Guild Wars 2

Thread for Stronghold Feedback from BWE2 (Sept 4-6)

I’m not liking Stronghold. I got sick of WvW and took up PvP instead. Stronghold is a mini wvw… awwwww I can’t get away.

This is something I’ll play occasionally. I will say that it’s much better adjusted compared to the last stronghold beta.

-edit- I love the idea of WvW with even teams

Wiping a team that is pushing your lord should give you some sort of buff or advantage to allow for comeback mechanics. Otherwise, it’s just too easy for the enemy team to zerg back, and unless you stay to defend the game is over. It makes it very difficult to do anything but turtle in your base once the other team has reached that point.

Nettle.9025:

Wiping a team that is pushing your lord should give you some sort of buff or advantage to allow for comeback mechanics. Otherwise, it’s just too easy for the enemy team to zerg back, and unless you stay to defend the game is over. It makes it very difficult to do anything but turtle in your base once the other team has reached that point.

Run a portal mesmer.

Changes from Last BWE

• Doorbreakers appear to have less armor and more HP, which makes condi damage less cheesy against them.
• Mist heroes deal about 10% damage to the gate each attack (for reference DBs do 25%) but attack slower than a DB.

Issues

• Archers are STILL Useless There is absolutely no point in summoning an archer. Ever. Players kill guards just as quickly. Archers do negligible damage to gates. Archers die just as quickly as Doorbreakers. But most importantly archers stop in the middle of a lane and toss arrows at random stuff. The fact that they never reach an objective for which they were designed is what will keep them from ever being useful.
• Points > Lord Kill Trying to actually kill the lord in a relatively even match-up is more likely to lose the match on points than win it on points or a lord a kill. Hero channels are more valuable for the score than for the actual hero. Killing a gate is worth much less than it needs to be. Defenders have an advantage in killing NPCs and reinforcing from their spawn. The result is that stacking defense except for running out to grab a hero will net you more points from kills than the other team gets from actually progressing toward the lord.
• Heroes still need buffed There’s no point to a hero channel other than the points or if it’s on the way and you can do it uncontested. The heroes die before they get to a get or lord more often than not, and there’s not much you can to keep them alive. Their defiant is easy to break, which stuns them for quite a while, and their elite on the lord is too easy to interrupt. The only purpose they serve is to snowball matches more. Even unhindered, the turn-around time on a hero is way too long.
• No Comeback Mechanic Heroes aren’t strong enough to serve this purpose. The extra supply from a successful defense means almost nothing; opponents have ample time to respawn and deal with the NPC wave before those NPCs can reach an inner gate.
• Stability Channel This needs to go. It’s silly how some builds can just run up, start channeling, pop stability, and there’s practically nothing that can stop them except boon strip or displace. As a guardian, I’ve literally run into a group fighting for it, used quickness and chained two stabilities and I have a hero cap in the middle of a group of people.
• Trebuchet Auto-Repair Now that enemies past the outer gate drop supply, I don’t see a reason for this.

I have said this since the first Stronghold beta. If your inner gate is destroyed, there should be a path opened, or a portal that takes you directly to the Lord’s room. Too often do I die, or take enough damage/waste too much time from someone camping the path from my spawn to the Lord’s room, thus removing me from defending my Lord.

Nettle.9025:

Wiping a team that is pushing your lord should give you some sort of buff or advantage to allow for comeback mechanics. Otherwise, it’s just too easy for the enemy team to zerg back, and unless you stay to defend the game is over. It makes it very difficult to do anything but turtle in your base once the other team has reached that point.

You do get a advantage. If you kill a player that is in your territory, you get supply. This allows you to make a come-back push.

I think Mist Heroes should be more than Lord Killers.

I suggestion increasing the variety of their role.

• Gate Breaker- These Mist Heroes sole purpose is to break gates. They survive longer than Skritts. Turn Gwymm a Gatebreaker.
• Lord Killers- These NPC are used to kill Guards easily and damage the lord. Nothing changed from before. This is Nika’s role. Nothing has changed much from before.
• Defenders- These mist heroes do not go on the offensive. Instead, they go on the defense lane and kill enemy skritts and tengu on the way down to the enemy npc spawn room and then they disable the spawn for a few seconds. Tengu and Skritts cannot ignore this NPC. Give this role to Turai Ossa. Some Mist Heroes can revive guard NPC and repair the treb instantly. They can also grant supplies. Gates do not get repaired as it can be overpowered.

By having different roles, there are a variety of choices. The player that has the NPC that is needed most should be the one to channel the hero. It can make for interesting plays and strategy. Plus, gatebreaker heroes are needed to advance the game faster in case the enemy has a strong defense.

The main problem I have is that it is so incredibly hard to turn a match around (the ‘snowball effect’ as was mentioned above). Though it doesn’t seem like it at a quick glance, this has a LOT to do with the way supply is handled, IMO. Teams/matches are most efficient (and fun imo) with different players taking up particular roles or, at least, having some bit of focus in what they’re doing for their team.

Defending the Lord Room and managed to thwart the enemy assault? “Oh great! They dropped some supply! Nice!”. " Well, crap! I guess this stuff is pretty useless since one or both (or more) defenders will all have to leave the Lord’s Room to make any use of it…" :/

On the offensive and at the Lord’s Gate with a couple Door Breakers but have enemy defenders show up to foil your plans? “On great! I took out one of the defending enemies and grabbed a couple dropped supplies! On shoot! The other defender/s are taking out our breakers and I’m starting to get overwhelmed. I guess I can leave and run back to the other side of the map to use these supplies and start over…” :/

Both of these things are happening and it seems like it’s just gonna have to be a 15 min match that will be decided by who got that one extra, random Hero spawn for a few extra pts? “Oh great! A 15 min match comes down to a 10 pt score difference…how fun…” :/

OK now to my idea/point. What if, instead of each player having ‘personal Supply’ with a limit of two, Supply could be changed to a sort of team mechanic with a maximum limit of 10? I think this could allow teams defending to continue to do so while still being able to put together some sort of counter push. This would let players maintain their roles w/o having to abandon their objective to run back across the map. I know I’m not the only one who sees that the supply depot is a sort of ‘hit or miss’ mess and I think this change would also make it a bit more of a strategic point that isn’t completely neglected in a snowballing match, b/c enemy players KNOW you’re going to have to go on the complete defensive as there’s not much left you can do. This simple change, imo, would make matches much more fun, balanced, and allow teams to change the tides in a snowballing match when their back is against the wall.

OK. I know this isn’t perfect. It’s late and I, admittedly, don’t have a ton of SH experience under my belt, but what are some more experienced SH players’ opinion of a mechanics change like this? Also, what are some possible problems (respectfully) that I’m not aware of or haven’t considered?

Edit: Just adding in that MANY players I’ve encountered on teams have had no clue what Supply is, how it works, or how to use it efficiently, leading to matches starting with players not even using their supply or 4 Archers and 1 Breaker as well as a neglected Supply Depot. I know this is just subject to experience and SH knowledge.

The main problem of Stronghold right now, at least on my point of view, is Archers. They are not useful enough. The buff to their speed was great, but they are easily taken down fast by players and they can’t perform a “unique” mechanic, like Doorbreakers can (destroy the door).

Right now, the “Lord Rush meta” claims seem to have ended and most games are going to max time, which in Stronghold is at least better than in Conquest (Conquest feels much longer when this happens, at least for me). I believe this was caused mainly because the comeback mechanic they added (if you kill an enemy in your own base, they’ll drop 2 supplies whether they had or not), making the pushed team able to start an offensive push.

So I think comeback mechanics are good right now and if you get pushed more and more it’s because your team has a lower skill level than the enemy and you can’t teamfight them properly.

About Channeling and stability… I think they are fine, they are a pay-off. In my opinion, there should be a big teamfight revolving around the Hero channel (in a teamfight scennario, a guy can’t take the full channel without dying by damage. Also, in most cases you will have a Thief, Mesmer or Necro, which have easy boonstripping). In the many cases this won’t happen, you have a Trebuchet that is not used by many people that strips all of the stability stacks and knocks back.

So yeah, those are all my concerns. For me the only important thing left to change are Archers, everything else feels good.

I have played over 100 matches of Stronghold and I don’t think I will be queuing up for it anymore. The whole mode feels sloppy and doesn’t have any flow to it. You need bombers to open the gates, but the enemy team kills the bombers and completely stops all progress until you spawn more. During this current beta test I played around 20 matches and all the games ended in a time over, except for 2.

Poliator.7021:

The main problem of Stronghold right now, at least on my point of view, is Archers. They are not useful enough. The buff to their speed was great, but they are easily taken down fast by players and they can’t perform a “unique” mechanic, like Doorbreakers can (destroy the door).

Right now, the “Lord Rush meta” claims seem to have ended and most games are going to max time, which in Stronghold is at least better than in Conquest (Conquest feels much longer when this happens, at least for me). I believe this was caused mainly because the comeback mechanic they added (if you kill an enemy in your own base, they’ll drop 2 supplies whether they had or not), making the pushed team able to start an offensive push.

So I think comeback mechanics are good right now and if you get pushed more and more it’s because your team has a lower skill level than the enemy and you can’t teamfight them properly.

About Channeling and stability… I think they are fine, they are a pay-off. In my opinion, there should be a big teamfight revolving around the Hero channel (in a teamfight scennario, a guy can’t take the full channel without dying by damage. Also, in most cases you will have a Thief, Mesmer or Necro, which have easy boonstripping). In the many cases this won’t happen, you have a Trebuchet that is not used by many people that strips all of the stability stacks and knocks back.

So yeah, those are all my concerns. For me the only important thing left to change are Archers, everything else feels good.

This suggestion could give archers a important role.

If Turai Ossa goes into the defense lane. Archers could be very useful in taking that juggernaut down.

didn’t even play much stronghold (maybe 2-3 games) even though I played a lot during the BWE, because:

- Still way too much running around for supply or other objectives.
- Still too much fighting NPC’s rather than fighting plyaers.
- Archers still useless
- Players are too spread on the huge map with so many objectives and bigger teamfights basically only seem to happen when mist-essences or the Hero-NPC’s spawn, which then results in a team fighting an NPC rather than players yet again.

The Game-Mode can be fixed, but right now it’s just not very fun to play to me.

The problem that I mostly have with the mode is that it is very complex.. It’s fun because of that for sure, and while most of it can be dealt with by good team communication, I believe that there is a big in-game lack of information of all the mechanisms.

Although I actually have only had one match that ended from the timer, I am really annoyed by the fact that summoning heroes is worth so many points. Those should really really be reduced.

Also other feedback has mentioned this and I concur. The comeback system of giving supply is good (although it seems they dissapear very fast?!) It’s a burden to have to carry that supply all the way back to the barracks while the player has taken up the role of defending its own lane. (Either get a system of supply sharing, with penalty times for players who want to summon more than two units, or make the supplies dropped by enemies last longer or appear near the baracks of the defending team).

As a side note…. why was the ship of the Red Team moved to the back That’s just sad!

Have to agree with most of the criticisms here. Was really excited for this mode and played it whenever it has come up. While a few little things have been fixed here and there, the mode still has too many problems.

Stronghold still feels like you are primarily fighting npcs instead of other players which should not be the case in a player vs player mode. Quite often, players are will ignore enemy players in order to accomplish their goal. If you are on offense, then you want the guards down so they can’t kill your doorbreakers. The enemy defender trying to stop you? Less important than taking the guards down first. You end up with funny situations like supply runners on both sides arriving at the depot at the same time and going to opposite ends to channel their supply and leaving without exchanging a single attack. Much of the fighting occurs toward the end when you’re trying to get the second gate down or going into the lord room.

Conquest got it right. The capture points and secondary objectives give reasons for players to fight other players, not reasons to avoid other players.

Imo, the emphasis on supply was too high. Doorbreakers break doors and archers do amazing things if you get 10 of them together (seriously, just spam these guys in 10 people waves and they kinda just…win. its weird that they suck pre-10 though) otherwise just send someone to clear guards then spam doorbreakers. A good way to encourage fighting other players is if killing a player spawned an npc. Like door 1 is DB, door 2 is archer, door 3 is killed player spawn, door 4 is mist hero (invisible door, watch they spawn between arch and portal) and door 5 is portal. Maybe spawn a hunter? Instead of pushing lanes mindlessly, they will push then stealth and attack players (like Skelk). It would be far more interesting and would probably encourage pvp over pve rush.

Would really be nice if they added Skelk when you killed a player. Would be really really nice if you got mobs for doing things. Break a treb, spawn a Shade. Kill a guard, spawn a doorbreaker. Break a door, spawn an archer. Kill a player, spawn a Skelk. It makes the game more interesting imo. And while it sounds like it’d make it more pve, it makes it more pvp and victory oriented. By pushing the map or defending, you gain mobs that will push lanes. Or at least, that’s my opinion. I never had problems with the pve bit, I just run over and murder a player to steal their supply and clear 1 or 2 of the mobs. Killing a pve mob grants 1 supply to spawn another mob. So on so forth.

Serious Thought.5394:

Imo, the emphasis on supply was too high. Doorbreakers break doors and archers do amazing things if you get 10 of them together (seriously, just spam these guys in 10 people waves and they kinda just…win. its weird that they suck pre-10 though) otherwise just send someone to clear guards then spam doorbreakers. A good way to encourage fighting other players is if killing a player spawned an npc. Like door 1 is DB, door 2 is archer, door 3 is killed player spawn, door 4 is mist hero (invisible door, watch they spawn between arch and portal) and door 5 is portal. Maybe spawn a hunter? Instead of pushing lanes mindlessly, they will push then stealth and attack players (like Skelk). It would be far more interesting and would probably encourage pvp over pve rush.

Would really be nice if they added Skelk when you killed a player. Would be really really nice if you got mobs for doing things. Break a treb, spawn a Shade. Kill a guard, spawn a doorbreaker. Break a door, spawn an archer. Kill a player, spawn a Skelk. It makes the game more interesting imo. And while it sounds like it’d make it more pve, it makes it more pvp and victory oriented. By pushing the map or defending, you gain mobs that will push lanes. Or at least, that’s my opinion. I never had problems with the pve bit, I just run over and murder a player to steal their supply and clear 1 or 2 of the mobs. Killing a pve mob grants 1 supply to spawn another mob. So on so forth.

I like the idea of killing a player will spawn a npc to attack.

One issue I found was destroying mesmer clones and summon pets from runes such as rock dogs gave the points for killing mercenaries.

Appreciate the effort of the devs trying to make something new—conquest has been getting boring—but Stronghold is just really bad. 9/10 games end to time, rather than Lord kill. The door breakers just melt and fall over (In fact leaving just one guy to defend can essentially make the door breaking process non-achievable), if you do manage to get to the Lord, the OpFor can literally just turtle up and win the match farming the attackers, other than that, there is no on-map comeback potential.

The entire map needs a lot of tlc to make it a viable alternative, as of right now I would have rather seen some deeper deathmatch/arena focus, since that’s basically all that Stronghold is. Just with some npcs and channeling objectives.

I played quite a few Stronghold games over this weekend, and I don’t like it. My issues were as follows:

1. When 2 objective focused teams are going against each other, they just skip the fighting entirely and go straight for the lord. The matches were over within around 1.5 min, literally. And of course, there was very little or no PvP, on a supposed PvP map. I had several matches like this.

This in itself is just extremely wrong and needs to be redesigned so that fights are unavoidable at some stages of the map, regardless if teams are objective or fight focused.

2. The lord summoning is unclear. Game makes a ping on the map and some voice comes up telling me to go there, I go there, nothing is happening. Wait a bit then leave as still nothing happens. Finally some time later the lord gets summoned which I recognize by the icon on the minimap. If there is nothing going on then the game should not tell players to go there and waste precious match time. Make the announcement like 5-10 seconds before the actual summon happens, not before.

3. The summoned archer NPCs are a complete and worthless joke. They need to do some actual damage, not just uselessly plink at whatever they come to, also their AI is just plain horribad and non existant. They need to actually do something, have an ability or 2 and maybe dodge some attacks or alter their route to take high ground etc. Make them worth the actual summons and most of all, make them protect doorbreakers.

4. Lords are too easily killed. They need to hold out longer, its as if they were balanced for lvl 60ish toons in green gear from PVE. They need to have a LARGE and powerful defense mechanism, maybe complete boon strip or boon to condi conversion on 1 minute time that covers entire lord room ? Or something like that. they go down too quick and far too little effort. There are many vet mobs in SIlverwastes that are being soloed on regular basis which are harder to take down then these lords which are supposed to be defeated by teams. So LOL W T F is up with this ?

So the BWE is over and my final thoughts on Stronghold are: It’s a boring PvE escort mission where you sometimes fight other players and 90% of matches end with a time over.

Hatter.8159:

The door breakers just melt and fall over (In fact leaving just one guy to defend can essentially make the door breaking process non-achievable)

In the first few stronghold betas, the doorbreakers were much hardier. That lead to a 5 DB rush being the most efficient strategy and the game mode became a PvE race. The current version is much better. They can be kept alive against one defender, but they need to be escorted.

A big problem is that Archers are useless right now. Archers are supposed to be the sturdier option, but slower at killing gates, compared to doorbreakers. However, they die just as quickly and “squirrel” far too much. As a result it’s difficult to break a defensive opponent.

Also, defending nets enough points from kills and from a few hero summons in order to win on points. No need to go offense.

Without Door breakers, you can’t destroy gates.

Without Archers, you can’t destroy… uh… you ca… oh yes, you can’t… I got nothing.

It would make sense that without Archers, Guards cannot be killed, if Guards don’t get killed, Door breakers cannot destroy gates. There is more strategy here if it were to be like this.

JackDaniels.1697:

Without Door breakers, you can’t destroy gates.

Without Archers, you can’t destroy… uh… you ca… oh yes, you can’t… I got nothing.

It would make sense that without Archers, Guards cannot be killed, if Guards don’t get killed, Door breakers cannot destroy gates. There is more strategy here if it were to be like this.

I doubt anyone wants unkillable guards… Maybe very high HP silver guards that take a significant time to kill that gets chewed through with Archers, but that’d be the extent I’d go.

The whole mode is a trainwreck. If I wanted to fight NPCs I’d play pve. I don’t, so I play PVP.

Tl;dr version:
• Bolster outer gate guards
• Team score breakdowns at end of match
• Bolster archers (speed/damage mechanic)
• Add/adjust Lord room guards

Played ranked Stronghold over the 3 days with a mix of solo, and 2-5 people groups. Map seemed to favor teams that split up some so that was a positive.

A lot of feedback from players was that you had to pay attention to what was going on which is even better since the game was very fluid. Still seeing a lot of fighting at different objectives. Choosing when to chase and when to fade was big part of the strategy of this map. Pulling multiple enemies around the map was a good tactic to take them out of play and allow your team to power play else where.

PUG Stronghold remains the toughest since people don’t communicate. On the PUG matches even simple starting plans could play a large difference. Even in all the PUG maps saw zero matches that ended by a full team rush at the gate at the start of the match. Saw vast improvement in PUG games as the weekend went on though so some of this might be map mechanic still as players adjust to the game type.

Most players on average were able to take 2 treb shots at the gate before they were down. Treb power seems to be in line. The treb feet were still something that you could not run across unlike the feet in Kylo so getting tied up in them was an issue. Would make more sense to have both trebs’ physical form act the same way. Either both be objects to dodge or be able to pass thru, the differences could catch you off guard going between game modes and maps. Visually difference appears to be the amount of group that the feet are dug into the terrain.

Still saw a lot of people that got into the match and after the match started would see, wait what is this map. I think the fact that Stronghold being checked by default caught people off. The loading screen instructions are fine though I think people don’t stop and read so that’s more of a player issue.

Defense guards along the path seemed to be targeting bombers first so that change looked good. Leashing distances looked good as well. Say the archers stray off track a few times and would visit the treb but that was mostly after gate guards were dead so that seemed appropriate.

Lord room defense was better but still manageable by a single players to defeat the room solo if they didn’t agro the entire room. Did see a lot of people wipe on it as well though and one defending player was able to hold 2-4 depending on the builds being used. Points to consider, add two more ranged guards that wait on the inside of each side of the door to engage players trying to rush. Add more group agro that triggers Lord and all guards to attack. The bolo style pulls are a plus so additional CC by guards would also make the Lord more formidable. Defending at times one good strategy was to knock a player into the Lord’s range where the defenders then wiped them.

There was also some change to the Lord’s room that removed a lag spike that occurred on entering the enemy Lord’s room that was noticeable last beta, not sure what that change was but it was appreciated.

On the offensive side. Supply drop rate seemed improved, seeing less issues of depot empty. Outer gate guards were easily manageable by players, could use some bolstering to match the inner guards. Bombers seemed in a good shape considering their job role.

Archers are a mixed bag. Saw them easily take out all gate guards when they were left alone to their job. In one game side I was on was winning and all the fighting was in the other team’s Lord room. A single player on the other side was able to send two archers solo. During all the fighting the two archers had cleared all of my teams’ inner guards and were half way thru the inner door which might have allowed a breach if they hadn’t been cleared allowing the other team a win if the defeated the room.

Archers to players they were a limited threat. Did see the archers get some dropping shots on players but that was more the players ignoring them and already low on health. Potentially further increase their travel rate and power so that they are still a distraction but more of a threat. Still wouldn’t mind seeing them gain a mechanic such as slow, poison, bleed or a combination of those on every 3 shot if they are not bolstered in other ways.

Inner gate guards doing CC was a good touch, players just avoiding them were caught off guard at times and delayed allowing defending players to engage.

Mist heroes seemed to be in a good state, except double summoned Nika’s allowed the heroes to steal each other. That seemed off since two of any other hero did not seem to combo in that way. Grymm’s intro cannon shot on summon also seemed to be diminished this time around.

PvP fights. Saw a lot while defending and at mist essence. Lighter around supply areas and a good number once an outer gate was down. End of game stats still vanish too quick to get good numbers on how the score broke down, wouldn’t mind seeing this at the team level so that people know how the game was won if it wasn’t from Lord kill.

Saw a spread on game wins, some from close scores, some blowouts, some Lord kills some timed so if that is the target it was meet. Still unclear at times how a team won during a non-Lord kill victory so more breakdowns would not hurt.

Exedore.6320:

• Trebuchet Auto-Repair Now that enemies past the outer gate drop supply, I don’t see a reason for this.

Have to disagree, played a couple of matches where the returned treb was used to repel attacks made after the outer was down and the open gate was used as a choke point for the fight, as well as times to control mist essences until reinforcements arrived. Knowing that it would respawn made players decide do they take it down while not in use or leave it till it is a threat. If it never repaired then a static tactic would be destroy it first and remove the question which remove some of the ebb and flow of the fight.

Tongku.5326:

1. When 2 objective focused teams are going against each other, they just skip the fighting entirely and go straight for the lord. The matches were over within around 1.5 min, literally. And of course, there was very little or no PvP, on a supposed PvP map. I had several matches like this.

This in itself is just extremely wrong and needs to be redesigned so that fights are unavoidable at some stages of the map, regardless if teams are objective or fight focused.

2 Objective focused teams, translation no defenders? I ask since I had no games move that fast this time around. I did run into a few matches where there were full team pushes in the beginning but they died to 1 defender manning the treb. Makes you wonder if the Skritt should pull a lemming mechanic and all explode once a gate in the lane goes down forcing players to re-summon.

Yeah , i really find the running foth and back for the suplies , kinda a boring job .
So the best solution , is spouting nonsense on the forums :P

If Mists is something like parallel worlds , then wouldnt be posible so that world can be controled by an ‘’locked forever in time . entity’’ like a ’’Joker’’ , who wants to have some fun ?
Transforming the map into a Gag or Nonsense Map , that can offer gigles to the ppl that are participating and the audience that is watching , rather than trying to use a more serious tone , like every online game ?
And renewing the map , by implamenting different ’’Gags’’ and Race’s Directors over time , rather than wasting money on creating a new map with different scene ?

For example every time , 2+ players will comfrond each other , there could be a Director and him Cameraman Crew that will show up nearby (or they was hiding behinkittene bush or the house’s side walls unveils , which the catchphrase ‘’ITS SHOWTIME BABY’’ or’’ITS TIME TO PLAY SIMS’’) .

The players can either forget about him and his ‘’directions ’’ , and aim to kill each other and play the map as normaly do …
Or do the simple thing thatyou have been asked (which is catastrofical for the health of the players) and awards you with :
a) ’’Favor’’ bar , which when copleted , it will destroy a gate with a Gag move , like a big Beach Ball or a pack of Bombs-Chickens suiding at the gate , or fart-rocket) .
And the director screaming …. ‘’OMG WHOM OF THE BOZOS , WHOS DID IT ? …. THIS IS LEGIT FILM, DONT SCREW IT UP’’’…
b) Spawining an extra NPC that have diferent appearance and mechanics …. like a terminator-Skirt that offers different random fields on the groundand by interacting with them , you can damage the gate for X sec.

The things that the Director can as you is very simple :
a) Go in a spot and try to use Flex
b) Try to look at the camera for 2 sec
c) Try to open the box that has goodies or bombs that transform boon>into condtions
d) Try to use walk from one small distanced place to the other by walking (240 yards),
e) Try to protect a little dog or girl (wich is creaming ‘’Save me Oni-chan’’) for 5 sec , from some random Shadows things that have 1 hp and cannot be damaged by aoes
f) Trying to kill a shadow that has the same Class as you do , with extremy less HP , but it stuns you for 2 sec

and all of these while the other players are hitting you , within 10 sec and by hearing the silly comment of the Director , like the :
’’The lonely hero in the middle of the fatefull fight with his eternal enemy , could see a puppy that was in danger …. what our hero will do next?
The hero protected the dog with his life and as a reward and a token of apriciation got a …..warm poop…. to remember hiS act of heroism

Edit : Or more less silly way for the boring Suply mechanic is :
a) each base has a Wine deposit
b) you can drink the wine (you get knockbacked> leave you dignity behind) , and the enemy doesnt get +5 points in the mapscore when they kill you
c) or you can give the shiiny bottles (filled with the wine) to 4 hidding-behind-fenches-Skirts and if you give each of them 2 bottles or 6 Suply Crates (rather than usingthem to spawn Npcs) , then they award your team with assistance and every 15 sec a pop up will show up that will ask you to choose and spawn Npcs from your base (based on how many kills you have or how many Suplies you got on you) , rather that going manujally near your Base
d) the wines spawns at different collations on the map or its hidden near the rooftops of houses or tree (and we aoe you can drop them on the ground) …… but if you or your team . dies too many times you can pick it up from the Main Base instead….faster progression

Sorry but this map is not gonna work out. Last beta lots of ppl had there check box for stronghold unchk for the full w-e. There is still ppl enjoying it but thats cuz they havent figured it out you can complete it in 3 min. The same ppl in short term will not even play it as well. In my mind, proof of concept has failed. The map is boring & lots will agree on that. Does who do not will soon do.

The problem is not about tweaking the numbers & the archers & the catapults or what ever. The problem is the whole objective it’s self. This moba concept where the objective of killing the Lord is not working out.

Solution: change the objective.
To what? 15 min round to amass max points.
Number of players: 10 vs 10 or 15 vs 15

Killing:
Archers & bombers: 2pts
Summoned npc’s: 5 pts
Lord defenders: Total of 20 pts
Lord: 20 pts
Players: 8 pts
Ressources back to keep: 3 pts each. Can carry or steal
& if im missing anything else. ect…

At the end of 15 min, the skirmish ends. The side with most points amassed wins.
what would make it more exiting is that bonuses & resources are not counted but only at the end of the skirmish. So when the rounds ends. You see the points of each side but then the numbers goes up with all bonuses & resources added in. Revealing the winner. Kinda of a price is right feeling when you win.

I only want to see two changes:

1. CC should not be the only way to prevent a hero from being summoned. This game mode needs more PvP not more PvE and invuln.
2. Eles in downstate shouldn’t be able to run through door portals.

In general, I like Stronghold, but there’re couple things:

1. Remove the timer. Game should end naturally.

2. After 10 min in 1 supply spawns 2 minions. Then at 15 min it’s 3 minions and 1 more minion after every 2 min after 15 min mark.

3. Respawn timer increased by 5s after 10 minutes in, 10-15 after 15 minutes in.

4. New type of heroes – Defensive heroes. They defend your base, repair gates, fight minions and offensive heroes. Some may have bonus abilities i.e. Master Architect Gunther spawning Juggernauts from time to time. They take very high damage from Archers, but are rather resistant to Players.

5. Add a way to spawn minions in your Lord’s room. “Behind the Lines” effect is neat, but spawning point is often too far.

6. Archers changed to be more resistant to Player attacks and faster than Doorbreakers. They could do something extra against players – strip boons, cripple, apply weakness? Just to justify their existence after you clear out gates and guards.

TheGrimm.5624:

Tl;dr version:
• Bolster outer gate guards
• Team score breakdowns at end of match
• Bolster archers (speed/damage mechanic)
• Add/adjust Lord room guards

Played ranked Stronghold over the 3 days with a mix of solo, and 2-5 people groups. Map seemed to favor teams that split up some so that was a positive.

A lot of feedback from players was that you had to pay attention to what was going on which is even better since the game was very fluid. Still seeing a lot of fighting at different objectives. Choosing when to chase and when to fade was big part of the strategy of this map. Pulling multiple enemies around the map was a good tactic to take them out of play and allow your team to power play else where.

PUG Stronghold remains the toughest since people don’t communicate. On the PUG matches even simple starting plans could play a large difference. Even in all the PUG maps saw zero matches that ended by a full team rush at the gate at the start of the match. Saw vast improvement in PUG games as the weekend went on though so some of this might be map mechanic still as players adjust to the game type.

Most players on average were able to take 2 treb shots at the gate before they were down. Treb power seems to be in line. The treb feet were still something that you could not run across unlike the feet in Kylo so getting tied up in them was an issue. Would make more sense to have both trebs’ physical form act the same way. Either both be objects to dodge or be able to pass thru, the differences could catch you off guard going between game modes and maps. Visually difference appears to be the amount of group that the feet are dug into the terrain.

Still saw a lot of people that got into the match and after the match started would see, wait what is this map. I think the fact that Stronghold being checked by default caught people off. The loading screen instructions are fine though I think people don’t stop and read so that’s more of a player issue.

Defense guards along the path seemed to be targeting bombers first so that change looked good. Leashing distances looked good as well. Say the archers stray off track a few times and would visit the treb but that was mostly after gate guards were dead so that seemed appropriate.

Lord room defense was better but still manageable by a single players to defeat the room solo if they didn’t agro the entire room. Did see a lot of people wipe on it as well though and one defending player was able to hold 2-4 depending on the builds being used. Points to consider, add two more ranged guards that wait on the inside of each side of the door to engage players trying to rush. Add more group agro that triggers Lord and all guards to attack. The bolo style pulls are a plus so additional CC by guards would also make the Lord more formidable. Defending at times one good strategy was to knock a player into the Lord’s range where the defenders then wiped them.

There was also some change to the Lord’s room that removed a lag spike that occurred on entering the enemy Lord’s room that was noticeable last beta, not sure what that change was but it was appreciated.

On the offensive side. Supply drop rate seemed improved, seeing less issues of depot empty. Outer gate guards were easily manageable by players, could use some bolstering to match the inner guards. Bombers seemed in a good shape considering their job role.

Archers are a mixed bag. Saw them easily take out all gate guards when they were left alone to their job. In one game side I was on was winning and all the fighting was in the other team’s Lord room. A single player on the other side was able to send two archers solo. During all the fighting the two archers had cleared all of my teams’ inner guards and were half way thru the inner door which might have allowed a breach if they hadn’t been cleared allowing the other team a win if the defeated the room.

Archers to players they were a limited threat. Did see the archers get some dropping shots on players but that was more the players ignoring them and already low on health. Potentially further increase their travel rate and power so that they are still a distraction but more of a threat. Still wouldn’t mind seeing them gain a mechanic such as slow, poison, bleed or a combination of those on every 3 shot if they are not bolstered in other ways.

Inner gate guards doing CC was a good touch, players just avoiding them were caught off guard at times and delayed allowing defending players to engage.

Mist heroes seemed to be in a good state, except double summoned Nika’s allowed the heroes to steal each other. That seemed off since two of any other hero did not seem to combo in that way. Grymm’s intro cannon shot on summon also seemed to be diminished this time around.

PvP fights. Saw a lot while defending and at mist essence. Lighter around supply areas and a good number once an outer gate was down. End of game stats still vanish too quick to get good numbers on how the score broke down, wouldn’t mind seeing this at the team level so that people know how the game was won if it wasn’t from Lord kill.

Saw a spread on game wins, some from close scores, some blowouts, some Lord kills some timed so if that is the target it was meet. Still unclear at times how a team won during a non-Lord kill victory so more breakdowns would not hurt.

Also, +1 to that. Good feedback.

A costly silly idea would be :
:(