Guild Wars 2

So from my opinion of Stronghold, this is what ill say…

The Short Version

+ Fantastic for Ranked PvP and Premade Groups.
+ Actually requires tactical thinking to win this map properly.
+ Good concept with a solid design in the long term.
+ Keep it to this map for now, dont bother adding any more, it’d be a great tourney map.

- Horrible for Pugging, never ever let this be part of the custom game rotation, ever.
- Can be Unforgivingly easy if one team resorce hogs early game.

/ Suggest making heroes cost no resorces instead of 2, possibly use 2 resorces to buy powerful minions instead.
/ Suggest making the hero path through the resorce area in order to help players force enemy team out of the resource point.

Other than that, its a fairly solid design.

Slightly Longer Version

As mentioned above, the game has a solid Ranked PvP viability, but would be terrible in unranked pugging matches.

This map is literally a map that you either know what your doing or you might aswell wait till the other team wins. Conquest was designed with a very dumb and simple objective in mind.

Stronghold, was not.

This is why I advise strongly against this ever being in a custom game rotation unless private matches because it just doesnt work for pugs, the gameplay is too unforgiving to expect random nobodies to suddenly pick it up and grasp it like that. I myself was the only one in my team with 1 friend whom id brought with me that had a remote clue how to play this gametype and it showed when the team got utterly trashed.

This game type requires strong strategic coordination, you literally “cannot” pug this because of that, it requires pre-emptive thinking and tactics and would be a fantastic map for e-sport gameplay because it actually feels worthy of that kind of vibe.

We’ll have to see how Revenants faire in shaking up the PVP balance but the map is solid.

Remove the supply/npc thing and it becomes pug friendly (like a real moba). If it stays like that, I’m with you, it’s premades paradise. You can’t expect pug to communicate.

I agree with the premade concept. Pugging is a nightmare on this map. 2 enemy meta-build turret engies at supply shuts down everything. There isn’t even that moment where you might win.

Not enought going on.. this map needs 6v6 or 8v8 to bee actually interesting.. i think we were just spamming for sups… it felt like pve..

My first impression… it’s different, but boring because there is no skill in fighting just in mobility of running sups..

I thought we could play 8v8 this map and we would ignore sups, and do gvg here.. but.. now that i’m involved into “improvising” GvG at OS / WvW… i know we at least need 15v15 .. because less is just pointless.. and no art at all..

But then there is this stronghold map.. so clustered.. so many obstruction that it makes me sad xD

Final thought:
- good mini game
- does definitely not fit the current sPvP rotation ( needs own queue)
- map is to clustered and thus less interesting..
- it’s more of a PVE style then PVP cut all this running and ignoring players is meh meh…
- future maps need more of a traditional GW1 open space for love of some GvG
- when Colin announced that we will get something like GvG… this is NOTHING like gvg… far from it.. lol
- overall.. disappointed..

Firelysm.4967:

Not enought going on.. this map needs 6v6 or 8v8 to bee actually interesting.. i think we were just spamming for sups… it felt like pve..

My first impression… it’s different, but boring because there is no skill in fighting just in mobility of running sups..

I thought we could play 8v8 this map and we would ignore sups, and do gvg here.. but.. now that i’m involved into “improvising” GvG at OS / WvW… i know we at least need 15v15 .. because less is just pointless.. and no art at all..

But then there is this stronghold map.. so clustered.. so many obstruction that it makes me sad xD

Final thought:
- good mini game
- does definitely not fit the current sPvP rotation ( needs own queue)
- map is to clustered and thus less interesting..
- it’s more of a PVE style then PVP cut all this running and ignoring players is meh meh…
- future maps need more of a traditional GW1 open space for love of some GvG
- when Colin announced that we will get something like GvG… this is NOTHING like gvg… far from it.. lol
- overall.. disappointed..

It is not meant to be GvG, slick.

The only thing GvG about the expansion is that guilds can queue up and they will be rank against other guilds.

Guilds get their own leaderboard that is where GvG, ends.

Giving my own feedback since all the threads are likely to be merged anyway.

I’ll start of by saying i loved the mode/map however it does need some obvious tweaks.

1) Match timer, this either should be extended to 25/30 minutes or remove it in favor of just having it first to complete the objective.

2) Hero buffs are reducing far more than 50% of incoming damage. There was time when players inside the circle were taking as low as 300 damage from a zerker thief.

3) AoE limitations, because this map has a big influx of “additional AI” the artificially lowered AoE cap of 5 is hindering actual teamfights as your damage is hitting mobs and not players. This sort of interaction only makes people feel like there’s too much PvE

4) Minimap is well, lack luster. The art needs to better define lanes and areas which players can traverse. Additionally on map art assets for rats/birds needs to be cleaner.

5) Hero’s abilities need to be balanced. Having a hero who has a pbaoe knockdown is silly when the other does not. The hero’s should have identical abilities so the mode can accurately be balanced.

6) Lets talk respawn cycle. Respawning need to be exponential. As is there really is no punishment for death as you revive far too quickly. I know this may lead to more defensive play but at the same time its needed to break up the zerg hive mind. This should also allow for a more unique meta to evolve in this gamemode.

Yeah it is very soloqueue unfriendly, kinda goes well with the soloqueue arena removal.

To the point though where even stupid people will notice the difference and raise pitchforks if not completely give up on it.

Not good.

Well first of all i like to say i don’t like spvp hardly even like wvw any more with all the pvd
but i will say this . This new game mode Will not make me even try spvp stop with the 5v5 what is this pvp or dungeon group vs dungeon group
give me a 20vs 20 spvp game mode then i will jump into some spvp

Tho i don’t no what your goal is for this mode if its to try and get players to go to spvp then it failed . the ppl who play this game for nothing but spvp will prob like it i mean something new at lest

I agree that it needs to be it’s own queue, but as a solo player I’d still like a solo queue for it as well. Just make it so that you can’t enter the solo queue with a PUG and all would be dandy. I seem to recall joining a PVP match as a group use to just guarantee you’d be in the same match, not the same team. Just do that.

I PUGed this map half the day and had a blast. It was only when we hit an actual premade that it became insufferable.

as this map is designed for a brand new guild vs guild mode which will require premade group from the same guild (most likely, more details missing), I don’t see a problem in the premade orientation over pug