Guild Wars 2

Let’s say you are a map designer. Your manager has told you that 80% of the player base hates Skyhammer and that it needs to be redesigned to be more fun. What would you do (short of scrapping it)?

At least, make the cannon dodge-able. Maybe make the glass break more slowly – enough to demand some co-ordinate effort to pull off.

My suggestion:

• Move the entire map on the ground.
• Remove all the glass panels on the base floor.
• Change Skyhammer weapon and give it 3 abilities: 1) AoE reticule that removes stability, inflicts 3 seconds of weakness, chill and revealed and imparts a substantial aoe knockback (i.e. 1200m), 2) AoE reticule that removes stability, inflicts 3 seconds of poison, 5 stacks of confusion for 10 seconds and stuns for 2 seconds, 3) small AoE reticle that does a lot of damage (this ability would have a substantially longer cooldown than abilities 1 and 2, a substantially smaller reticule and would do more damage than the current Skyhammer does – effectively a 1-hit kill)
• Skyhammer abilities 1 and 2 are dodgeable. Skyhammer ability 3 is not
• Relocate Skyhammer control room above the central node in the main map
• Lower the height of the Skyhammer control room such that players knocked off the control room take a non-fatal amount of falling damage (~50% hp). Leave the panels, but widen the area a little.
• Increase the size of the far and near capture points.

This accomplishes a few things:

1. Removes the cheese and de-emphasizes knockbacks, fears and stability
2. Makes Skyhammer an important tactical weapon
3. Retains the Skyhammer ‘insta-gib’ mechanic, but only rewards teams that can coordinate their movement and controls well
4. Keeps knockbacks important, as well as gives some reason to spec into falling damage reduction.

reduce the aoe size of skyhammer. Increase the area of the cannon room.

Instead of glass automatically breaking, add a switch near each of the points and glass portions that you need to channel for 0.5 seconds to disable/enable glass.

i would it fix with

format whereeverskyhammerislocated:

Romek.4201:

i would it fix with

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lol ^^

One thing I’d like to see fixed ate the jumping pads.
They are just annoying. You can (ab)use them to evade attacks and sometimes it is even diffucult to acutally use them for jumping, as you dont jump “far” enough in order to reach the higher ground.

Maybe also adding ~1s of invulnerbillity (maybe therefore combined with a 1s daze) when using the portal up to Skyhammer. As Classes with turrets, mark or traps otherwise can place them all right “on the portal”.

Additionally, you should automaticly “exit” the canon, when you get hit.

About the Canon itself:
I actually like it. Yes, it is extremly strong. Maybe even overpowered. But this way, it becomes a rly important objective.

It is really important. However I think people don’t really care for how it cannot be dodged and that it’s basically a 7k+ 600m aoe cleave.

Make Cannon dodgeable.

Add 3rd platform that runs underneath the entire current map, so falling through glass is a strategic delay instead of insta-gib. Put ramps to get back up near the side points with a jump pad in-between A & B, B & C.

Falling through glass on Cannon platform should drop you somewhere on the map, far enough to take falling damage but not far enough to kill you if you’re at a decent health level.

That way the only insta-gibs on the map are if you are pushed off the outer ledge, or DPS’d enough to take lethal falling damage through glass.

I like the recent changes to it, the guard rails make it less common to get randomly knocked off. That being said, 3 changes still urgently need to happen:

> Skyhammer Cannon needs to either be dodgable OR no longer have the knockdown effect OR have it’s damage lowered.

> Skyhammer Area is still unbalanced with gigantic glass panels and open edges, heavily rewarding classes with knockdowns/fears or high stability uptime. Warrior/Guardian bunkers are borderline unstoppable…bunkers are supposed to have low damage output, but all that changes when the main way of “killing” is knocking people off edges/glass.

> Points A and C – glass panels need to be GONE, or instead of 3 panels just have 1. It’s still laughably easy for certain classes to push/pull enemies into glass, especially how some can do it from stealth. All concept of “positioning” is irrelevant. Falling down should be ONE of the ways to die on those points (to add flavor), not the entire MEANS of fighting on those points as it often is.
People can still be punished for having bad positioning if they are fighting too close to the edge.

Give eles more knockbacks/pulls would fix the map for me.

glass panels gone. it’s kittened when a thief pulls you into one while being invisible.

remove it lol
15 letters

cannon dodgeable

I think pressure panels should be renamed and just shatter at random with no notice and stay like that for 3 secs or something. That way you could use them at your advantage if able but only in that short interval removing lame builds who exploit it

And close the cannon room now it is only one big spam in there.

faeral.1840:

Make Cannon dodgeable.

If cannon was dodgeable it would be borderline useless imo.

The main issue with the map is the availability of instant kills. Especially stealth knockback/pull from stealth is extremely op.

On the other hand i really like using non ordinairy builds on this map.

A minor change that i could see going well with people is to create a big Platform below the edges + blue glass floor thingies. So basically you would still be able to kick people off the edge or through the floor to buy a lot of time to cap. But instead of dieing, the guy who got knocked would just fall on a platform below.

On this platform there would have to be some way to get back up but it should require some time. You should still be able to die by falling when you get knocked off the edge of this lowest platform though

^This would also keep alive the idea of the map to encourage CC heavy play.

skip it like every one else.

Personally, I’ve never not had fun in the Skyhammer map even when crazy things happen (or maybe it’s because crazy things do happen). It’s a fun, casual map. There is nothing wrong with that.

Don’t over blance Skyhammer so much that you make it bland Anet. It’s the only map that really stands out as different so far.

I do not think skyhammer needs changes. It is a fun map for sPvP. It just is not a good map for tPvP or for solo queue and should never appear there.

i’m not good at this map but I wouldn’t want anything about it to change since it breaks the routine playstyle of most other maps.

But certain fixing is needed as I’ve instantly died on two occurence near the breakable panels without even falling off. No Falling, No damage,no downed state,just instant death on the edge of the breakable panels.

On an opposite note, sometimes I do not die when I fall all the way down.I then need to wait for the sand wurm to down me and kill me. This is also something that needs to be fixed.

Other than these 2, skyhammer should remain as unique as it is now.

The “bad” thing about Skyhammer is how invasive its gimmicks are to PvP gameplay; it’s fine to have a unique map with unique features, but an insta-kill mechanic and a global unavoidable cannon blast are so drastic they turn the play style into something entirely different.
When I join a tPvP match, I expect to play PvP, not the Knockback minigame.

But those “issues” are also the defining traits of Skyhammer, removing or heavily nerfing them would also make the map lose its identity, which is a shame for a perfectly fine Hotjoin map that you can Choose to play, much like Raid on the Capricorn; it simply has no place in Tournaments.

My advice for the Devs would be to not go out of their way to change Skyhammer completely for fitting the competitive PvP gameplay, because it is fundamentally flawed in that regard; but, as a unique map that has its fair share of fans, I’d keep its identity intact as a peculiar Hotjoin minigame and simply remove it from Solo Queue Tourneys.

This way, both supporters and haters should be satisfied.

God I kittening hate this map and whoever created it. It’s an insult to any competitive notion PvP ever had in this game.

I don’t know how any competent designer could tolerate the unanimous hate of skyhammer and still force players to play it on a regular basis.

I’d rather engage in underwater combat than endure any more of this god awful map.

Dee Jay.2460:

I’d rather engage in underwater combat than endure any more of this god awful map.

That makes two of us. I don’t understand why a map, that favors certain professions, is a part of solo q. We have no influence on who we are teamed up with in the first place, so we can end up at an advantage or disadvantage right away.
There is nothing competitive about that map.

I was fooling around with a spec in hot join yesterday and even then: I didn’t have the stomach to go in. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one as we were 4 people spectating. It is funny to see how half of the 2 teams vanishes the second the rotation reaches Skyhammer.

How to fix Skyhammer? Remove it from solo q and let it remain in hotjoin where you are not forced to play it. I don’t want developers to use massive resources on fixing something like this. I would rather see them using resources on fixing all the other issues. Just remove it.

Make glass unbreakable except for with the cannon.

Make it hot join only