Guild Wars 2

I made this post a while ago on reddit, but i thought i’d share it here as well. I was thinking about how to best introduce a “capture the flag” game-mode and i want to see valid critisims and perhaps improvements to this idea, and perhaps maybe, since anet has expressed their interest in returning Team Death Match, that we may be able to work towards a Capture the Flag mode that’s fun. So here is my idea :

Capture the Flag
There should be two bases, with two entrances (Main entrance and secret backdoor entrance). Each base has a flag, and 2 buff nodes and 2 debuff nodes, one of each close to bases. There are no NPC’s, other than a One-Shot Sniper NPC that nukes anyone close to spawn.

Mechanics of the Flag

• Capturing the flag is difficult but should not be impossible. The idea is to make the flag easy enough, but hard enough to capture that it would require 2 defenders to prevent the flag from being capped by a single person.
• After claiming the flag, you will get an inherent -50% run speed. You can not be stealthed, and you can not be invulnerable with the flag. You are immune to CC’s like cripple/chill/immobilized and stuns.
• The flag is dropped 3 seconds after the player enters downstate.
• The idea is the flag will ultimately require 4 people to make a successful capture…3 people to defend, one to carry. This means that your base will have one defender for it’s flag, making it more vulnerable to enemy capture.

Now the buff/debuff nodes. These nodes provide boosts, or debuffs to the flag carriers. There are 4 nodes, 2 nodes per base, with 8 different buffs/debuffs that can trigger, on a cycle, so in order to get the same buff/debuff, you need to use the nodes 4 times in order to do so. (It could also just be random, which might be a better idea in terms of couterplay!)
The node spawns once every minute, and take a 3-5 second interruptable channeling time. These nodes are placed in close proximity to the bases, but are accessible by enemies. Only one buff and one debuff are allowed at any time per team.

Buffs

• Flag Carrier gains the ability to use skills while holding the flag. Skills that grant invulnerability or stealth fail. Lasts for 30 seconds.
• Flag Carrier when entering downstate will automatically revive with 50% health, and the flag will remain active. Lasts for 30 seconds. Effect ends when consumed.
• Flag Carrier pulses a radial aura (600 units) that sets foes on fire, causing 3 seconds of burn every pulse. This pulse also cleanses any CC effects currently on the carrier or their allies. pulses every second. Lasts for 30 seconds.
• Flag Carrier takes 90% reduced damage from conditions. Lasts for 30 seconds.

Debuffs

• Enemy Flag Carrier becomes prone to CC effects, and hindering conditions, including chill, crippling, and immobilized. Lasts 30 seconds
• Enemy Flag Carrier becomes a burden to their allies. boons turn into negative conditions within a 600 radius. Lasts 30 seconds.
• Enemy Flag Carriers lose control, turning on their allies, becoming foes. Lasts for 30 seconds.
• Enemy Flag Carriers gain a debuff that reduces endurance to 0. Lasts 30 seconds.

Anti-Turtle Mechanics
Now turtling is when basically a team captures one flag, and then for the remainder of the game the entire team remains in their base preventing the enemy from getting the flag. I believe their should be mechanic that discourages this. So for every person inside their own base, they gain a debuff that reduces stats by x% and for every person this percentage increases, so that if all 5 people are inside their base, total stats are reduced by 50% for example.
if that’s not feasible we can have the opposite effect, where the more enemies in the base, the more % stats they gain the more people there are inside. This way, making a push for the flag makes more sense against a comp that is turtling.

So that’s my idea. I really would like to hear some thoughts, and want to expand on this further if people think its a good idea.

As a WSG fan from WOW I wholeheartedly support this concept but I feel for it to really be successful it would need a larger then 5 person team size. I honestly feel that adding multiple BG style maps would help create a middle ground for PVPers and WVWers and to a lesser extent PVErs that would allow for people in other player groups a form of PVP that appeals to them without retracting anything from their core game modes.
My time in GW1 was short lived but one of my favorite portions of it was the larger instanced pvp systems. I love conquest and gw2s PVP gameplay in general but I often feel its distinct game modes are a strength when the game is doing well but cause fracturing when things are not ideal. Everyone feels their game mode is neglected or mismanaged when one game mode is the core focus of an update. Things like overzealous rewards for PVP brought in a large portion of players that in the end would likely farm rewards then go back to their gamemode of choice I think adding middle ground like this would really be a step in the right direction for all of the game modes rather then trying to bribe people in to player a game mode they weren’t interested from the start.
Sorry that was a bit more long winded then I intended it

Oh you mean Spirit Watch? cough

Got confused with all the buffs/debuffs… Just make it simple 5 point from kill, 150 points from flag and 10 min/match time. And yes flagcarrier couldnt be stealthed/invul/teleport, but could use other skills and has -50% speed and swift doesnt work when carrying.

Flag dropped instantly when downed, but couldnt be returned in 5 secs so someone else can grab it.

Support.

Give it Spirit Watch mechanics but without Conquest

They had it in WvW and it was amazing fun… Until some hackers started to glitch it and Anet removed it instead of working on fixing the code vulnerabilities.

Mutaatti.2789:

Got confused with all the buffs/debuffs… Just make it simple 5 point from kill, 150 points from flag and 10 min/match time. And yes flagcarrier couldnt be stealthed/invul/teleport, but could use other skills and has -50% speed and swift doesnt work when carrying.

Flag dropped instantly when downed, but couldnt be returned in 5 secs so someone else can grab it.

So i thought about the idea of a simple version of CTF before making this post months back.

However there was a very large elephant in the room that needed to be addressed when thinking about CTF… and that is the following : If the primary mechanic of the game-mode happens to be one single object, then the following would occur at the same time…

• Bunker becomes meta, because if you can not die, you will be able to bring the flag to the end with no problems.
• Zerging becomes meta, because as long as all 5 of you are protecting your flag, there is no need for anyone to be anywhere other then with the flag carrier.
• Classes that involve mobility become completely useless, in particular, thieves, and classes that involve team fighting and AOE spam (particularly Dragon Hunters, and Necromancers) become meta.

To be honest, these 3 things in conjunction with each other are terrible and have to be negated by something. So the idea was to involve secondary objectives (nodes) that are actually necessary to help capture the flag, or to hinder the advancement of the opposing teams flag carrier. In this way, thief and other mobility classes have a purpose, as well as defender classes who need to be thinking about protecting their own buff/debuff nodes.

Ralkuth.1456:

Oh you mean Spirit Watch? cough

Abelisk.4527:

Support.

Give it Spirit Watch mechanics but without Conquest

Spirit Watch’s CTF mechanic is very bare-bones. Consider the following :

Let’s say we get rid of the conquest attributes of Spirit Watch, so that the only objective is that little Orb, and Two nodes in which someone has to take this orb to. The following scenarios become possible

• The Orb has an interrupt-able cast time, which potentially means that it could be next to impossible to pick it up in the first place.

• Traps become a huge thing…because of the stationary and singular nature of the orb, it would make sense to just load a kitten-ton of traps on the orb spawn…we will begin seeing many kamikaze-style builds that will only focus solely on this task. I don’t think that’s particularly fun game-play at all.

• Consider that because of the singular nature of the orb, zerging becomes a thing as well, because there is no reason other then to be with the flag carrier at all times… This makes thieves and other such mobile classes nearly useless, which is a slap in the face because on top of that, traps and other AOE-centric skills would be the primary choice in the meta…

These are just scenario’s at the top of my head, but in summary, if CTF isn’t approached with well-though-out mechanics, we will end up with another “courtyard” fiasco.

I don’t like the -50% movement debuff already you get a – run speed in combat, add on cripple + chill and you’re capped at 99% movement debuff. I don’t care if you add in super speed or swiftness Conditions overlap that HEAVILY in your design.

But ultimately you’d need TONS of pre-testing to get the concept to work properly first before full implementation. And Anet doesn’t have a way to test content like that.