Guild Wars 2

This thread is for objective skyhammer feedback only. Constructive criticism is encouraged. Whining is not.

I’ll start it off. The question in my mind with skyhammer is: am I outplaying the player, or outplaying the map?

Map mechanics are fun and add variety, but should not do the heavy lifting for the player. It is Player versus Player afterall. Can you capture an orb, treb a node, attune to stillness, and kill svanir or a lord to aid your team in victory? Absolutely. Do you camp there all game and rely solely on the effectiveness of these mechanics to win the game? Probably not.

The cannon ‘attunement’ mechanic is a smart and creative way to control a neutral siege. However, like most people have already said, the fall-away floors tend to encourage cheese play. I think the fall-away floors should remain as-is in the cannon room, but leave the one’s around the nodes static or only have them break when the cannon hits them. This will force people at the nodes to still outplay the player, not the map.

Also, considering the high amount of damage and area control the skyhammer provides I think the turning speed should be decreased. ex. if you are blasting B and turn to blast A it should take a couple seconds to swing that monster cannon over to A. That way the skyhammer will be a supporting mechanic instead of the ‘be all, end all’ answer to controlling the entire map. If you want to keep the turning speed as-is then maybe a longer CD , cast time, or a smaller AoE will help balance it out.

edit spelling

i love allie murdock n yeah map is great

Remove it from tpvp please it has no place their. Having insta kill mechanics is never good for competitive play it is a fun and fine map for HOT JOIN.
The only way this map will be good and enjoyable for tpvp is
1. Remove falling off the map/breakable platforms
2. Make the jump booster pads action skills instead of them automatically launching you
3. Nerf the cannons damage and make it dodge able
The majority of the tpvp communicant dislike having this map in rotation.

http://poll.pollcode.com/rgdcx_result?v please vote so can get a proper sample

I feel as if much of the hate that the map is garnering, is partially because people tunnel vision on objectives. I’ve played the map quite a bit as my Engi, who has been running a mod of Teldo’s build for quite some time, so yes I have lots of CC. People continually engage me on the point or on ground level, and I simply pull them or push them to their deaths. However, the map has the mechanics to get around me, no one uses it though, meaning the high ground. I haven’t seen a single person take advantage of the high ground on the side points yet, and that is the safest spot to be against knocbacks. These CC builds rely mostly on AOEs on a point, such as bomb kit. If someone, say a necro or ranger is pounding me from up on the ledges, then I cannot do a thing to them, other then hope to pull them down, which once again can be avoided. Yes this is harder then other maps, but the mechanics are there people just need to learn how to use them.

On another note, I do feel the cannon is a tidge bit too powerful. The treb in Khylo is extremely useful, however it can be dodged, so it’s not all powerful, just another tool on the map. I feel like that is how the cannon should be, rather than an objective in of itself as it is now. If you were able to dodge the cannon, it would make the map feel a lot more balanced, since it’s not a complete game changer.

In a 5v5 map if you control the cannon, and your a class with CC then you’ll own it the whole game unless the whole enemy team attacks and loses all their points while they do it. That’s just not encouraging good teamplay. However, with some tweaks it would be a far more balanced mechanic.

PS I bloody love this map, simply because it makes me feel like I’m in a James Bond Movie with a male GLaDOS narrating.

Make the glass platforms explode and do instant down status rather than a fall to a death and other than that I think it’s okay.

I also like the voice acting on the map.

I think it’s a bit strange for it to not name the bases, using alphanumeric codes.

I don’t have a problem with insta kill mechanics so far, as they’ve been avoided through positioning and ability prediction, which is unquestionably a skill factor. Maybe when we start seeing coordinated cc comps things will be different, but I haven’t seen many comps that impressed me on that front.

All unique maps will have unique meta, this perhaps is the trade off we need to discuss.

The cannon is too strong/difficult to work around IMO

I suggest getting someone on the map team to stretch out the size of the cannon room a bit. Having glass and bungee sides is fine but the area is really cramp and a bit more width would make it better. It’s less “Oh they dodged too far back, perfect time to fear them” and just “Fear till they fall”. Cannon being undodgeable is fine, the damage is pretty steep though.
Teleports and the glass work are not meshing at all.
Pulls still have some issue where people get rocketed into the air, forgot all about that until I started using Scorpion again. One guy instead of falling through the floor actually got launched upwards to the above floor…

I posted this on Reddit, I’ll post it here:

Some of the aspects of this map are awesome. Some not so much. However, I am one of the few that honestly believe this can be tournament viable.
1) the cannon fight area is fantastic. It basically becomes a 1v1 with a mini game inside it: dodge/blind/stability block the knock backs. The 1 thing that is very wrong with this: Ele’s can mistform reconfigure the cannon. Which means I walk in, knockdown, commune then mistform. I have control of the cannon, and if I have full health and stability I can fire a shot at the point we need it. (Yes, you can activate and shoot while being damaged. Just don’t go in without stability or you’ll get banished out lol)

2) falling kills. Adds another level and it basically is a new meta within the map. I honestly think this is fine. People complain that you need new builds for this map. Why? That awesome! Lets you make builds that wouldn’t normally work on this map. Sure, fears and banishes and pulls suck. Does it hinder some classes? I don’t think so. Those classes just need to build different. Like a condi vs. power meta. Just because a map doesn’t have set roles for it and you have to build differently doesn’t mean it’s bad IMO. Promotes skill! Do you know how to honestly play this map? Your build will show that. However, I think that if it takes a short time to kill someone by banishing someone, you should res faster. Like 10-8 seconds as opposed to 15. No stomp required, so you shouldn’t be punished for that. Something to try at least.

As a note, please please PLEASE give us build templates. PLEASE.

3) jump pads. So much fun. Adds another level of skill, as you can’t be chased right away. Makes the map more like a playground. If they fix some of the bugs that come with verticality, I think this is really awesome

4) cannon being undodgeable. Ok so here’s the thing. It has a delay. So if you could dodge it, it becomes a lot like treb but no knockback. This is a giant laser! I dunno if it should be dodge able in all honesty. Something’s could be tweaked, but I’m not sure…damage reduced, area reduced, increased cool down, etc etc. Play around with it but right now i think its too strong.

Also, why did I see so few ele’s yesterday? Protection prevents 33% of the damage from the cannon. We have stability on a 10 second cooldown. We can get from point a to c in under 10 seconds. We also have 2 OP skills for cannon right now…
Anyway. That’s my 2 cents

Allie Murdock.8152:

Love it! The discussions about Skyhammer have been great so far.

Aside from the ones you removed that weren’t ‘great’ enough for your liking to keep on the forums, such as a petition to have the map taken off of tournament rotation considering the large amount of negative feedback compared to positive feedback, and quite frankly I don’t blame players in the slightest for hating such a lame map. I guess it isn’t in Arenanet’s priority list to actually listen to the players if it isn’t beneficial to Arenanet’s glorious ego.

Typical Arenanet doing what they can to cover players eyes.

As far as objective feedback? I don’t think instant death mechanics promote skilled play in any sense or form. Anyone can of course argue that it somehow does, but truthfully it just takes away from the game. If anything, these mechanics causes more frustration than fun, and also emphasizes gimmicky play in which you do what you can to just have someone fall to their death and have the map kill them for you. Skill? I think not. More like abusing the map and there are of course many out there who will feel gratified for such an easy kill, and it will indeed inflate their ego, making them feel like they’re better at the game when they really aren’t.

Then there’s the cannon. Though, I haven’t much to say here considering someone was honest enough to point out something wrong with Ele’s being able to mistform / reconfigure / get a free shot without much repercussion – on top of other issues – I just feel like it’s unnecessary coming from me considering the above.

It’s like all aspects of this map promote instant death crap, and really instant death promotes little to no counter play which is a large part of any successful competitive game out there. And while SOME people like this map … I would like to point out that the majority of people who really seem to enjoy this map are either Engineers or Necromancers. The rest of the classes do not have anything near the spammable one shot kill capabilities that these two do, and consequentially more often than not do not enjoy the map on the same level as these two particular classes.

I would attribute this to imbalance in the game, overall. Of course, class diversity, whatever. But considering there’s now a map out there that makes certain classes much much more dominant? Can’t say that’s somehow a good thing.

Trying to defend this map as if it promotes build diversity? Rather than looking at the core issues with balance in the game itself? That means okay, so this map may (or may not) promote build diversity, but that doesn’t mean other maps do, meaning the problem isn’t going to be fixed simply by adding a map with way too many gimmick mechanics that quite literally force you to play a kitten / gimmick build made for instant killing your opponents as much as possible.

Face it, this map should have been tested thoroughly, first … and in fact, been allowed to the players to get a feel for it and give feedback before this was shoved down players throats by making an unpolished gimmick the new tournament rotation map. Or is that how you planned to get feedback? Forcing the players to play it? Hit or miss? Blind swing in the dark? :/

Arenanet, you blow my mind when it comes to the decisions you make. It’s like you avoid so many steps you could be taking in order to ensure a high quality well refined product just so you can get it out there ‘faster’ even though it’s quite literally months before anything even gets released, and when it is, you don’t even care to get healthy amounts of feedback, first. Pride ‘ftw’ I suppose.

My main gripe with the map is actually the cannon. It deals too much damage (and knocks you down as well) for something that is undodgeable/unblockable, it makes the secondary mechanic too powerful and FORCES you to use it. On Kyhlo you can choose to not use treb, but on Skyhammer you HAVE to control the Ion Cannon™ or you WILL lose the map.

TL;DR: make the cannon shots dodgeable/blockable.

invuln abilities block the shot entirely, like endure pain, mist form, etc.

I’ll give my 2 cents.
Starting with what i like, the asura theme based map is a good idea, it would be great to have one foe each race. I also like the jumping mechanics.
But, imho, it would be terrible to have all of them in conquest mode, having a single mode really gets boring on the long run, and changing map doen not mitigate the problem. PLEASE add new game modes!
Said that, let’s get to the problems. I’d start by saying that bad things here seems to stack with each other here more then being many little different things.
We have the knockback/people-being -instakilled problem and the cannon.
The cannon is far too important to be ignored, aoe unstoppable damage , with no chance to aim bad ( at least you could be bad at trebbing, but whit this..) and good fire rate gain you incredible map control. But then we have to fight for such an important objective in a small space , where we can fall off in so many ways that it’s more like playing bingo then GW2. No real skill required, and positioning can sure help when fighting on points but does very little in the cannon room.
Also, when fighting 1v1 there are chances to avoid the cc/knockback spam and get a skill based fight, but when numbers grow it’s near to impossible to avoid everything and you just end up instakilled with no possibility to fight back. The winner is most likely who smashed buttones faster

Sarcasm apart, we end up with a cannon that should be probably toned down a little bit , maybe by reducing the radius or by having longer cds.
About the “fallling off” stuff, we can now go down by the floor or by the map border. I think one of them should be eliminated, maybe leave the other one. Even whitout considering all the fears/knockbacks movement skills in general are very limited. For example, i play a warrior and GS 3 and 5 are almost suicide skills. (still talking about cannon room here!)

Of course changing builds and weapon sets is possible – and to answer Allie question in the other thread about skyhammer yes, templates would help a lot! – the problem here is that we have one build dominating all the others and it’s very much luck based. On the other maps there are some advantages in adjusting team composition or in changing your build, but you get small advantages and common builds still work just fine.
Now I’m not saying that any build that doesn’t revolve around fears/knockbacks sucks on this map, “normal” builds are still fine if you don’t play to go to the cannon room.
But if you play with a random team you don’t know if anyone’s going to take that role, and you end up having to run troll builds yourself. At least that’s how i see it.
I would still go with the solution I gave above, closing the floor cells permanently or making impossible to fall of ledges and get out of the map.

It’s a long post , so to sum everything up:
- tone down cannon power a little bit, atm it’s so strong that you are forced to go for it.
- mechanics revolving around pressing a button and winning /losing(fear/knockdown) have little to do with skill, positioning can save you on points (eventually!) but there’s little you can do in the cannon room, read point above for the cannon. I want to play GW2, not bingo thanks.
- conquest mode. Besides what i wrote in the first lines, this mode also has another core problem. It requires communication, but the vast majority of players solo queue. This reduces the build variety because everyone wants a selfish build good for most situations, and also the skill cap decreases. Other game modes could both fix some balance issues and promote diversity.

My feedback is simple:

Cannon is probably too powerful. Whatever team doesn’t have it is forced to make some major compromises in either positioning or a large chunk of health. I would NOT suggest making it able to be dodged as it’s highly telegraphed and we have seen that high level players can practically render these mechanics obsolet (Treb). Maybe tone down the damage a bit or make the firing rate slower, but I’ll leave that up to you to be creative about how you solve that problem.

Reduce the sheer number of glass floors. I love the mechanic and I think it adds a new skill cap to the game but it seems a little too easy to fling opponents to their death. I’d like to see skillful timing of stuns+knockbacks to quickly one shot an opponent, right now it seems to be “throw whatever position altering skills you have around and hope you knock them through a hole or off the cliff”. Less glass floors could make it a bit harder to find good opportunities to knock someone off.

Overall really like this map though and I’d love to see it get some high level play.

Addition Not dying after you are knocked off the platform wastes a TON of time. The Wurms take too long to kill you and so you are left with 20+ extra seconds of “down” time for no reason but you managed to fall in the wrong spot.

The map is getting way more hate and rage than it deserves, but it does need to be adjusted.

- There need to be fewer glass sections on the ground that people can fall through.

- Cannon damage needs to be reduced, or it’s cool down needs to be increased, or it’s area of effect needs to be reduced, or the shots need to be dodgeable. Pick one.

Any other problems with the map are on a class by class basis, like with Elementalists being able to work the cannon while in mist form.

Tada, map fixed.

It’s been out for just over a day, far too short for all the “it’s undeniably terrible” posts to hold much merit. It’s different yes, but learn to adapt to it before you completely reject it.

I can agree with temporary removal or delayed use in the tournament rotation until players have some experience with it. Putting a new map, which has added mechanics, into immediate tournament play is just inviting people to come and complain.

The cannon hitting through dodges should stay. The mechanic forces a defender to leave the node or die a quick death. For all the complaints about bunkers, a way to quickly remove them should be welcomed. If the cannon becomes dodge-able then players can just bunker while dodging like on Khylo. The burst damage is also good. It should hurt a lot so that you want to avoid it. However it is currently a little too hard to avoid if you’re fighting someone with CC. I would either shrink the area a little (still keep it larger than a node) or increase the time between the activation and the damage by a second or two. That way, random CC won’t get you a cannon hit, but well-timed or coordinated CC will. I think increasing the time to deal time is the better option since it forces a bunkering player further away. It also serves to reduce the overall rate of fire.

The jump pads seem too plentiful to me. They should add a little difference, but not be extremely pervasive. Keep the ones near nodes, but consider removing the ones between the nodes.

The falling kills are an interesting mechanic. They make positioning and awareness of your surroundings extremely important. Few maps required players to do this, but if you know what your opponents can do and play safe until they use their CC, it’s not too bad. I could constantly knock my friends off the map because they aren’t experienced in PvP. When they spammed knockbacks at me, they rarely knocked me off because I positioned myself correctly. I need to play the map more to draw a more definitive conclusion on the knockbacks. I am worried about fear though. Many knockbacks and pulls are telegraphed. Most sources of fear are instant and can force you further away than a knockback.

The other thing I’m worried about is snowball matches where a slightly stronger team holds 2 nodes and the cannon. The cannon may break up assaults with just one person defending the node, freeing up most of the team to defend the cannon itself. Also, the cannon gives a huge intelligence advantage, giving away your opponents’ movements (though there are some underground routes that may counter this).

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey Jesiah.2457, thanks for the feedback! Just thought I would point out that petitions are not permitted on the forums. <— Link to the CoC that you agreed to when entering. While we value your feedback, we ask that everyone follow the CoC.

Here’s a quote from it:
“Do not post petitions, “I demand an answer” threads, conspiracy threads, or comments about circumventing the rules.”

Thanks!

Well said … and thanks for clearing that up for me due to my lack of patience to read through all of the CoC.

What’s wrong with Skyhammer is not the skill level or random insta deaths. It really is that it requires and FORCES teams to play a certain way. If you had no bunker/roamer on any of the other maps, you could still be effective, assuming you were good at whatever you focused on. If, on the other maps, you played very little with the secondary features like, the orb, the buffs, the trebuchet, the guild lords, you could still win. It was VERY possible for teams to play their own game and be good at it. Teams ran all sorts of builds, even against meta.

But not in Skyhammer. You cannot run against the meta in Skyhammer and expect to win. If you are not focusing on getting that cannon, you will lose. If you did not prep loads of stability, and loads of cc, you could not win. You had to play Skyhammer’s way, or the losing way.

This was not true in any of the other maps. The secondary features on each map were there to enhance the map, not to constrict the playstyle. No one, and I mean NO ONE ever built a build around capturing the buffs, or stealing the orb, or breaking down the guild lords wall.

Freedom of styles means more variety, as long as the game is balanced. Just think of the few builds we have now in PvP. A handful of builds per profession were “efficient” across all the PvP maps. Now think of the few builds that are “viable” on Skyhammer. One per profession, maybe two.

Now this has nothing to do with switching skills around. No one minds swapping traits and skills. The problem is that Skyhammer really forces teams to use the same tactics. Which ultimately means, the teams aren’t really even the teams anymore, they are just playing what is demanded of them. If that is the goal of ArenaNet, to force players to play a certain way, then their E-Sport is dead. Well, it was never really there to begin with…

Its the same reason why CoD doesn’t have maps forcing you to use snipers, or Starcraft doesn’t have maps forcing you to play Zerg.

Fun map definitely.

But the secondary mechanics are plentiful and over the top I think. Reduction of jumping pads and maybe the glass floors like Exedore and Pandabro have said might be good for the map. Right now, it’s so saturated with them add to that the ledges of death everywhere. Such a small map for too much secondary mechanics. They are nice, but there are a LOT of it and needs some reduction.

Or tweaking laser canon damage, radius and CD, well, especially the CD because right now, it’s too powerful. I think it can do with the undodgeable zomg intsa 10k damage but it has to be less less frequent than what it is now.

I think the entrance to the cannon needs to be redesigned. And the wall in the cannon area should be removed.

Instead of having an asura gate to the cannon. We should have (a series of) jumping pads go to the cannon, maybe a type of mini-jumping puzzle.

Right now it’s a little too easy to use the asura gate to retreat in and out of the cannon room even with the debuff delay.

Many players have learned to hug the asura gate to avoid getting knocked off or onto a glass plate. These same players can also retreat easily outside the cannon room and return 5 seconds later to re-engage whoever they were fighting with. The portal makes it very hard to catch someone and finish them off unless you have people watching both sides of the portal.

i’ve already posted all my stuff on the other skyhammer thread, so i feel it would be redundant to post it here again in full.

TL;DR: cannon itself is fine, but attacks should be dodgeable. glass panels themselves are fine, but a little more ground on the cannon room and near the edge points would do wonders for mobility while still making positioning vital.

and someone verify if you are immune to CC while manning the cannon, because it sure feels like i am. i’ve been feared while manning the cannon, and yet i didn’t move an inch (or let go of the cannon for that matter). on the other side of the spectrum, i’ve used pulls (namely, scorpion wire) against people manning the cannon, and they wouldn’t budge either. so now i just make myself known to them before trying any CC tricks.

Here are my recommendations for how to improve Skyhammer in order to make it more acceptable in the competitive environment of tPvP

The biggest thing I would recommend would be adding a map to hotjoin for AT LEAST two weeks (more preferably a month) before it goes into the tPvP rotation. That will give the community time to discuss whether or not it’s appropriate for a competitive environment and will allow the designers to tweak the map as necessary to make it competitive.

Specifically for skyhammer: the two main issues are CC effectiveness and the cannon effectiveness. Currently CCs are too effective on this map in that they can result in a one-shot kill. In general the availability of CC has always vastly outweighed the availability of CC-counter, but this has been acceptable because proper team play could compensate for CCs that sneak through and it would be rare for enemy to force a kill through in the period of a single CC (though they still made excellent tools for causing pressure and pushing kills). Once a single CC can result in an instant death, this dynamic becomes a problem though, as one-shot kills are very bad for a competitive game in which a player’s skill and coordination with his team should determine the outcome of a fight. In order to fix this on Skyhammer I would recommend increasing the length of time it takes a platform to shatter and decreasing the number of platforms around the A & C nodes. This way the map will still carry the characteristic that CC is more effective here (in order to spur build diversity) but CC will not be the deciding factor in a match.

Currently the hammer is a fun mechanic but it plays too large a role in deciding the outcome of a match. It has very large damage and is very easy to quickly target multiple capture points in a very short period of time. Combined with the fact that it is undodgeable, and the weapon becomes TOO important. In order to fix this I would recommend increase the amount of time it takes for the cannon to rotate to a new position by 150-200%. This will prevent the owner of the cannon from being able to completely lock down 2+ locations (as is currently possible) and will force the owner to focus on supporting a single capture point. Additionally the AoE blast should be dodgeable and the ability to capture the cannon while invulnerable should be disabled. This will help bring the cannon in line with other secondary mechanics (like treb on Khylo) while still remaining an important tool for supporting team fights.

Until these changes can be made the map MUST be removed from the tournament rotation, as it is VERY noncompetitive at the moment and promotes a style of gameplay that is bad for the longterm health of the game (i.e. CC-button mashing in order to win the race between knockbacks + knockback prevention).

DXIEdge.2789:

I posted this on Reddit, I’ll post it here:

Some of the aspects of this map are awesome. Some not so much. However, I am one of the few that honestly believe this can be tournament viable.
1) the cannon fight area is fantastic. It basically becomes a 1v1 with a mini game inside it: dodge/blind/stability block the knock backs. The 1 thing that is very wrong with this: Ele’s can mistform reconfigure the cannon. Which means I walk in, knockdown, commune then mistform. I have control of the cannon, and if I have full health and stability I can fire a shot at the point we need it. (Yes, you can activate and shoot while being damaged. Just don’t go in without stability or you’ll get banished out lol)

2) falling kills. Adds another level and it basically is a new meta within the map. I honestly think this is fine. People complain that you need new builds for this map. Why? That awesome! Lets you make builds that wouldn’t normally work on this map. Sure, fears and banishes and pulls suck. Does it hinder some classes? I don’t think so. Those classes just need to build different. Like a condi vs. power meta. Just because a map doesn’t have set roles for it and you have to build differently doesn’t mean it’s bad IMO. Promotes skill! Do you know how to honestly play this map? Your build will show that. However, I think that if it takes a short time to kill someone by banishing someone, you should res faster. Like 10-8 seconds as opposed to 15. No stomp required, so you shouldn’t be punished for that. Something to try at least.

As a note, please please PLEASE give us build templates. PLEASE.

3) jump pads. So much fun. Adds another level of skill, as you can’t be chased right away. Makes the map more like a playground. If they fix some of the bugs that come with verticality, I think this is really awesome

4) cannon being undodgeable. Ok so here’s the thing. It has a delay. So if you could dodge it, it becomes a lot like treb but no knockback. This is a giant laser! I dunno if it should be dodge able in all honesty. Something’s could be tweaked, but I’m not sure…damage reduced, area reduced, increased cool down, etc etc. Play around with it but right now i think its too strong.

Also, why did I see so few ele’s yesterday? Protection prevents 33% of the damage from the cannon. We have stability on a 10 second cooldown. We can get from point a to c in under 10 seconds. We also have 2 OP skills for cannon right now…
Anyway. That’s my 2 cents

1) The cannon fight area is hardly ever a 1v1. Which is fine, just understand the reality that with 5 player resources at your disposal being required to (most of the time) send at least 2 to the cannon stretches your team thin. This is different with the trebs on kyhlo. On kyhlo you can rotate resources because trebs get killed etc. I agree mistform configuring needs to be fixed.

2) The argument isn’t “oh they made me change my build now I’m mad”. The argument is that someone who throws together a lackluster build for 2 buttons that will garner instant kills is not a viable way to compete, especially in tpvp. Also, you can’t just tell people to change their builds because they’re doing it wrong. Keep in mind not all classes have access to viable sources of knockbacks, fears, and stability to be able to perform as well as other classes. Also, the glass floor ‘cheese’ mechanics play to the favor of classes that are already strong to begin with such as engineer, guardian, necromancer, and elementalist.

3) jump pads cool whatever.

4) The undodgeable cannon damage isn’t even what makes the cannon so strong. The real strength is the area control that comes with it. You are suggesting that people simply abandon a node when a blast is incoming and you’ll be fine. That is a pretty over powered mechanic that 1 blast from a cannon can almost guarantee a node is neutralized with intelligent ground support. You are better off just sending that player resource to the cannon to, at the very least, contest the cannon because floating from node to node is not viable when the cannon can rotate exponentially faster than you can run, even as an elementalist. And if that is the logical resource distribution then we arrive back at the conclusion that ‘cheese’ builds win this map because the cannon controls the game.

Protection may protect 33% cannon damage but that takes a 10k blast down to a 7k blast. You are welcome to come fight me at a node anytime if you’re just going to eat 7k knock downs all day =P

Here’s my 2 cents as a 99% pvper nowadays…

This map is crap. The laser idea is great, I love it, but the fact that you can die from a simple crowd control is absolute garbage. I’ll be 1v1ing or 2v1ing people, almost get them downed, ‘or downed for that matter,’ and all of the sudden BAM knockback or feared into a hole or off the edge. HOW IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE PVP!? Necros with that 5 second fear?… instant death if my clear conditions are on cool-down. Now I know that everybody’s gonna say, “well that’s how this map works, deal with it.” but it’s not like pvp at all! It’s like a mini-game at best! I like to pvp every day… With this new map I’m not going to be able to pvp for 2 full days with this map in the rotation because I hate it that much. My build means nothing when a rank 1 can spam knockbacks on me. Okay, it’s a fun/interesting map, BUT REMOVE THE THING FROM TOURNY ROTATIONS. It doesn’t effect how good any player is or how good their build is. Sure, put it in the free-play availability, but this is JUNK in tournaments. It’s not true pvp.

My suggestion:

Remove this Map from spvp tournament

The map overall is great a big step in the right direction as far as fun factor is concerned. My only issue is that you can clearly see when someone is about to enter the portal. It makes it too easy to time your pushes and pulls against an opponent. For example you see someone about to enter as a Mesmer, you just step over the glass to trigger it to break and lay down a focus #4. As soon as they step through portal hit the #4 key again and the enemy goes flying to his death every time. Even with stability up you can pop down a null field at the entrance and its a guaranteed kill every time. Two uber noob Mesmers can stop an entire team basically. Its too easy. My suggestion is to cover the entrance so that the player controlling the cannon and anybody else that’s up top can’t see when a player steps through and time push, pull, or fear them to their death as soon as they enter the asuran gate.

On the contrary I think the fall-away floor should not remain in the laser room. It’s too easy to knock someone onto it given how narrow the room is. A single knock back can not only kill an enemy but give you map control. Even if there is some way of counter play and it builds diversity, can anyone say a “one shot” AOE move is balanced?

People want to play pvp, not knockback games. Map mechanics should not favor heavily on certain classes and leave others out (think about an extreme version of the spirit watch orb mechanic, which has made spirit watch noncompetitive). I dont think anyoe would complain about changing builds. We love build diversity and meta changes but this is the worst possible way to go about doing it.

The removal of glass floor and fencing up the cannon room would entirely make this a more balanced map. Either way the glass floor could deal a flat damage that could equally change the outcome of any fights, but give a chance for rally/team play.

The portal is another issue…..

It sounds like everyone just wants different looking foefires….

Objectively:
This map heavily favors Hard CC builds. That is to say that any CC that physically pushes or pulls your enemy is prime for this map…. Now how many classes have no access to any hard CC builds?
….
….. Exactly. Some classes have it a little bit better than others for hard CC builds but then those are the classes you send to the hammer everyone else you send to points. If you have 3 people from the other team fighting for the hammer then that means you can at least 2 cap them fairly quick.

This is the first map that you have to be legitimately afraid of knockbacks and launches any other map they are an annoyance and no real threat which is why no one built for them.
The map requires heavy thought into positioning yourself and the enemy. Which once again is not bad and helps up the skill floor to play.

Just because there is a map that heavily favors hard CC doesn’t mean that it is game breaking or non competitive. It means that maybe you should stop thinking your build=God Build and you shouldn’t have to adjust your playstyle for the map.

One of my issues: Shadow stepping over broken glass floors. You can’t do it, or at least I’ve had zero luck doing it. It’s aggravating when you have LOS to an opponent and you try sword 2 or steal to them and instead of hitting them you blink to the edge of the hole, trip and fall in.

I submitted a bug report for this too.

Retribution.3058:

Here’s my 2 cents as a 99% pvper nowadays…

This map is crap. The laser idea is great, I love it, but the fact that you can die from a simple crowd control is absolute garbage. I’ll be 1v1ing or 2v1ing people, almost get them downed, ‘or downed for that matter,’ and all of the sudden BAM knockback or feared into a hole or off the edge. HOW IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE PVP!? Necros with that 5 second fear?… instant death if my clear conditions are on cool-down. Now I know that everybody’s gonna say, “well that’s how this map works, deal with it.” but it’s not like pvp at all! It’s like a mini-game at best! I like to pvp every day… With this new map I’m not going to be able to pvp for 2 full days with this map in the rotation because I hate it that much. My build means nothing when a rank 1 can spam knockbacks on me. Okay, it’s a fun/interesting map, BUT REMOVE THE THING FROM TOURNY ROTATIONS. It doesn’t effect how good any player is or how good their build is. Sure, put it in the free-play availability, but this is JUNK in tournaments. It’s not true pvp.

Everyone is getting carried away here with very subjective ideas. Please refrain from “This or that is crap” “learn to play” “learn to build your class” “remove this map from tpvp” posts. They accomplish nothing. Take that elsewhere please.

jportell.2197:

It sounds like everyone just wants different looking foefires….

Objectively:
This map heavily favors Hard CC builds. That is to say that any CC that physically pushes or pulls your enemy is prime for this map…. Now how many classes have no access to any hard CC builds?
….
….. Exactly. Some classes have it a little bit better than others for hard CC builds but then those are the classes you send to the hammer everyone else you send to points. If you have 3 people from the other team fighting for the hammer then that means you can at least 2 cap them fairly quick.

This is the first map that you have to be legitimately afraid of knockbacks and launches any other map they are an annoyance and no real threat which is why no one built for them.
The map requires heavy thought into positioning yourself and the enemy. Which once again is not bad and helps up the skill floor to play.

Just because there is a map that heavily favors hard CC doesn’t mean that it is game breaking or non competitive. It means that maybe you should stop thinking your build=God Build and you shouldn’t have to adjust your playstyle for the map.

First, you aren’t using the term “Hard CC” correctly. A 3sec stun is definitely a ‘Hard CC’ and it neither pushes or pulls a target. That’s OK though because we understand what you are getting at.

Second, If you send 3 people to the hammer and have 2 people on the ground then you can definitely hold 2 nodes. The cannon can protect 2 nodes very very easily with 2 bunkers on the ground to prevent neutralization. The area control > additional ground support.

Third, CC is very very important on all maps. It has always been very strong and never has been considered a mere ‘annoyance’. Tell a terror necro his fears are ‘annoyances’ and he will laugh at your corpse.

Third, your logic regarding class building for the map is full of broad stroke assumptions. People aren’t assuming their ‘build = GOD’ but they are assuming that if given a fair fight they are equipped with the abilities necessary to stand a chance and beat the enemy player. With map mechanics that are excessive you aren’t beating your opponent, you are letting the map do all the work for you.

I disagree when you say “The map requires heavy thought into positioning yourself and the enemy.” This map requires very little thought and/or coordination to land game changing kills via the floor panels.

Now, if the map were set up like say.. a golf course with very few holes scattered around the map, then it would take a significant amount of skill to land a 1 shot kill. This would require tactical kiting and enemy manipulation to properly position them for a CC kill.

I do not enjoy playing on the Skyhammer-Map, and even though I am aware that my personal opinion is naturally subjective, I’ll try to explain as good as I can:

1. All spvp-Maps in GW2 so far are “capture the points”-maps, and that never bothered me because the premise provides a lot of fun and can used on totally different maps with a totally different background. I think the different additions to the maps (trebuchets to use, orb to transport, commanders to annihilate) add flavour and a special tactical component to each one of them.

The difference between said additions and the cannon in Skyhammer is for me: The cannon is much too powerful. It can be a valid strategy to not capture the orb and just stay in steady control of all three points to win. It can be a valid strategy to not use the catapult but roam fast across the map, maybe just destroy the enemies’ treb and even the fight. There are a lot of ways to handle the unique tactical situations in those maps. The cannon at the moment fires too fast for my taste, hits too hard and can’t be dodged. Right now it seems absolutely imperative for teams to compete over control for the cannon, there doesnt seem to be another good option since it’s just too important on that battlefield. So I feel forced into using the kitten thing, or at least I feel that the team controlling the cannon is in such a massive advantage that teams are forced to lump up around the kitten thing. It makes the map less fun then others, for me personally.

2. It’s depressing to be shot by a large cannon. For me – again, I know my opinion is subjective – World of Warcrafts PvP went down the drain when they began introducing cannons, tanks and whatnot. I enjoy to play my own character in a pvp-match. If I win I want to win because my skills sufficed, if I lose I am going to think of what I could’ve done better and how I can improve in the future.
In the last two days I had some interesting fights when I tried to capture/defend points. Sometimes I would have won and the cannon blasted me to pieces, sometimes I was close to beating my enemy and the cannon blasted HIM to pieces. Both is no fun for me.

Of course you can argue that gaining control of the cannon, defending it thereafter and using it properly also demands skill and good teamwork. All I can say is: I think people tend to feel okay when they have lost a battle/duel somewhere on the map (no matter if 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2 or any other combination) and they feel less okay and a lot more victimized when they get shot by a large, invisible gun.
I didnt buy GW2 to re-enact World War 1. I dont want heavy artillery blasting me or my enemies to pieces. That’s not how I imagine enjoyable pvp-battles, else I would be playing Battlefield or whatever the kids enjoy these days in that area.

3) “Yesterday I fought a warrior who really kicked my kitten , we had a great duel… then I misstepped and broke my neck” is not an interesting story to tell your friends. Of course it takes a certain sort of skill to get the map to know and avoid plunging to death. That just doesnt mean it’s also fun, and I think herein lies the problem.

I’d like to see better visual feedback for the Skyhammer cannon; A coloured icon on the minimap location in order to tell at a glance. I can always see my teammates dancing on the minimap at the location, but I’m guessing as to whether they are defending or attacking.

Also, I’d prefer if using the Asura Gate broke stealth. While I love trolling around on my near perma-stealthed thief with Scorpion Wire, Shadow Refuge + AoE CC like Fear Me is a near instant guarantee of flipping the cannon.

threothree.2618:

One of my issues: Shadow stepping over broken glass floors. You can’t do it, or at least I’ve had zero luck doing it. It’s aggravating when you have LOS to an opponent and you try sword 2 or steal to them and instead of hitting them you blink to the edge of the hole, trip and fall in.

I submitted a bug report for this too.

No, it’s not just you. If the floor tiles are broken, the pathing for shadowsteps doesn’t work.

I think the cannon room could be a few more larger, this prevent Engineer, Necro and Guardians to camp the room.

Larger like the graveyard, due to importance.

BlahTeeb.3254:

What’s wrong with Skyhammer is not the skill level or random insta deaths. It really is that it requires and FORCES teams to play a certain way. If you had no bunker/roamer on any of the other maps, you could still be effective, assuming you were good at whatever you focused on. If, on the other maps, you played very little with the secondary features like, the orb, the buffs, the trebuchet, the guild lords, you could still win. It was VERY possible for teams to play their own game and be good at it. Teams ran all sorts of builds, even against meta.

But not in Skyhammer. You cannot run against the meta in Skyhammer and expect to win. If you are not focusing on getting that cannon, you will lose. If you did not prep loads of stability, and loads of cc, you could not win. You had to play Skyhammer’s way, or the losing way.

This was not true in any of the other maps. The secondary features on each map were there to enhance the map, not to constrict the playstyle. No one, and I mean NO ONE ever built a build around capturing the buffs, or stealing the orb, or breaking down the guild lords wall.

Freedom of styles means more variety, as long as the game is balanced. Just think of the few builds we have now in PvP. A handful of builds per profession were “efficient” across all the PvP maps. Now think of the few builds that are “viable” on Skyhammer. One per profession, maybe two.

Now this has nothing to do with switching skills around. No one minds swapping traits and skills. The problem is that Skyhammer really forces teams to use the same tactics. Which ultimately means, the teams aren’t really even the teams anymore, they are just playing what is demanded of them. If that is the goal of ArenaNet, to force players to play a certain way, then their E-Sport is dead. Well, it was never really there to begin with…

Its the same reason why CoD doesn’t have maps forcing you to use snipers, or Starcraft doesn’t have maps forcing you to play Zerg.

Very well put.

I srsly don’t get it . Only qq as usual.

The map is great fun and the mechanics are really good.
Keep it up Anet and thanks !

Currently, while Skyhammer is fun for casual play (and would make for some fun custom tournaments), I don’t think the map is right for the tourney rotation. Maybe if Arenanet:

1) Added build templates so switching builds for this map would require one button (seriously, this is one of the most important and pressing features for spvp)
2) Removed many (or all) of the glass plates near nodes – I feel the ones near the laser are ok as it provides SUCH a huge benefit – dying to a cheesy mechanic is frustrating and not really all that competitive. I also liked the idea of the glass nodes downing a player rather than killing them outright. Regardless, people can still be knocked off the edge of the map, which is a fun addition, in moderation.
3) Slightly tuned down the effectiveness of the laser, either with a cooldown increase, turning cast time, the ability to be dodged (I’m actually ok with it being undodgeable if other things change, adds a unique aspect)
4) Change the way jump pads work by either having them be interact to use or moving them out of regular running paths. The ones by the side nodes are cool and implemented well.
5) Wait for community feedback before putting a new and VERY DIFFERENT map into tournament rotation.

1-3 Are the most important, imo.

I like the map and with some tweaks it could be a nice tpvp map.
Need build templates soon now so we can change between builds easily.
Another idea i had in mind was add another floor underneath the glassplates so you dont insta die but just need some time to walk back up again.

In my opinion the map has a mechanism that makes it non-competitive:
die instantly via fluke opponent.
Unfortunately, the map is centered on this mechanical senseless.

This defeats the team work done.
It does not allow to create synergy between the players: combine skills and ways of playing is not useful in this map.
Luck plays an important role too: it is not important how good you play, but how lucky you are to fall on deaf ears in the ’opponent.
Not seeing exactly what skill uses your opponent may find yourself thrown off the map at any time.

Personally think this map is a step in the right direction, just a little rough around the edges. It promotes a different style of play than the typical “2 dudes sit on a point and take a nap until somebody shows up and they kite them forever while other people spam AoE around them”.

More importantly, it’s actually kind of fun. Win or lose, the group of friends I was playing with today spent most of the games laughing.

Competitive? The first rule of a game being successful is it has to be fun. Balance is secondary to fun, and mind you, I play a warrior… I know all about poor balance.

Jonwar.9205:

Competitive? The first rule of a game being successful is it has to be fun. Balance is secondary to fun, and mind you, I play a warrior… I know all about poor balance.

It is assumed that this is an e-sports.
I enjoy if I can be competitive. How you can have fun on a map where luck plays for you?

Santuzz.9063:

Jonwar.9205:

Competitive? The first rule of a game being successful is it has to be fun. Balance is secondary to fun, and mind you, I play a warrior… I know all about poor balance.

It is assumed that this is an e-sports.
I enjoy if I can be competitive. How you can have fun on a map where luck plays for you?

It’s no e-sport. Never has been and never will be.

This map doesn’t encourage new builds, it pigeon holes people into certain CC/Stab builds and if their classes lack those – they’re screwed.

Place pickables on the map that give 20+ seconds of Stab.

Retribution.3058:

Here’s my 2 cents as a 99% pvper nowadays…

This map is crap. The laser idea is great, I love it, but the fact that you can die from a simple crowd control is absolute garbage. I’ll be 1v1ing or 2v1ing people, almost get them downed, ‘or downed for that matter,’ and all of the sudden BAM knockback or feared into a hole or off the edge. HOW IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE PVP!? Necros with that 5 second fear?… instant death if my clear conditions are on cool-down. Now I know that everybody’s gonna say, “well that’s how this map works, deal with it.” but it’s not like pvp at all! It’s like a mini-game at best! I like to pvp every day… With this new map I’m not going to be able to pvp for 2 full days with this map in the rotation because I hate it that much. My build means nothing when a rank 1 can spam knockbacks on me. Okay, it’s a fun/interesting map, BUT REMOVE THE THING FROM TOURNY ROTATIONS. It doesn’t effect how good any player is or how good their build is. Sure, put it in the free-play availability, but this is JUNK in tournaments. It’s not true pvp.

GG

YuiRS.8129:

Santuzz.9063:

Jonwar.9205:

Competitive? The first rule of a game being successful is it has to be fun. Balance is secondary to fun, and mind you, I play a warrior… I know all about poor balance.

It is assumed that this is an e-sports.
I enjoy if I can be competitive. How you can have fun on a map where luck plays for you?

It’s no e-sport. Never has been and never will be.

This map doesn’t encourage new builds, it pigeon holes people into certain CC/Stab builds and if their classes lack those – they’re screwed.

Place pickables on the map that give 20+ seconds of Stab.

I bought Guild Wars 2 is not another game I want and expect to become more ’soon an e-sport. Gw always has been now if the intentions are different, they have to say and do not use more than the name of the game Guild Wars, because if these are the intentions are just muddying the show and they have no respect for what has been guild wars in the world online games.

I bought a game called guild wars 2 because it must be so different from guild wars? because you do not want a competitive game? because it is such a problem if the team wins the most ’deserving and talented? because you want to fill mode PvP players who do not like the pvp?

is not good, we need a balanced game where you can fight with other people and that it can ensure that wins the most ’good, strong, organized and worthwhile!

please give us back guild wars

sorry for my english

Wonderful map.

1. Shifts build from DPS / condition overload to CC / positioning (fresh change). Takes time to adapt, unless you played CC heavy class.
2. The map IS competitive. There is no RNG involved, you have to outplay and out-position enemies. Requires much more skills IMHO than typical DPS/condition overload, as you also need to be aware of positioning AND potential CC abilities of your foe.

my feedback:

- i think the sidenodes (A and C) are a little too small (the capture ring)
- the clock-like capture progress on ground of the capture points is absolutely amazing and should be transported to the other maps immediately
- the damage area of skyhammer is a bit too big (position play should still be rewardable)
- the amount of damage of skyhammer should slightly be adjusted (decreased) – i think it shouldnt be possible to one-shot people
- the advantage of controlling skyhammer is a bit too high imo. not because of above listed, its because in addition to control you get a tremendous advantage in map overview and are able to exactly tell who is going where

so long…

PS: stop complaining about tournament rotation. remember: we do not have a tournament (its a “ranked match”) and as far as it is a single match there is no rotation.
and i dont think there is much luck. you know about the mechanics, the possible knockbacks and your ways to counter it. i think its just a different way of skilled gameplay – and a hell lot of fun – to watch and to play it!!

In my personal opinion this is the worst map to be designed in this game so far. It promotes too much CC and antigame, instead of game.

Sure, it is fun to throw characters down and see them die, but it is not fair for a player that tries to think and enjoy the profession he/she created. It feels like a constant hunt for disabling control, throw people down, and then laugh at them. It is simply not fair.

So, in my opinion it is fun, but it clearly does not worth to be included inside tournaments. For one, I joined this game to play a game, not an antigame.