Guild Wars 2

Courtyard was introduced initially to test how Team Deathmatch can work in the future of GW2. It was advertised as a potential “first of many” death match maps to help add variety to the PvP format.

How did that go?

Some people like it, others hate it. Many have not come up with a build or strategy for it and it isn’t even often spoken about besides with general disdain. Many PUG courtyard matches end up in a landslide for one team or another and in general it seems the consensus for most people is a “Ugh, who picked this? Lets just get this over with…”

Should Anet work more on death match maps? Perhaps convert some existing maps into a death match form? Is Conquest (and stronghold) all that lies in our future? What say you? What would you prefer?

They realize it was a terrible mode and decided to attempt a potentially better game mode. I can’t see into the future, so I could be wrong.

Why spend their time and resources on a game mode that was never near close to being popular? 2v2 and 3v3 small team skirmish TDM does work, have been working, in other MMOS. If they were going to seek a TDM gamemode, they would lean more on these.

A “smaller” Stronghold isn’t completely out of the question either. If Stronghold is a huge hit, they’ll likely look into “single lane” variants of the same gamemode… but that could quickly go south too if it’s not done right… it could end up like Courtyard.

Most Courtyard fights I’ve seen stay at one section of the outer-ring. I think the design would’ve been better without that outer ring, and just the arena at the center.

I think the main problem is that the builds and team comps that work for conquest don’t necessarily work for TDM (and Stronghold will be added too). A lot of the roles are just useless in that gamemode, like thieves with the mobility and low staying power in fights for example, or bunkers.
While you do have some time to adjust your build before the match I don’t think a lot of people want to click through all that and then set the original build up again after the match. If we could save and select builds with one click that would maybe help, also like others said a more focused map would probably be better.

Courtyard is fun. Just don’t run a conquest build in TDM, it’s not the same.

I love playing on Courtyard when its up, because it enables more builds that aren’t viable in conquest. For instance, I always run staff dps ele without being a liability to my team. The key is to not run a conquest build in TDM. It feels like a smaller version of what wvw-ers call gvg, with front-liners pushing in and backliners focusing on control and dps.

The problem is, most people are too lazy/slow to swap builds/classes when this map comes up so they don’t enjoy it as much. I really think build templates would help out this (and Stronghold) when it comes out.

I’d like to see a different tdm map with more open space and secondary mechanic like special buff q3 arena style (more armor/more damage/inv. for few secs,/special effects etc.)

And i hope with HoT anet can create a different queue for stronghold/tdm and conquest.

TDM should’ve worked like it did in GW1, ie. no respawns and a seperate queue. If you win one teamfight, you’re very likely to win them all, so there’s no point in having the games take so long.

Also, make the middle of the map somewhere people actually want to go.

i love playing courtyard with a 5man from my WvW guild all on TS. so brutal, so satisfying.

Funny you mentioned this because for a map I traditionally thought was unpopular it was the top vote 5 times today in my unranked que’s with over half the votes. (None of them me)

I personally don’t like it, but I guess its gaining popularity. Sometimes you get a decent team for it. Usually you don’t. Based on my experience today, if its the popular choice, and your in a pug, it means you are probably batting against a premade who unified to pick it.

I will like it more if there were build templates that enables me to switch my conquest build to a small-squad team build on the run rather than just panicking at how quick i need to be on switching traits and such before the match starts

Odyssey.6523:

Funny you mentioned this because for a map I traditionally thought was unpopular it was the top vote 5 times today in my unranked que’s with over half the votes. (None of them me)

99% of players who love this map fit into one of the following categories:

• Low MMR ones who are too dumb to learn conquest.
• WvW zerglings.
• Premades who want a quick win.

It’s still not popular among actual PvP players imo.

On the topic

It’s a horrible map and a horrible gamemode. However 2v2 or 3v3 Annihilation would be extremely healthy for the game (annihilation = no respawns, respawning is just chaotic in such a small map where there are no objectives to split the team).

The only problem with courtyard is that they lumped it in with the conquest queue.

Obviously the people who like/dislike this map have quite different preferences, and I can’t understand why anet thought it would be a success introducing it that way…

Furthermore, they are doing the exact same thing with stronghold…

Can’t understand them sometimes.

i dont see why people dislike courtyard, tdm is really enjoyable if you arnt terrible… oh

witcher.3197:

Odyssey.6523:

Funny you mentioned this because for a map I traditionally thought was unpopular it was the top vote 5 times today in my unranked que’s with over half the votes. (None of them me)

99% of players who love this map fit into one of the following categories:

• Low MMR ones who are too dumb to learn conquest.
• WvW zerglings.
• Premades who want a quick win.

It’s still not popular among actual PvP players imo.

On the topic

It’s a horrible map and a horrible gamemode. However 2v2 or 3v3 Annihilation would be extremely healthy for the game (annihilation = no respawns, respawning is just chaotic in such a small map where there are no objectives to split the team).

You managed to fit quite a lot of elitism into such a short post. Bravo!

You missed a few groups:
- people who want a change of pace because we have one dominant game mode
- players whose preferred builds don’t mesh as well with conquest
- players who simply prefer death match
- players who really don’t care and choose this map to troll players like yourself

I find these forums so funny sometimes:
“Anet give us new game modes!” “No not that one! My subjective definition of real pvpers means that they won’t like that pvp game mode”
“Anet give us more balance patches!” “No, don’t buff that class! My subjective view of these classes doesn’t align with these changes.”

Roe.3679:

I find these forums so funny sometimes:
“Anet give us new game modes!” “No not that one! My subjective definition of real pvpers means that they won’t like that pvp game mode”
“Anet give us more balance patches!” “No, don’t buff that class! My subjective view of these classes doesn’t align with these changes.”

I love you for this comment alone…

My own opinion is that I would’ve liked it better if it had a seperate que…
The reason I dislike it is because most builds I play are optimized for Conquest… Workable in TDM of course, but not ideal

I too am not a happy camper with courtyard. I don’t like this map because it offers very little strategy. Most of games are just mashups of 2 zergs and all too often one sided.

As many have mentioned – make more & better deatchmatch maps, give them separate queque. When i go conquest i want conquest, not couryard.

Roe.3679:

You missed a few groups:
- (…)
- players who really don’t care and choose this map to troll players like yourself

Call me an elitist any day, at least I’m not playing for the sake of preventing other people from having fun.

I find these forums so funny sometimes:
“Anet give us new game modes!” “No not that one! My subjective definition of real pvpers means that they won’t like that pvp game mode”

There was a massive miscommunication. People kept describing annihilation (aka “arenas”) but called it TDM – so Anet gave us TDM. While this is the fault of both sides, clearly shows that their understanding of the comunity’s demands is superficial which leads us to the next topic: balance.

“Anet give us more balance patches!” “No, don’t buff that class! My subjective view of these classes doesn’t align with these changes.”

There are many kittens on this forum, especially in the profession sections who cry about every single l2p issue, demaning insane nerfs and buffs. But there are other people too like Phantaram, Chaith or even Vee. Listening to them or any top players (who are not yet banned from the forum) would help Anet a lot – the current balance patch pace/effectiveness ratio is shocking, even f2p games have lot more dedicated balance teams.
And yes, if we have to wait for ages before they drop a balance patch and that patch does not address any serious issues then people will be upset for some reason, I have no idea why..

witcher.3197:

Roe.3679:

You missed a few groups:
- (…)
- players who really don’t care and choose this map to troll players like yourself

Call me an elitist any day, at least I’m not playing for the sake of preventing other people from having fun.

First, it’s pvp. It’s literally about killing and controlling other players. Is that fun for them? It’s not fun for me to get focused on my necro, the same way it’s not fun for the engineers that I condi-bomb. Second, it’s not their problem if you don’t have fun in courtyard, it’s yours. If it rustles your jimmies so much, isn’t that just to your opponents advantage? You can queue ranked if it’s so bad.

I wouldnt mind another TDM map, but this time with actual mechanics on it.

My courtyard experiences have played like “pirate ship battles,” so adding lava or an arrow cart or pitfalls or a guild lord (worth 150 points) these would be nice additions.

Roe.3679:

witcher.3197:

Roe.3679:

You missed a few groups:
- (…)
- players who really don’t care and choose this map to troll players like yourself

Call me an elitist any day, at least I’m not playing for the sake of preventing other people from having fun.

First, it’s pvp. It’s literally about killing and controlling other players. Is that fun for them? It’s not fun for me to get focused on my necro, the same way it’s not fun for the engineers that I condi-bomb. Second, it’s not their problem if you don’t have fun in courtyard, it’s yours. If it rustles your jimmies so much, isn’t that just to your opponents advantage? You can queue ranked if it’s so bad.

one of the best parts about courtyard is how hard you can rustle jimmies. 500-25 is such a nice score to get, and one 100% earned. you have to 5 man teamfight for the whole game and not screw up, getting all those clutch resses and stomps, calling everything on TS with your team, running strong support builds.

I personally think 5-man is too large a team size for TDM. Additionally, I agree that I don’t think respawns is particularly fun for TDM; annihilation would be more effective. The nice thing about having a smaller team size for TDM is that it means the same people in a queue could result in more matches, which would go a long way to supplement a smaller queue size. Thus, having its own queue with a smaller team size (2- or 3-man) would be great to get me excited about playing it more.

It’s fun as long as you know what to do, I love it on all my classes even my necro is not easily picked up since I don’t have to stand on point. The population has to get used to it and they need to implement build savers.

I really like courtyard. There are no cheesy instant kill mechanics or a need to stand in circles to win. Just two teams going head to head, its beautiful.

The layout of the map is great, I have seen various strategies, including using mid, flanking from behind, rushing in stealth through mid etc.

Games can be landslides, but I have also seen plenty of amazing comebacks- something that rarely happens in conquest.

Its a deceptively complex and deep map and gamemode. I didn’t think I would particularly like it, but its pretty much my favourite map. If your team mates have even a small idea about how to play it, its great fun.