Guild Wars 2

While individual class balance does affect the game, the mechanics behind Conquest itself also play a major roll.

The fact that one player can totally deny the cap of 2 or more of the enemy team is the major reason why bunkers are as powerful as they are. Now, if that one bunker could only slow the cap instead of outright denying it, the whole dynamic would change. Going full bunker would be much less rewarding, and it would in theory break up fights, which would help with spectating the game as well.

If a side with 2 players is able to cap a point with one enemy play at say, half the speed then you would see a much greater variety of builds so long as traits allow for it. The current design encourages a very small number of strategies which makes the meta even more powerful.

Class balance is important, but I feel like game mode balance is equally important.

As a add on, the points are also so small which makes things even more chaotic. In addition, the points themselves are also devoid of any terrain decorations on the points. Graveyard would be way cool with actual tombstones and the like to take cover behind, maybe even have them be destructible.

guild wars 1 chapter 2 factions alliance battles got this right.

there are 4 kinds of capture speed.

1 player = 1 pip = slower capture
2 players = 2 pips = slow capture
3 players = 3 pips = normal capture
4 players = 4 pips = fast capture

3 blue 1 red means 2 pips for blue
4 blue 3 red means 1 pip for blue
etc

it was working well in alliance battles …

I posted this idea a few months after the launch of GW2 in 2012. IIRC the devs said “we’re not looking to change the mechanics of conquest atm”.

Why even bother defending a point if it’s literally impossible to hold it?

I feel like this just leads to 5 v 5 on every single node. That’s what you did in alliance battles, you never left your team.

Fluffball.8307:

Why even bother defending a point if it’s literally impossible to hold it?

I feel like this just leads to 5 v 5 on every single node. That’s what you did in alliance battles, you never left your team.

Really? Because I remember the side that won typically didn’t Zerg and capped undefended points.

Zerging would be one strategy, another would be having some bruisers that die slow so that your roamer can go decap. In fact, if the enemy team insists on zerging then you can just avoid them and split into 2 groups and cap wherever they aren’t.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Really? Because I remember the side that won typically didn’t Zerg and capped undefended points.

Sometimes you’d have groups of 4 eles running around solo capping, but their up-pips combined with kill times were so slow alone that it only worked if the other team was doing the same thing. Otherwise you’d spend 5 minutes waiting for it to cap and then be back-capped in seconds by 4 up-pips. But we digress. Back to conquest.

BurrTheKing.8571:

another would be having some bruisers that die slow so that your roamer can go decap. In fact, if the enemy team insists on zerging then you can just avoid them and split into 2 groups and cap wherever they aren’t.

This doesn’t work. Let’s simplify the scenario and say it’s 4v5 on mid, and your thief is running around solo capping. The thief decaps at the same speed that the team of 5 caps mid, yet they’re also killing and not just standing there waiting for a single up-pip. The team of 5 wins. Whoever wins the team fights wins because the total pip uptime is the same no matter where the players are. However you distribute 10 players across any number of points, the total of up and down pips equals 0.

Thread is a bit misinformed.

Conquest hasn’t defined the meta, it’s the viability – the roles – of each class.

What really hurt the game was how the role of each class got shifted – Thieves couldn’t roam anywhere and decap because each point was bunked over. Thieves are terrible long-term skirmish fighters to begin with and they definitely couldn’t burst down anyone like they usually could when roaming from point-to-point, +1ing.

Same goes for Warriors – they couldn’t out dps or burst or support (old meta) anyone and their fair mobility (better than Guards and Necros) meant nothing in the bunker meta where everyone already bunked a point.

Conquest is just a chest game, how it’s going to be played will depend on Anet’s balance patch direction.