without creating too much stench. You can put Courtyard in the same queue as well.

Exaggeration at it’s best. Hilarious.

The mode itself is pretty good.
The only problems i see right now are the archers NPCs being kinda “useless”…especially when the meta is mainly zerk and guards go down like they’re made of butter…
It would be better if guards had some sort of dmg boon toward players, focused them mainly and a big resistance toward player damage….that way archer could become more useful instead of just spamming door breakers.

Second is the time limit…i know it was already reduced , but 15 minutes is way too short…unless your team is that bad and get steamrolled HARD by the enemies on the first assoult. I don’t want hours long plays, but 15 mins is too short in any case. 20-30 minutes should be optimal.

Also another good thing would be a time limit on supplies gathering, like a CD on each pile of supplies for a single player…like 1 min or so. It would make the fact of dying and leaving supplies to enemies much more punitive too.

Hello,

After taking part to stronghold test for several hours overnight, here comes my feedback.

I first attended it as solo queue and experimented around, then once I made my mind on a strategy, I joined a “premade” made of random players that set their mind up on the same strategy. I must add that we all were on TS (although we would have done as well without TS given how our strategy was straightforward) and tried to optimize our build composition, which may have had an effect on the results of this test.

The first thing that struck me is that guards are really weak. As a hammer+bow warrior, using PVT PvP amulet, I was able to take on at once and kill all alone by myself all the 6 guards between the two doors, leaving the room free for skritts.
In other words, without active defense from players, both doors can be destroyed by a single player and 4 skritts in 2 minutes from game start.

After a while, it appeared that the passive defense (door health, guards and boss+support NPC combat) was so low that the best strategy was to simply rush the boss right from start along with 5 skritts. We got one ranger to defend our outer door and the 4 other of us rushed strait to the boss. Using this strategy, we lost only one out of 10-20 games (did not keep the count). For the lost game, someone understood it was very important to kill our skritts and managed to do it singlehandedly.

One of the won game lasted for the whole 15 mins with a very strong defence and we managed to kill the boss in the last few seconds (we still won by kill, not by points once the time ran out). Our best time was 2:08 to complete and our average (excluding the 15min game) was about 3:10 (guesstimate). During most games there were 1-3 defenders on the opposing teams yet they were not enough to prevent us from winning.

From my experience, it appears that, once the outer door is opened with this strategy, the game is more or less won. A CC heavy team has a very easy time keeping skritts alive between both doors because 1/ guards are weak and 2/ enemy players have to run a long way from spawn to boss room without any cover. They are therefore extremely susceptible to ranged CC.

The boss support NPC are also quite ineffective. The mage dies in a matter of seconds, the cleric does not seem very proficient at healing the boss up and the two others being melee fighters are killed by melee AoE without even thinking about it. Moreover, they all (including the boss) were susceptible to ALL cc and never made use of defiance (either vanilla or HoT system) (may be a bug or the system was not yet implemented).

Of course, these results are biased since players are discovering this new game mode, making up new strategies and learning how to play it properly. I hope that the metagame will evolve with more focus on a proper defence later on, but it may also shift to a base-race paradigm where both teams rush for the enemy and it all becomes a PvE contest (WoW veterans will remember old times when Alterac Valley battleground, albeit hosting 40 players and being much larger than the current stronghold map, was host to such base-race).
The experience has shown us that many players tend to focus on the strategy which provides the best result for the least effort, and the possibility of earning about 1500 reward track points and 30 silvers in 2 mins looks extremely sweet.

From my experience, I conclude that:
- making the doors only susceptible to door breakers is a great idea. At least does it force to some NPC care.
- guards should be buffed across the board (both damage and health pool). A single players should not be able to dispatch them that easily while keeping skritts safe (when players do not defend). The way they are currently, archers are simply useless.
- the same applies to heroes. They have too little life at the moment and are not really worth spending the time to wait for them. Well, the only time we lost was because we tried getting ourselves a hero instead of sticking with the basic skritt spam.
- the same applies to boss and support NPC !!! They really diserve a lot more HP and they should be granted some way to avoid perma cc (unless it was a bug or the HoT defiance not yet implemented).
- in my opinion, the boss life should reset should all agressor die and the boss go out of combat. As it is now, once both doors are broken, you can simply switch to an attrition war strategy that consists in running and hitting the boss a bit each time (before defenders kill you) until it dies. Killing the boss should be an “achievement”, meaning that your team was able to hold the place long enough to bring it from 100% down to 0.
- I feel like guard behaviour may have to be changed. Currently, it is enough for players to hit them a few times to get them to completely forget about skritts. Skritts should not be allowed to run freely between guards like this (or buff guards enough that players really can’t engage them all at once so that there are always some guards hitting skritts as long as none of the 6 guards was killed).

I would be really interested in having Braghez give us more details concerning is experience. It seems to be quite the opposite from ours.

On a sidenote, I have seen in the blue boss room a cellar with lots of barrels inside. The games were too easy for us to try abusing it but I think someone should have a look and report us whether a team can fit in and abuse it to hit the boss without taking damage.

Hi! Played stronghold yestarday and it was great fun! The model is Great!
I rolled my Main Sildier build ranger in there.

The longer time limit is awsome – it gives roome for more things to do, better strategies and so on. It creats more fun simply!

The archers – if ther are to be annoying u have to make loads of them, if they are going to be a problem u’ll have to make huge ammounts. These could be hitting a tiny bit harder.

The skritt. They are fine actually.

The guards. They go down easily by one player (read 2 guards in 1,5 second for a skilled thief) even if there are a few archers nearby. And their defence is also quite weak agains players. Towards skritt they do what they’re supposed to do.

The trebuche function is great. Creats much action and different ways to deal with things. And its an extra force to count with.

Tha map is great, creats oppurtunitis for much strategy and different ways to do things!

Like in one of the posts above I think the Lord should have the ability to heal up his life. Aftar a failed attempt – he’ll still be vulnerable with perhaps a few defending guards lost and all the gates open.

I’ll try it out further and come with more comments if I can think of anything else.

my feedback is that i don’t know what is going on

I haven’t had the time to try it out, but it seems similar to GvG from GW1. Is that not what everyone wanted?

I’d love to see some more great feedback like the first two posts, and I’m sure the devs would too.

Played a couple of games last night and with the guards being worthless all the games I played were just a matter of who could zerk Rush the other door the fastest. Skritt were 5x longer to take down than the guards… Wow. Worthless NPC guards.

Also, map was WAY smaller than I expected. Don’t know how anyone could think this is “GvG” at all.

I didn’t play GW1 GvG and not sure how anyone could see this as GvG.

Not fond of this mode because doors and guards are currently worthless.

I’d really like to see more death match maps like Courtyard.

I liked the stronghold, it seems much more interactive than the usual. I also see why they changed how teleporting works… so much terrain advantages in this map.

its almost like mini wvw.

Personally I think they could stand to increase the size of the teams to 6v6 or even 8v8

/agree with Gilgalas

The only reason to defend at the moment is to delay the skritt bombers (and archers) from breaking through the doors. It’s better for the defender to actually be a solo stealth thief for the simple reason of ganking the NPCs and ignoring (yes, ignoring the other players) in the PvP match defense role. Other classes can also fulfill this role, it’s that stealth Thief is more specifically geared since the prevent capture mechanic of stealth balance is non-applicable and the NPCs are incredible weak to a single backstab and a few autoattacks. LB rangers/Necros/Turret Engineers also do well here.

The other objective (Hero spawns) actually are also seriously game momentum changing. If your team can get both Hero spawns, the game is all but won.

I literally only had one game where the lord didn’t die and time ran out. How it happened was the other team basically went full defense after all the gates were down and they had absolutely zero chance of coming back (they simply killed the stream of archer NPCs that were being sent their way – we would have won easily if we were not all solo queue and could coordinate since we were already +100 point leaders).

This map has a much larger imbalance for premade teams versus solo queue. This is in an of itself the reason this map will be hated by a fair quantity of PvPers. It’s basically Courtyard all over again. However, this is not unique to just this map. It just exacerbates the issue.

What I’d like to see improved is:

(1) A defensive (CC-based) NPC / NPC door repair based on supply turn in – call it an option # 3 that can spawn in the your lords area and then run down the defensive lane. It also could repair the Treb if it went down. Finally, those NPCs could then stand between the enemy spawn point and enemy Lord to impede enemy players from getting back into their own lord area.

(2) The blue side seems slightly better laid out from an initial objective push over red’s side. It primarily has to do with opening view/doors/hero spawn point. But also the “run” from spawn of red to spawn of blue is slightly more annoying. And finally, the red side stairs up to the supply should be directly pointed to the supply use doors but for some reason is at a slightly jarring angle.

(3) There needs to be a “comeback” mechanic. There is no way to avoid this 3-4 player team-zerging except for the hero spawns. What I’d like to see is a losing team 10s-20s? limited-time boon to all NPCs to get back into it when your lord is in danger. This will also act as a warning that your lord is in trouble and/or team needs to regroup.

(4) Change the treb to a cannon? The purpose of the cannon should be as a defensive option for NPCs and it should be located much further back by the initial doors but have mostly full view of the approaching NPCs. This ensures that anyone defending solo has a viable option to stop the NPCs from the start if those NPCs are not being escorted and makes the pace (all-out offensive rush) slightly slower to break through.

(5) Open up the center area where the supply is taken more (aka kill the walls). There needs to be more cross map movement options.

The good:

> Time length of match
> Multiple roles of players
> Multiple objectives, albeit some need revisement
> NPCs feel right around where they should be health-wise (not too long, not too weak) with the hero NPC feeling good enough. It’s where it should be for a PvP match.

I think they designed this to get people into PvP. Teach them a little bit of the basics and such. I must say they did an awsome job making this. I had no problems playing Stronghold.

I have been having a great time — players for the most part have forgotten healing builds can exist in this game and the stuff I’ve been able to do healing our side’s Lord has been hilarious. Hold off 2 characters and a summoned hero by myself with the Lord and the 5 troops come away barely scratched thanks to Guardian Staff #2 and #4 and Battle Presence. Lord heals up to full in the gaps between them stragling in, while the rest of my team 4v3s there other side’s face in and I can see their Lord never gets a heal ever.

And swiftness is super important. The map is HUGE and if you’re not moving at all times you’re doing it wrong.

Squee!

I think my impression is rapidly becoming ‘I love that some people hate it’.

Probably because its got pivotal roles that can’t be filled by “DPS moar!” characters. Swiftness, healing, and situational awareness are all needed along with solid-to-over-the-top DPS.

Just wanted to stop by the forums and say that my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed playing Stronghold last night!

We PvP a lot together, and all of the matches we played were incredibly fun! We had no problem understanding the mechanics quickly, and it was a blast figuring out how to balance helping our wallbreakers push forward, get more supply for more of them, and defend our own lane at the same time. And the 5 players seems like a perfect number for making it slightly difficult to do all 3 effectively while still making it possible and creating fun fights.

I wish I had recorded my favorite match to share here — both teams were playing well, but they were a little ahead of us breaking down our gates and engaging our lord. In the final seconds of the game both of our lords were in the downed state and we just barely managed to get off the stomp before them.

In another match they broke through to our lord before we even damaged their gate because we spent too long just fighting over supply. So we changed up and 3 of us focused entirely on defending our lord while my wife and a necro focused on pushing through their gates. We ended up loosing the match, but not before getting their lord to half health. I never felt like a game was past being able to be turned around, and I’ve never had so much fun defending something! I can’t wait to play this along side Conquest in the future!

Thanks for an incredible time last night!

My guild and I grouped in teamspeak after playing most of the night last night to gather feedback and discuss. The following is based on our conversation -

First off, we all loved the new map/mode for the most part. It was fun and seems like a great addition to the game. Like Nike mentioned above, the best part is it actually opens the door to more diverse play styles.

We did see a few minor issues/things we think could be improved however.

1. First, this game mode simply CANNOT share a queue with conquest. This is primarily because of the build diversity that is involved. My mesmer will run very different traits, runes and gems between the two modes – and Im sure that is true of most classes.

2. We believe the map would be more fun and dynamic if it were 8v8 rather than 5v5. There is a lot to do on this map. 8v8 would be closer to a guild vs guild playstyle and would mean more player v player fights.

3. We did start to see a zerg-lane meta starting to form toward the end of the night. Offense seems to be the way to go in organized matches – with no thought toward defense. This could potentially lead to a very boring meta in which both teams are simply racing down their lanes with pure zerker/damage builds and ignoring the other side. We arent sure how to fix this (but suspect 8v8 might alleviate the concerns some) – maybe adding in some better defensive capabilities or making the doorbreakers less powerful/easier to kill than they are now.

Again, we loved the new game mode – just our general thoughts after only a few hours of play (which we admit isnt much).

“the end of the night. Offense seems to be the way to go in organized matches – with no thought toward defense.”

That’s pretty much what I saw.

True, offensive for now pays just too much well, defense doesn’t have enough tools to actually try to defend properly. They should fix a bit the NPCs imo to not make them a joke and add more of them. If they balance guards/archers as I said, add some more of them…especially something ranged on the walls like archers and make guards atk with priority on players I think it would become more balanced and a full offensive wouldn’t pay that well.
This tactic is sustained too by the fact that the defending lane if further from the attack one, so high mobility characters will get there in no time and pulverize the guards istantly.
After all they wanted to put a scent of moba in this mode…but in every moba the “tower” is always a fearful enemy in the early game, while here it’s a joke. To do the lord you need like two people at most…even one could do if he’s melee (mages are a pain in the kitten for ranged…not hard, but you waste more time waiting for the bubbles to go down).

This mode have a great potential, I hope that the devs will listen to our feedbacks

I thoroughly loved the Stronghold beta. I do agree that offense/defense needs to be more balanced, towards defense of course. NPCs were balanced. While I agree the Lord could be made to be more powerful it just wouldn’t fit with the 15 minute game time, which is perfect. I noticed zero bugs or glitches. I can’t wait until release. Great job all at ANET!

I had alot of fun with the Beta. Wish we could get more 8/8 10/10 modes? When will HOT be out?

I enjoyed the Beta of Stronghold. I hope the ques will be separate between Conquest and Stronghold? Shout casters vs Developers was great. Twitch was a great accompaniment to the overall day. The different tactics implored on each side was very diverse. The speed pushes and Shepard NPC . Difference in group choices 2/2/1, 4/1 . The trebuchet where effective tactic also . I think everyone had fun. I certainly did. When will we get to play this on a regular choice?

1 – I agree, even though all my matches ended with lord being killed (I lost 1 time and won 4 times), but one of the matches was really close on time and I can see that happening often.

2 – I don’t agree, you probably faced a ranger poping RaO , he had to save it for a while to be able to use it for the hero, it was a matter of resource management, this is a case of “get good” to counter it

3 – 5v5 felt nice, but I can see a 8v8 working IF the NPCs get stronger.

Nike.2631:

I think my impression is rapidly becoming ‘I love that some people hate it’.

Probably because its got pivotal roles that can’t be filled by “DPS moar!” characters. Swiftness, healing, and situational awareness are all needed along with solid-to-over-the-top DPS.

This.

Just before the beta went online, I switched my Elementalist to Magi’s. With this, I could run both defense and offense. I did have trouble holding the supply depot. I could reliably delay access to the depot at the beginning of the match, but eventually players break through those.

For offense, my tactic was to summon a few doorbreakers, then run ahead and kill the first set of guards. Once the gate was down, I immediately grab the guards inside, and try to get the second and final sets as well. Usually they kill the doorbreakers anyway, but a second wave of NPCs is unopposed by guards.

Even with only one player escorting the NPCs, this can all happen very, very quickly.

On defense, keep your guards alive. The two guards stationed outside the gates will handle large numbers of unsupported breakers with little problem. Kill archers first and prevent players from killing the guards. When you lose the outer guards (and you will), their job is now your job.

When you the outer gate goes down, you have to protect the inner guards and gate, or you will have to put more than one player on defense to make up for the loss.

Remember to use the trebuchet, as it will two-shot doorbreakers and can fire quite quickly. I found it is not quite as spectacular for shelling the supply depot, and if you have the freedom to do that you are probably already winning.

The inner gate is just like the outer gate, except there are more guards to protect. As with the outer guards, once the inner guards are dead, their jobs are now your job, but now treb support here is rather lackluster. You’ll need two at the inner gate, so if you put a third player on treb your team’s offense will slow or stall.

Once the inner gate is down, you have to intercept heroes before they make it to the keep. Make full use of that defiance bar: it’s not easy (but is possible) to burn it down with one player and the 5 second stun is wonderful. Enemy players will run in to attack the lord as well. Here is where a healing build can really shine: put heals and condition removal on the lord and the keep guards, as they have some strong abilities, and every live NPC is useful.

If you manage to drive off an attack on the keep lord, don’t leave immediately. NPCs do not regenerate out of combat on this map. Keep healing the NPCs back up to full to erase any incremental progress the enemy team has made.

Overall, I’ve found that simply fighting other player is not ideal. If you find yourself in extended combat with a player, and you aren’t accomplishing anything with that combat, disengage and seek out a more meaningful battle.

Any combat that does not further these are of questionable utility:

• Escorting NPCs to and attacking the enemy’s gate.
• Defending your own gates and lord and their guards.
• Claiming or contesting the Mists Essence.
• Denying supply to the enemy team.

Remember that players cannot damage gates. If your guards are dead and all the enemy doorbreakers and archers are dead, an enemy player fighting you at the gate is preventing you from doing something useful like summoning a hero or running supply!

It is because of this, that DPS gear isn’t automatically the best. Because merely killing players faster isn’t useful. Crowd control, keeping NPCs alive, denial of resources; those are all more useful than killing a player that will respawn in 15 seconds.

That’s not to say there isn’t a place for DPS on this map. At the Mists Essence, or while guarding or attacking a keep lord DPS can have some use. But in those situations, DPS is contributing towards a defined goal other than killing players. At the Mists Essence, wiping out the enemy presence gets you a Hero. At the enemy keep lord, it gets you a win. At your keep lord, it stops you from losing, and perhaps saves a few NPCs to be healed.

But it’s just another role, rather then the role.

My suggestions are primarily about tweaking the NPCs~

• Lord. Slightly faster auto attack speed. Do NOT add self-healing – leave that duty to players.

• Guards. One of the first pair and both of the last pair should be replaced with Elites. Add a third guard to the third pair. It is far too easy to crack the first gate solo in seconds. The last gate should really require you to either dig in or flood the area with archers.

• Archers. Need their attack speed increased by 50% so they are less trivial to dodge. Their basic attack should apply a 2 second slow. Their special shots should include a 1 second root. Make ignoring these guys while running down skritt agonizing. +25% damage against the guards so they can meaningfully assist against the elites added above.

• Gatebusters. These need to be 5-10% slower and reduce their HP by 10%-15%. Crossing lanes to kill these should be more appealing. And that in turn makes shepherding them more rewarding. Consider giving them ‘+50% buff duration’ so applying Regeneration, Protection, Swiftness & Retaliation to gatebusters is more of a thing. Finally, when they get to a gate they need to spread out slightly. No standing together to get cleaved into oblivion once they are on task. Smashing gates is where they should shine. Getting creamed en route is where players should shine.

• Summoning Doors. When your side is behind, gain a chance while spawning NPCs to not consume supply. This chance can start at 10% and maybe get as high as 30% if you are really deep in kitten vs. the other team. This adds a stronger comeback mechanics while still requiring players to be active in their own salvation.

I posted more fully in the PvP forum about my noob-to-PvP Stronghold experience. Here I’ll add something, though. After reading the above comments I have to agree the guards are rather squishy. As in, I was on a support guardian that does double digit dps when dungeon group mates are clocking in 40K crits, and I killed the guards solo with relative ease.

It could be they can’t buff the guards up too much given how much there is for the five players to do, but if I found them to be minimal obstacles anyone running something more dps’y than a wet noodle might not notice them beyond a slightly stubbed toe.

Another thing about the heroes is that they are actually very easy to capture, too easy. Being able to simply press F when the channel becomes available and then using stability pretty much ensures that you get the hero if you pressed F before your enemy, unless fighting for the hero against teams with a surplus amount of boon removal.

Edit: I’d also very much like to see something happen at the end when no team has won within 15 minutes. Simply declaring one side victor based on the secondary system of points feels unrewarding when you win and extra frustrating/disappointing when you lose.

Same, I don’t know how many matches I played but I really loved it. The amount of roles that seem to develop from the game is what I enjoyed most. It has a balance of PVE and PVP as well that I particularly enjoy.

I do think it needs its own queue, however. It’s such a separate game from Conquest mode.

I like Stronghold. I only got to play one game because of other things coming up. But if it’s still up when I get home today I’ll definitely play it again. I didn’t notice the guards or archers being particularly weak, but again only played one game. I did notice that this is like mini wvw which is great

i like it very much

but the main problem as for now (maybe later it wont be) is you cant pug it as you must have some communication. are you on def, offense , sup runner etc…
with guild group it went great. with pugs hardly.

and yes many location and spot for LB ranger to defend from range, mesmer portal and intrupts the sup area, guard with boon, ele with aoe
so many new options to discover for what works best.

i still see the meta composition with warrior, guard, ele , engi and thief and wish that some more class and builds will find thier uses there.

@Nike:
More Elite sounds good its currently to easy to pick out the first guards and destroy the first gate in a few seconds when the game starts. Also the idea with doors sounds interesting.

Frostfang.5109:

Like in one of the posts above I think the Lord should have the ability to heal up his life. Aftar a failed attempt – he’ll still be vulnerable with perhaps a few defending guards lost and all the gates open.

The lord not healing by themselves is actually great though. This makes a build with some healing actually useful in the match.

hmm I won with a pugs group. As long as people actually pay attention to the minimap and the bar at the top. And somebody on the team at least has enough brains to ping the right objectives. Definitely possible. Although obviously premades will always have an advantage. But that’s true even on the conquest maps.

I dunno if I would want elite guards, sPvP matches shouldn’t last that long. Quick matches are better imo.

The longer the battle the more epic it feels when u win.

I agree with most of above.. though 15 min is OK..

I had a few matches where we either won or lost in the 15 min.. and a few that ended by time limit. Those were some hard matches.. but didn’t look like either side was going to win.. even if it went 60 min.. great back and forth. Lots of fun!!

Some other thoughts:

• like mentioned.. the guards are easily solo’d.. and the archers really don’t seem to be that useful. Just spawn breakers and have at it.. so buff the guards and adjust the mechanic to allow the archers to be useful.. MAYBE make them defensive.. and have them post around the doors to rain arrows on the players and breakers.

• if time limit seems to be an issue. you COULD give the breakers a buff that negates MOST player damage.. but they are susceptible to CC.. and give them some breakbars.. THEN its a matter of WHEN they get to the doors.. rather than IF.. that would allow 15 min matches to be plenty of time.. Make the archers useful for defense and mounting on the walls to rain arrows down when the breakers show up. The breakers can get damaged from the archers.. and greatly reduced dmg by players PLUS CC.

• I think separate CUES for Stronghold, Conquest, and Courtyard IS a good idea.. and then also Ranked/Unranked as well. Build templates/presets would be a great tool to add as well.. Would be nice to be able to “create a build along with gear” for specific maps/games and call it up WHEN you want to… Simple and quick changing. =)

• The intro SUMMARY screen that pops up when you zone into the Stronghold map says you have to use a WARHORN to summon the hero. That obviously needs to be updated. =)

All in all I had a great time.. Thanks for the preview.. Looking forward to another run. =)