Guild Wars 2

From my experience during the unranked season after the Skyhammer and Spirit watch change, those maps are still the least favorite picks, especially Spirit Watch. While I think the changes for both maps were positive (though Skyhammer seems to be more controversial for some), they apparently did not make them enjoyable enough for many.

On top of that, there were discussions about e-sport and the question of making games more interesting to watch. Overall, I feel that one of the problem of gw2 compared to some more popular e-sports is that the conquest gameplay is very linear. There is essentially permanent fight on 3 points during the whole time. Only in close games do we get a peak of interest towards the end, especially on beasts/lord in forest/foefire or the commune in Temple.

So I thought: what about making Spirit Watch less linear? The idea is that currently, the secondary mechanics (the orb) can be outright ignored, because abandoning a point (especially in a sustain meta) can be more detrimental than the orb points you will get from it. So instead, I suggest:

• First, pure conquest until the orb appears (as it is right now)
• Then, when the orb appears, the points are frozen (cannot be capped/decapped except with the orb), no point tick. The game becomes a pure “capture the flag” type game.
• When the orb is capped (or after a given timer if not successful orb cap has been made) the conquest game restarts.
• Repeat the orb after 2 min (like it is currently if I remember well).

I don’t know for sure if this change is better than the current version. On the plus sides:

• The secondary mechanics will not be ignored anymore (as it can easily be in the AG I have watched so far)
• game play is less linear. It brings everyone towards the orb, and thus creates a short burst of interest. A few times where I saw a contested orb in AG, it was really fun. I really feel that it could make watching this map very interesting.

On the minus side:

• A little more complex to understand at first. People may be disoriented if the points stop reacting during the orb time. This could be reduced if the points look different during this time (to show they are not active while still keeping their color)
• the way I suggest it, we lose the other strategical element of the orb which is to uncap the point before the enemy team brings the orb there, to reduce their point income. There may be a better suggestion similar to mine but without this problem.

So this is just a suggestion and I just wanted to know your opinion about it.

not that complex to understand

hold points, the second the orb appears you zerg it regardless of where the enemy team is or what they’re doing, cap orb, resume holding points

Ok, but do you think it is a good suggestion then?