Guild Wars 2

For months and months we’ve have an overwhelming majority of posts talking about X or Y class/spec being OP. In my opinion the problem has less to do with class balance and more to do with the design of PvP.

Look at all the most popular builds in use currently: Spirit Rangers, Hambow, Decap Engi, MM, AoE Ele, any sort of AoE, Bunkers. All of these builds take advantage of small capture points and the ability to deny the capture of 2 or more players for a prolonged period of time.

Nerfing any of these builds seems to me to be simply treating the symptoms rather than curing the cause. Take any of the builds listed out of that tiny little circle and suddenly they aren’t much of a threat. A Hammer or a constant stream of knockbacks are a lot less dangerous when you can simply get out of the way without having to worry about losing the point.

If capture points made better use of the surrounding environment and weren’t so darn tiny AoE would be significantly less powerful. “Oh they’re placing a ton of bombs, well I’ll just dodge over here then.” The current capture points are also really dull. Why are there no graves in the graveyard? Why can’t we fight INSIDE a manor and a windmill? Skyhammer went way too far when it comes to gimmicks but the mentality of having the map change combat isn’t wrong.

Of course, with larger capture points there would have to be changes to how capturing works as well because it would just encourage more bunkers. To solve that the team with the most players on point would have to be able to take the point. If there’s 1 Guardian from Red and a Warrior and Engi from blue in mid then blue should be able to decap the point at a reduced speed. This is how most games that have capture points like Battlefield do things. I’m not sure if it would be better to allow Blue to also capture at a slower speed or just to decap.

Systems like this would not only change the meta without having to actually change the classes but it would also make things feel much less chaotic. From a streaming standpoint it would also hopefully make things more interesting to watch because you could actually see all the fantastic animations that are in the game instead of a bunch of red circles on another circle. Something also NEEDS to be done about Asura because no race should give an advantage in a game that is trying to be competitive. Either they need to be sized up or a player-side option to see them as a different race.

I don’t think conquest is a bad game mode, I just don’t think it was executed very well in GW2. You could even expand the game mode to have some long Team Fortress 2 style maps where you have a tug of war with capture points. I’m not claiming to be any sort of authority on game design, but all of my suggestions have come from other successful games that have a similar game mode.

BurrTheKing.8571:

If there’s 1 Guardian from Red and a Warrior and Engi from blue in mid then blue should be able to decap the point at a reduced speed.

I don’t see why this doesn’t reinforce bunker meta, where you can just send 5 indestroyable bunkers and decap points slowly but surely

Darek.1836:

BurrTheKing.8571:

If there’s 1 Guardian from Red and a Warrior and Engi from blue in mid then blue should be able to decap the point at a reduced speed.

I don’t see why this doesn’t reinforce bunker meta, where you can just send 5 indestroyable bunkers and decap points slowly but surely

if 5 of them zerg one point then they will lose out on the other 2 points.

Lots of good points in the OP’s post.

I think that overall, a good degree of balance has been established in that there aren’t any single builds/classes that just dominate everyone else. Kudos to ANet for achieving this.

However, many of the competitive builds are still very simple and have a very low skill cap. Also, a lot of classes have ended up with limited or stagnant build options because of the game type that they are catering to.

ArenaNet has pretty much achieved the goal of establishing balance in the game (we best as it can be accomplished under these conditions), but I think their next step is to add in diversity to sPvP gameplay to prevent stagnation and to add depth.

I’ve always thought they should’ve implemented the capture points like SW:ToR did. Where you have to channel something to get a point. That way if you’re squishy you can kite and hit them when they are trying to channel (much like Tranquility). But it would probably open up another whole can of worms for ANet.

I have two issues with suggestions like this when they come up:

1. Graveyard is a huge point, and as a result it’s nearly impossible to de-bunker. I’m not sure we want to make more points like that. Saying a 2v1 will cap, but slower, might help. But I believe it would just make killing bunkers pointless. Why waste time killing the bunker when you can just cap under him with two more bunkers?

2. Other game modes have placed a massive emphasis on AoE, bunkers, etc. Look at the GvG annihilation fights that used to happen in WvW. It was basically a ton of hammer warriors and a couple guardians, with a couple of staff eles and maybe a necro or nade engi spamming AoE. I think 2v2 or 3v3 annihilation would be awesome, but anything above that would likely make bunkers and AoE way more important than they are now.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Saying a 2v1 will cap, but slower, might help. But I believe it would just make killing bunkers pointless. Why waste time killing the bunker when you can just cap under him with two more bunkers?

well, it could be really slow, such that, killing the point defender would be faster.

for example,

1 red vs 0 blue = 3 seconds decap a blue point
1 red vs 0 blue = 10 seconds cap a neutral point
total 13 seconds decap + cap a blue point

1 red vs 1 blue = contested, no decap, no cap

2 red vs 1 blue = 30 seconds decap a blue point
2 red vs 1 blue = 100 seconds cap a neutral point
total 130 seconds decap + cap a blue point

3 red vs 1 blue = 15 seconds decap a blue point
3 red vs 1 blue = 50 seconds cap a neutral point
total 75 seconds decap + cap a blue point

4 red vs 1 blue = 12 seconds decap a blue point
4 red vs 1 blue = 40 seconds cap a neutral point
total 50 seconds decap + cap a blue point

5 red vs 1 blue = 10 seconds decap a blue point
5 red vs 1 blue = 35 seconds cap a neutral point
total 45 seconds decap + cap a blue point

with such, killing the point defender would be much faster, no?

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Darek.1836:

BurrTheKing.8571:

If there’s 1 Guardian from Red and a Warrior and Engi from blue in mid then blue should be able to decap the point at a reduced speed.

I don’t see why this doesn’t reinforce bunker meta, where you can just send 5 indestroyable bunkers and decap points slowly but surely

if 5 of them zerg one point then they will lose out on the other 2 points.

Correct. In theory it would place even greater emphasis on team coordination and figuring out how many players to dedicate to each point. Zerging would be a guaranteed cap but if the other team is smart they’ll just go wherever the zerg isn’t. It would also mean you could see a group of 2 attack a point with a bunker and while the bunker can delay the cap it can’t outright deny it. The meta might not change dramatically but the flow would and it would make fights feel much more tactical.

GW2 is a simple game, but encouraging strategy outside of “tanky with a lot of AoE” would make it much more interesting.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Skyhammer went way too far when it comes to gimmicks but the mentality of having the map change combat isn’t wrong.

This is very true – ignoring the terrible secondary mechanic, the instant death, the bugs, and the dodgy camera around all the capture points… the map is really interesting and would probably be fun to play on.
There’s lots of cover, it’s more dangerous to chase foes (who can hide round one of many corners), and the height differences/jump pads require a lot more positional awareness.

Currently the only places that otherwise act like this are the points on Niflhel (with cover at the side points and the bluffs at midpoint) and the center of Kyhlo (that stops players without teleports/leaps from quickly getting to the capture area). The rest of our points are really quite bland, with the odd bit of high ground but nothing particularly exciting about it.

cheese.4739:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Skyhammer went way too far when it comes to gimmicks but the mentality of having the map change combat isn’t wrong.

This is very true – ignoring the terrible secondary mechanic, the instant death, the bugs, and the dodgy camera around all the capture points… the map is really interesting and would probably be fun to play on.
There’s lots of cover, it’s more dangerous to chase foes (who can hide round one of many corners), and the height differences/jump pads require a lot more positional awareness.

Currently the only places that otherwise act like this are the points on Niflhel (with cover at the side points and the bluffs at midpoint) and the center of Kyhlo (that stops players without teleports/leaps from quickly getting to the capture area). The rest of our points are really quite bland, with the odd bit of high ground but nothing particularly exciting about it.

If they changed the map so there there was no “fall to your death” situations even the secondary objective wouldn’t be that bad. The vertical aspect is cool and even the 3 force-fields around the home points would be to if fall through them just meant you had to jump back out like that lower area in-between points.

Hey guy better delete the point is creat a flag for tag, look world of warcraft the bg arathis this systeme is balenced with a better gameplay.

sorry for my english

look https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sriBYxVzEng

BurrTheKing.8571:

cheese.4739:

<skyhammer might be okay if it wasn’t terrible>

If they changed the map so there there was no “fall to your death” situations even the secondary objective wouldn’t be that bad. The vertical aspect is cool and even the 3 force-fields around the home points would be to if fall through them just meant you had to jump back out like that lower area in-between points.

I’d still see the hammer as far too powerful – while there wouldn’t be the same super-effective hammer-holding builds, it would just become a place for constant fighting (as the midpoint on Spirit Watch is) with occasional potshots when someone can get control.
I’ve said before that I’d quite like to see the hammer affect both teams equally, while still being undodgeable/unblockable. Friendly fire on it would greatly discourage spamming the attack over a capture point (which is currently incredibly effective) and make it less important to push for through the entire match – while still offering very strong point-control.

At any rate – I agree with the general idea that more varied combat could encourage a greater variety of builds to be used, and would probably at least make some of the current ‘hold a point!’ setups less mandatory. Perhaps force people to play the class/build that they queue with?

MajorX.3259:

Hey guy better delete the point is creat a flag for tag, look world of warcraft the bg arathis this systeme is balenced with a better gameplay.

sorry for my english

look https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sriBYxVzEng

The problem with this design is that it would make certain classes super powerful. For example, a guardian could drop Sanctuary and/or use Shield of Wrath to make it next to impossible for anyone to keep them from capping.

Dahkeus.8243:

MajorX.3259:

Hey guy better delete the point is creat a flag for tag, look world of warcraft the bg arathis this systeme is balenced with a better gameplay.

sorry for my english

look https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sriBYxVzEng

The problem with this design is that it would make certain classes super powerful. For example, a guardian could drop Sanctuary and/or use Shield of Wrath to make it next to impossible for anyone to keep them from capping.

Not to mention cloning another game’s PvP 1 for 1 would just make people think ANet is lazy and doesn’t care about PvP.