Guild Wars 2

jessiestiles.9437:

I figured updrafts was your plan for getting back up after you fall.

They could, depends on direction. I’m more in favor of disallowing the falling/death in general. I think the map could be interesting just to be bigger and have gliding as part of the mechanics of the map, not necessarily directly as a recovery. Especially if you consider using the Sky hammer as a leap platform for mobility.

Could be handled fairly easily, just by making the “floor” of the map instant death like in HoT zones, with the intention of staying on the map when you fly from the sky hammer, and make the map larger in general with a few other areas to use the glider.

It probably wouldn’t be necessary/useful unless the map was larger though. And in this case, the only people dying from flying off the map would be people who did so on purpose themselves.

Mightybird.6034:

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Nah, I just came from the generation who actually grew up playing platforming games.

and you also play one of the best classes suited to the map.

Everyone has CC but not everyone has KB or pulls. It’s pretty clear how biased a DH would be. Creative? Facepalm.

I actually main Reaper this season.
For almost three years I mained Ranger before it was a thing.
I only briefly mained DH during season 1, simply because it was the new DPS Ranger.

~ I’ve just been too lazy to change my signature. Thanks for the poke though.

Kyhlo’s treb:

Do we consider it a swing mechanic?
-Treb is like a thief, good +1 when you are winning. can aid in a decap. but you cannot go to the treb and just auto win.
What do we think of it being up all the time?
-Treb being able to be killed and reset is what balances it out. the cannon you can just walk away from and come back. the treb I have to invest resources to restore it for example

Does it need to be reworked to make it fit “periodic secondary mechanics”, and if yes how would you change it?
-I think cannon damage is the biggest offender. Not usre how to answer this question though.

Is the treb fine as is, and why?

-Treb is fine because again, the treb will not just will the mode for you. It also requires certain attack strategies to be most effective. And the enemy dodging the treb makes it 4v5 effectively.

Future secondary objectives need to be like the creatures on forest or the treb. They help you in specific instances. Creatures can keep you in a match or decide a close match.
Treb can help debunk points and supply extra assault to a location.

Mechanics like the lord are end all mechanics and not so favored. These swing mechanics are too strong for pvp. Hammer ends more fights than treb in my opinion. But part of that is due to the floor panels.

I’m probably going to be the odd-ball out here, but I actually don’t like the Treb, but I see the appeal for it. It’s effective, but I don’t think it’s an overly fun mechanic. I avoid Khylo as much as i can.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Questions:

• Kyhlo’s treb:
  • Do we consider it a swing mechanic?
  • What do we think of it being up all the time?
  • Does it need to be reworked to make it fit “periodic secondary mechanics”, and if yes how would you change it?
  • Is the treb fine as is, and why?
• Would we want to have secondary mechanics that are up all the time in future maps?

Kyhlo’s treb is less than a swing mechanic, it is a rotational mechanic and I think I know why you inquired about it suddenly. I think it is imbalanced for being clunky, slow, and it creates a 1v1 break in the general flow of the map. Add another ramp to the ‘left’ of it, create two ways and you will see more play with it.

It is fine being up all the time, until destroyed.

What I would do instead of having a repair kit is put the treb on an auto-repair cycle when destroyed. Keep it dead for a period of I would say 3-5 minutes, then it comes back to life with full health. With the 2nd ramp, enemies and allies of the treb can freely reach the treb and rotate smoother to the actual objectives on the map.

With your final question, it depends on the theme and flow of the map. There is a good flow to all the current Ranked Maps that makes them viable for Conquest. You want to promote the primary objectives always over secondary. If the secondary mechanic is a game-changer you have to make it costly, Foefire does this well with the Lord being so invested in enemy base for instance.

So, if a secondary objective were something that was up all the time, I would say make it part of the overall rotational meta you want players to work with, Temple does this well with Stillness for instance although that is a periodic objective but I hope you understand what I mean by that.

If a secondary objective were periodic, at very certain intervals, it needs to be off the beaten path, and depending on its frequency and effect it could be a fair Swing mechanic. I can see Skyhammer being made into this quite well.

I like the treb, it actually has strategic value. Did the other team leave someone on their treb? Do you want to try and bomb people and leave your team down a man? It has pros and cons, and can be thrashed by the other team if its too effective. The skyhammer is just brutal and almost instant kos people and theres nothing you can do about it if there is a class with alot of knockbacks manning the doorway.

I still think the best solution would be to make it automatic, random and reduced damage. And hurt both teams. It should be a hazard, but not the entire focus of the map.

ronpierce.2760:

I’m probably going to be the odd-ball out here, but I actually don’t like the Treb, but I see the appeal for it. It’s effective, but I don’t think it’s an overly fun mechanic. I avoid Khylo as much as i can.

My favourite map is temple due to being that mechainic the one that imo rewards more rotations, PvP and conquest in overall

It is great that you came up with the treb. I can remember matches where the treb was called “not PvP-like” and I got called away from it. The dominant strategy which I experienced is that the treb gets killed straight at the beginning. Repairing it makes in most of the cases no sense. However, the threat of repairing sometimes leads to players trying to chase the repairer. So it brings some interesting new strategies in the game. My perception is that Kyhlo has only few friends. The treb may be a reason for it.

A tiny side-remark: Sometimes the community does not know what it actually wants. Even though we may come up with certain suggestions, they may not work in practice. Please keep it in mind!

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Questions:

• Kyhlo’s treb:
  • Do we consider it a swing mechanic?
  • What do we think of it being up all the time?
  • Does it need to be reworked to make it fit “periodic secondary mechanics”, and if yes how would you change it?
  • Is the treb fine as is, and why?
• Would we want to have secondary mechanics that are up all the time in future maps?

Kyhlo is probably my favourite map, and the trebuchet is a great tool for it. When played well, you get your mid cap using treb, then join your team in the fight occasionally returning to blast a few more treb rounds off onto a contested mid point if an enemy player hasn’t already gone to destroy it, leaving their team 4v5 while they do this on an empty treb. When not played well is when it gets camped by one person who can’t defend it, rotate it, aim it etc.
Baiting your enemy to come destroy it to out number them in field is your best play, if they can’t avoid the damage/knockback. In my last dozen or so Khylo games, it was rare that one goes for the treb to start with, staying as 4 strong on mid or 2home 3far as surprise, works better than using the treb to secure a mid cap. In some of them, both trebs were completely untouched. I don’t know how these matches look in lower divisions/with newer people, but I’m sure someone else will give their thoughts.

With the fact that the treb can be dodged and destroyed, makes it a secondary mechanic which can be overcome, but the damage may have to be balanced as you would balance professions, in a glass meta, the treb is devastating, in a hybrid (high sustain, mid-high damage) meta like we are now, it could be considered weak, the only effectiveness being the knockback/interrupt.

I suppose we could alter how the treb works, ie, instead of player controlled, it’s AI, aiming for one random enemy node, once a supply drop (treb repair atm) is returned to an ammunition holding, essentially charging the treb, ready to fire.

Or keeping it a player controlled tool, we changed what the projectile does. Implementing different rounds, for example Flash rounds which blinds enemies, but on a longer cooldown. If this was implemented, removing the trebuchet standard knockback to just a damaging shrapnel would have to happen to keep it a secondary mechanic.

Or we could completely remove the treb and have a pure conquest map with no secondary mechanic at all. Which would be fine too.

Tl;dr: Treb is good if your team is good, treb is bad if your team is bad. I guess removing the treb is better for solo queuers, adjusting it is better for team queuers. So doing anything to it at this point may upset some people either way.

Kyhlo is fine Hugh.

We need fresh maps with fresh ideas. Built for competitive conquest.

Swing factors are certainly a good thing to focus on. That point were the shoutcasters and viewers all know its gg. That needs to be as short as possible.

Another way of minimising snowball mechanics is to reduce the distance from spawn to home point.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Hey everyone,

Time for another recap and a few questions!

• Most of you like periodic secondary mechanics that remain “secondary” and don’t try to overtake the conquest part of the maps.
• We also would like the secondary to be more of a swing mechanic rather than a snowball mechanic
• Tons of awesome ideas for reworking the Skyhammer to be more of a periodic mechanic and some general ways to improve it.

So because of how the community answered I would like to ask some questions about the treb in Kyhlo. It has been in ranked/competitive rotation since the game has been out, but the treb goes against the answers I got for secondary mechanics on a conquest map.

Questions:

• Kyhlo’s treb:
  • Do we consider it a swing mechanic?
  • What do we think of it being up all the time?
  • Does it need to be reworked to make it fit “periodic secondary mechanics”, and if yes how would you change it?
  • Is the treb fine as is, and why?
• Would we want to have secondary mechanics that are up all the time in future maps?

I like Temple design because the secondary mechanic create other fight point really important and a chance to come back. This means the game is not over, basically never, only if there is a really huge gap point but team has always a chance to win.

So i like this design about secondary “not fixed” mechanic

- chance to come back
- fight and skill based
- more times during the game

Treb on Khylo is a good secondary “fixed” mechanic for these reasons:

- it requires skill on offense and defense side. This means you need to aim well and control your shot and enemies can dodge the treb.
.Treb can be destroyed and repaired.

Seconday fixed mechanic are good if they don’t have a huge impact on the game and needs to be skill based.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Kyhlo’s treb

The trebs in Kyhlo are balanced because each team has equal access to using and destroying the trebs. They aren’t swing or snowball mechanics because of this balance. True, a well used treb can turn the tide of a match and in that sense “swing” the outcome; but, as both teams have an equal opportunity to use trebs balance is always maintained. This balance is assured by the repair bundles on the map. This is in stark contrast to the imbalance of the Skyhammer, which gives unequalled power to any team that controls it, especially if that team defends the oubliette of control well.

Fair competition relies on balance.

If the trebuchets in Kylo were indestructible they would become less balanced and their power would become more essential to winning matches. This seems counter intuitive; but, destructibility gives teams that prefer to not use the treb a fair chance against foes who use the treb exceptionally well. Given the herd mentality of many players, an indestructible treb would become a required chore that a player of every team would have to take up (like running supply in Stronghold). Players bickering over who’s on the treb is silly enough as it is (though casual enough to still be fun).

Kylo works very well, whether you use the trebs or not. On the whole, the map is very well designed. What makes Kylo work is that none of the mechanics involved serve to give a single team or individual an unequalled advantage at any point in the game. Positioning, use of the trebs, combat style all remain options for players to exercise rather than requirements for victory. We need more balanced maps like this in PvP whether they have secondary mechanics or not.

Having secondary mechanics on any map should remain a secondary or tertiary aspect of designing fun arenas for conquest play. This is especially true to foster new players. For every new mechanic you introduce in a single map serving you risk confusing a new player whose assumption is that the next map will play like the first one they played. If every map in the game requires players to learn new mechanics, a lot players will leave out of frustration before they learn every map properly. KISS.

Although many players complained about the water in Capricorn, the real problem with the map (which I enjoyed playing on) was that the 2 outer capture points had such differing lines of sight and access routes that they were out of balance. The canons on that map only helped to imbalance play. Skyhammer falls into this sort of imbalance because of it’s secondary mechanics, not because of asymmetry of the layout. Kylo, avoids all of these problems by making sure that the map is symmetrical, as are all the capabilities of players on the map (trebs).

Again, what I’d love to see most isn’t more secondary mechanics added to the game; but, rather, just a healthy roster of maps that use the current mechanics and assets, with some nice veneers. Diversity in the scale and aesthetics of maps is all I really need. For example, since Kylo works, give us another map with 2 trebs that has the fight path in an “S” shape rather than the Kylo diagonal line, maybe with a jungle aesthetic to celebrate HoT. Riffs like that would be refreshing. Of course, having the ability to queue up specifically for the mechanics we like to play would be ideal (requires 3+ maps for each mechanic I’d think).

Team Fortress 2 has a very healthy roster of maps for each of it’s game types. Your PvP designers should be trying to hit that bar (set in “forever ago”). If they can’t, do what Valve/id/Epic Games did (forever ago) and get your coders working on a modding engine so that the community can create their own PvP maps.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Questions:

• Kyhlo’s treb:
  • Do we consider it a swing mechanic?
  • What do we think of it being up all the time?
  • Does it need to be reworked to make it fit “periodic secondary mechanics”, and if yes how would you change it?
  • Is the treb fine as is, and why?
• Would we want to have secondary mechanics that are up all the time in future maps?

Almost fine as-is. OP elite specs are making it less effective than it should be. Minor gripe that mesmer portal with repair kit makes fighting against one using the treb a bit frustrating.

If you are on the treb and it dies you are quite a way away from any points that you could contribute to. If your treb is killed, your effectiveness is killed for a short while, and the treb has no means of being healed and no real defenses. If someone comes and harasses it, no matter how bunkery you are, eventually you will have to leave.

Contrasted with the Skyhammer, there is no way that somebody can FORCE you from the Skyhammer without killing you. If you are pure bunker you can theoretically stay up there for an entire game.

I would be curious to see changes along the lines of putting an ammo limit on the Skyhammer, similar to Capricorn’s cannon. You take a battery from the end of one of the two gulleys, you take it to the Skyhammer, you get 5 shots. If you want to shoot more, you have to go and get another battery. This forces players out of the skyhammer room and out of their cosy trap nest.

Alternatively, possibly have some kind of ‘power conduit’ that people on the ground can destroy to power down the cannon, which then must be repaired to re-enable the cannon. The power conduit could be in a position that’s nowhere near the cannon, which makes it meaningfully different from the trebuchet.

There is also that people could jump down from the middle point and have almost instant access to the cannon and then be able to very easily +1 the two side points, but considering the map layout I am not sure how big of an issue this is.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Hey everyone,

Time for another recap and a few questions!

• Most of you like periodic secondary mechanics that remain “secondary” and don’t try to overtake the conquest part of the maps.
• We also would like the secondary to be more of a swing mechanic rather than a snowball mechanic
• Tons of awesome ideas for reworking the Skyhammer to be more of a periodic mechanic and some general ways to improve it.

So because of how the community answered I would like to ask some questions about the treb in Kyhlo. It has been in ranked/competitive rotation since the game has been out, but the treb goes against the answers I got for secondary mechanics on a conquest map.

Questions:

• Kyhlo’s treb:
  • Do we consider it a swing mechanic?
  • What do we think of it being up all the time?
  • Does it need to be reworked to make it fit “periodic secondary mechanics”, and if yes how would you change it?
  • Is the treb fine as is, and why?
• Would we want to have secondary mechanics that are up all the time in future maps?

For Skyhammer, would it be possible for the Laser to require ammo feeders? This might be a good balancing element. Give it 3 shots each time it is captured, but then it can’t be fired again without outside ammo. Ammo would spawn someplace on the map and need to be run back to the cannon by a friendly player to add an additional shot. This would allow a team to dominate the Hammer the entire match, but they could only maintain continuous fire by devoting two players to the task, which means only three players could be holding objectives. Wouldn’t that balance ti out better? Or too much?

I can’t say I love the Trebs, but I think they are reasonably balanced in their current form. If I were to suggest anything, it would be to spawn “bombs” that players could run to opposing trebs to deal massive damage to them, making them easier to take out if you put in that effort.

remove the jump pads and any access to the ledges. The jump pads seriously mess with high movement builds. Nothing is more irritating than evading and moving around under heavy fire only to suddenly get thrown upwards then die in mid air because you are unable to use skills .

The ledges give ranged builds an advantage over melee builds. Not a good thing or remotely fun when you get to a point only to look up and have someone shooting projectiles at you and you are not able to teleport or pull. Pulls dont work properly 80% of the time and there are still no buffs on people that can negate CC without stability.

While you are at it, please fix air immobilize.

My prefered maps are forrest, spirit watch and temple because they don’t have such game changing mechanics. If you don’t run the orb or beat the other team to tranquility or fight creatures you can still win by out rotating the other team. Treb, lord and skyhammer do make a big difference.

Most people don’t know how to use the treb. I don’t. You can’t see the side points from the treb and theres no range gauge just a power bar. You get the odd person who really knows what they are doing and it is an assured win. Although if the other team has good support then the treb damage is barely noticable.

jessiestiles.9437:

Most people don’t know how to use the treb. I don’t. You can’t see the side points from the treb and theres no range gauge just a power bar. You get the odd person who really knows what they are doing and it is an assured win. Although if the other team has good support then the treb damage is barely noticable.

Unrelated, but how I do it

If you want to hit mid, count to 5 beats and fire
If you want to hit home, count to 8 beats
If you want to hit far, count to 13-14

jessiestiles.9437:

Most people don’t know how to use the treb.

Of course, fixing the trebs and other siege practice elements in the PvP lobby would go a long way toward helping players get a better feel for using siege in the actual PvP matches. Maybe we’ll get lucky and this obvious fail on Anet’s part will be fixed sometime this year.

I kind of like skyhammer, but i think the problem with the map is that its two maps rolled into one.
The overall design with jumps, glkittens and various dangers is one secondary thing to watch out for. It gives an edge to those with pulls and pushes. Gives a slight game changing mechanic right there.
I’m guessing the cannon was added to kind of counter this change?
Imo, you should split these things into two maps.
One that wholy embraces the pitfalls and jump pads part. Where we have multiple vertical levels of fighting. Los pillars for melee to use cover etc
And another map that is fully based on the skyhammer. The object is to hold it. Four players defend it, five tries to take it.
Swtor has a map design where holding 2 out of 3 points allows you to fire at the enemies ship, the ship that gets destroyed first, loses. Skyhammer could be a similar thing. One player holds it, four defend it. The player with the hammer has to choose, support his team or blast the enemies objective in order to gain objective points.
Gives us a sort of king of the hill game mode where the hill holders are limited to one less player.

I think the treb is a good comparison. Since its a good added mechanic in a point capture mode, but i believe the skyhammer should use its own game mode.

I liked the idea of feeding ammo. You could spawn an ammo container randomly on a map. Your team needs to hold the cannon and escort the ammo holder to the cannon in order to get 3 shots on target. While one player is locked down firing 3 rounds, the next ammo container spawns. Giving the losing team a slight player edge in order to grab it.

I can probably spin a lot of ways to give the cannon a more central role. Imo, thats where the focus should be. Introduce something different with the skyhammer and keep the current map as it is, just without the cannon.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Hey everyone,

Time for another recap and a few questions!

• Most of you like periodic secondary mechanics that remain “secondary” and don’t try to overtake the conquest part of the maps.
• We also would like the secondary to be more of a swing mechanic rather than a snowball mechanic
• Tons of awesome ideas for reworking the Skyhammer to be more of a periodic mechanic and some general ways to improve it.

So because of how the community answered I would like to ask some questions about the treb in Kyhlo. It has been in ranked/competitive rotation since the game has been out, but the treb goes against the answers I got for secondary mechanics on a conquest map.

Questions:

• Kyhlo’s treb:
  • Do we consider it a swing mechanic?
  • What do we think of it being up all the time?
  • Does it need to be reworked to make it fit “periodic secondary mechanics”, and if yes how would you change it?
  • Is the treb fine as is, and why?
• Would we want to have secondary mechanics that are up all the time in future maps?

Treb in Kylo is really only good for blowing up the building so camera angles are decent enough to play.

My suggestion, keep trebs as they are, but remove the repair kits. Trebs are a secondary objective you can either play them or ignore them, but once that objective is gone the repair kits mess up the flow of the game.

The treb in kyhlo is in my opinon more balanced than skyhammer, but i would consider it a snowball mechanic rather than a swing mechanic.

Still Kyhlo is in a better place with a swing mechanic than skyhammer. Here are some reasons why:

Both teams have access to their own trebuchet.

The trebuchet platfom is simliar small, but if necessary you can jump down and come back without falling to death. Also you cant be pulled/pushed to death.

You can destroy the treb, if you cant/doesnt want to constantly kill the player who is shooting. So you can take the treb out of the game if desired.

If the team with a destoyed treb would like to use it again they need to invest a players time in a repair kit. A player who is wearing a repair kit cant defend itself.

To use the trebuchet you need more skill, you need to aim. Skyhammer is just press a button and boom.

Trebuchet shots can easier be dodged because you have a more visible effect. A huge glowing stone. Also it seems trebuchet has a smaller impact radius while the capture points close/far have more space to navigate around the impact side if you cant dodge anymore. At close/far on skyhammer you cant walk out of skyhammers effectradius without interrupting your line of sight for ranged attacks. Also there is not much space to walk out of effect radius at midpoint. Skyhammer also makes it pretty hard to disengage from close/far point to recover or to rotate elsewhere because it destroys the platforms. Treb doesnt affect your ability to disengage/engage after a impact.

Treb can like skyhammer change the map. Treb destroys houses that can be used to jump into mi, skyhammer destroys platforms. One is permanent one temporarily. While i like a temporary change more in kyhlo you can still enter/leave midfight without the houses pretty good, but you can hardly enter close/far at skyhammer with destroyed platforms.

I dont mind secondary mechanics that are up all the time. I would consider foefires lord the only one that is up all the time and while i dislike him because its huge impact he is somehow blanced. Khylos treb is only semi-permanent because you can destroy it. So permanent mechanics are okay if they are done well.

A little bit of topic: If its not too much work, would it be possible to bring back capricon to unranked? Unranked can be imbalanced, the map is new to most player, it should lay somewhere on your database anyway (so needs almost no time to implement) and it brings some new aspects to the game.

To the topic: I would suggest, you try next off-season a kyhlo without the repair function (easy to implement) or some other suggested changes to kyhlo. However, keep in mind that the map “works”. Another nice thing would be (for test reasons) a map without any secondary mechanic (like foefire without the lord). You can track the perceived quality of the changes by the number the maps get clicked at easily.

I don’t understand why the inquiries about these small maps.

What PvP need is a system much more similar to Guild Wars 1, with bigger 8v8 or 10v10 GvG maps with objective that rewards skillbased fighting instead of camping up on a point with a bunker build.

I would have expected a bigger more opened version of Courtyard for people that just want to enjoy good fights and bigger Stronghold maps that support 8 to 10 players with the HoT release.

The Guild Arenas are too small for GvGs and the interface is lacking very basic things like a scoreboard, therefore I think you should bring GvG to PvP since the ranking system and matchmaking already exist there.

Dyze.1580:

One [map] that wholy embraces the pitfalls and jump pads part. Where we have multiple vertical levels of fighting..

This is a brilliant idea actually. There was a map in Unreal (back in the stone age) that was made up of small areas at various elevations with a ton of jump pads and deadfalls, Skyline I think it was called. That map was a lot of fun to play as a deathmatch arena. Like many Unreal maps it had something like a Skyhammer mechanic except their canon could only be used if a player stumbled upon the randomly placed pickup that spawned at timed intervals. For balance, the canon could only be shot once by the player who found the pickup, then the timer would reset and the spawn for the pickup would be randomized again. Players could survive the canon blast by picking up armor pieces strewn across the map. To mitigate the abundance of deadfalls, low gravity was used to slow down airborne players as they jumped from platform to platform. All of this culminated in engaging deathmatch play that is impossible in Skyhammer because of the capture points nature of conquest and the small size of the map. Actually, come to think of it, several Unreal maps used these mechanics successfully; but, none of them were territory game. They were all deathmatch arenas. Understanding how these mechanics work against territory play is what made Unreal designers great at building PvP experiences.

jessiestiles.9437:

I figured updrafts was your plan for getting back up after you fall.

Have an elevator at the bottom and some updrafts. Take out the door to skyhammer and make it only accessible by glider/updrafts.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Hey everyone,

Time for another recap and a few questions!

• Most of you like periodic secondary mechanics that remain “secondary” and don’t try to overtake the conquest part of the maps.
• We also would like the secondary to be more of a swing mechanic rather than a snowball mechanic
• Tons of awesome ideas for reworking the Skyhammer to be more of a periodic mechanic and some general ways to improve it.

So because of how the community answered I would like to ask some questions about the treb in Kyhlo. It has been in ranked/competitive rotation since the game has been out, but the treb goes against the answers I got for secondary mechanics on a conquest map.

Questions:

• Kyhlo’s treb:
  • Do we consider it a swing mechanic?
  • What do we think of it being up all the time?
  • Does it need to be reworked to make it fit “periodic secondary mechanics”, and if yes how would you change it?
  • Is the treb fine as is, and why?
• Would we want to have secondary mechanics that are up all the time in future maps?

I think most people will agree Khylo is fine as it is. Treb has a strategic value, meaning that a bad use of it can be detrimental for your team.
The thing with secondary objectives is that they cannot be the ones calling the shots in the game. Team fights and rotations should. The map’s mechanics should exists to give flavor to the match and aid a possible come back.

I personally don’t like the treb in Kyhlo and it is the main reason I don’t like the map. It is no fun to use (I don’t play PvP to spam 2) and is not fun when used (for or against you) while fighting. Also because of the camera difficulties in mid and the fact that the shot is not always warned, it can take you by surprise and really mess with the fight. The only saving grace is the fact that you can destroy it.

I like svanir/chieftain or meditation secondary mechanics. I like lord, but I think it should not be soloable, it should require some team commitment. Essentially, I like if the mechanics can introduce a team dynamics at a specific moment in the game: a lord push is a great example of that, the treb/hammer is absolutely not.

the only thing i think is not fine about kyhlo is that shadowsteps and teleports are about as strong as knockbacks are on skyhammer.

less treb uptime would be a good thing too, but its mechanic isnt particularly out of control because of its destructible nature. it would be good to allow it to be affected by condition damage, cuz its totally pointless to try to kill it on a condi build.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Hey everyone,

Time for another recap and a few questions!

• Most of you like periodic secondary mechanics that remain “secondary” and don’t try to overtake the conquest part of the maps.
• We also would like the secondary to be more of a swing mechanic rather than a snowball mechanic
• Tons of awesome ideas for reworking the Skyhammer to be more of a periodic mechanic and some general ways to improve it.

So because of how the community answered I would like to ask some questions about the treb in Kyhlo. It has been in ranked/competitive rotation since the game has been out, but the treb goes against the answers I got for secondary mechanics on a conquest map.

Questions:

• Kyhlo’s treb:
  • Do we consider it a swing mechanic?
  • What do we think of it being up all the time?
  • Does it need to be reworked to make it fit “periodic secondary mechanics”, and if yes how would you change it?
  • Is the treb fine as is, and why?
• Would we want to have secondary mechanics that are up all the time in future maps?

I don’t think Khylo needs to be touched. The trebs are good and easily countered by being destroyed.

If I did get totally nitpicky, then maybe I’d consider trebs that respawn periodically (maybe once on a normal match or twice on a really long one) similar to Stronghold most people don’t find it worthwhile to repair a treb that’s gone down.

However, Khylo is a really solid map that doesn’t need to be changed.

The ledges are a playground for CC and fear abuse

Silverkey.2078:

Spirit watch is a nice conquest map on its own (I mean outside of the orb). The orb should maybe give you a new set of skills to make it balanced (you can’t use your own dash/block/whatever) and maybe appear only at set time so that people still focus on the conquest part of the game. But it could be fairly frequent (more frequent than the buffs in Temple).

That’s too complicated, IMO.

It should just be “the orb spawns at 14:00 and every 2 minutes after”.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

I love Skyhammer, it is perfectly fine as it is.
I actually wish it was in ranked matches.

What we have here is an issue similar to people complaining about turret engineers. Those who complained about engi back then simply did not understand how to play around the AI of the turrets and if they did, they would have realized that the turret engineer was indeed a worse build and a liability to bring over a standard cele/rifle engi. Skyhammer complaints are very similar where the players who complain are simply players who are poor at paying attention to environmental effects or players who simply do not want to pay attention to the environmental effects. Thus they complain about a bad map each and every time they die to a glass panel breaking, ect.. ect..

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On another note, probably more useful to arena-net than the above, here is my break down of the pros and cons of Skyhammer. While reading this, consider that we deactivated the Skyhammer and the breaking glass effects so that this break down is majorly based on the map itself and not the effects.

Pros:

• The map is small which means lots of combat engagement. This is probably what makes me love Skyhammer the most.
• Points A, B and C are placed correctly and promote good combat rotation play. They are also all small nodes, which makes for harder hitting skirmishes that end more quickly as compared to say mid in Legacy.
• Plenty of LoS in Skyhammer. In my opinion, this is what allows for higher skill play in Skyhammer actually. The LoS always allows a saving grace for a disengage or a way to turn a bad fight in to a good fight. This LoS is what allows the hard hitting small node skirmishing to maintain a balance. Such as the vertical elevation around the mid point.
• Plenty of optional strategic vertical positioning. No other map is quite like Skyhammer in this aspect. Other maps are sort of “head to home/mid/far, fight on home/mid/far” but Skyhammer offers more diverse positioning.

Cons: “from the perspective of what is making people not like this map”
Unfortunately, the very same things that make the map good are the things that make people not like this map. I shall explain:

• Map is small. Which means ease of cutting off enemy rotations and lots of combat engagement. This also means that winning combat trumps rotation theory that much more in Skyhammer, than any other map. This ultimately means that it is easier to dominate the Skyhammer map and hold three points than in any other map, due to how small it is. This makes a lot of losing players feel that much worse about their loss. Is it really a true problem with the map? Nah but it attributes to why people get mad in Skyhammer.
• Points A, B and C being all small nodes makes players in a losing fight feel like they got hit by a truck. Where in Legacy, it may take them 2 minutes to wipe and lose at mid, it will take them 20 seconds to wipe at mid in Skyhammer. Again, is this really a problem? Nah, it just makes people feel like they are getting rolled more so than in any other map.
• LoS in Skyhammer… allows strong players to just kite and survive all over the place, which rages players that do not understand how to utilize terrain and obstacles in the same way. Not really a real problem, just annoying and attributes to Skyhammer complaints.
• Vertical positioning/attacking/disengaging. I do have to say that some builds are better at this than others but the main problem still remains that strong players are able to be creative and do this, then some other players are not. The players who don’t take advantage of the map itself are the payers who get mad and complain about those who do.

Ultimately, the map itself “not considering environmental effects” is truly a L2P issue. It is an advanced map that offers advanced positioning and expedited combats on point. Because it is the only map of it’s type, players identify it as “a map that doesn’t fit in” and blame losing combats on the flaws of this map, when in reality these are players who aren’t creative enough to take advantage of what Skyhammer combat has to offer. That’s my opinion anyway.

On to environmental effects:

• Breaking glass panels ~ This is the #1 rage maker, right here. Nothing kittenes a player off more than dying at full health due to falling through a glass panel. What are the main causes of this? #1 is CC play. #2 Skyhammer strikes. #3 Plain not paying attention. A lot people who complain about #1 CC play will say that some classes have many more CCs than others and are able to exploit in Skyhammer. First of all, every class has CCs. Second of all, if a player wants to freshly burn all his CCs in focus of knocking you down a panel or off a ledge, he is making himself susceptible to losing in a normal combat so position yourself AWAY from the ledge or panel and win the combat against the guy burning all of his CCs. Others complain about Skyhammer itself breaking glass panels and yes, this can set up a very nasty combo for the people on point to CC others down pits or off ledges directly after but is this broken? No it is not. Is it annoying? Many players would say yes. To those who have the #3 problem, you guys need to start paying attention.
• The Skyhammer itself ~ Now the Skyhammer is special in a few ways that separate it from side objectives in other maps. Firstly it is actually a part of the map. It cannot be destroyed like a Trebuchet and it is always there. Secondly there is only one Skyhammer, not two. Thirdly it is too powerful to ignore and thus it becomes a mandatory objective. Whether you want to use the Skyhammer or stop enemies from using it, you need to pay constant attention to the Skyhammer. Due to the 3 above points made, the Skyhammer often turns in to sort of a “2nd mid point” if you would. It is like a cap point that needs to be defended. This is probably the biggest aspect of the Skyhammer map that causes players to not like the dynamic. Even if these players do not realize it, this is what is causing them to dislike Skyhammer, this is what it is. The only other comparable map is Temple, when Stillness and Tranquility spawn, which also draws players in to an alternative mid pointish type skirmish. The difference here however, is that shrines have brief presence in the match, where as the Skyhammer is present the entire match. The point I am trying to make is that it would seem that players prefer to have only 1 mid point skirmish area present. Matches are more simple and easier to understand that way. The other big thing that annoys people about the Skyhammer is that it isn’t as easy for most people to dodge as a trebuchet and requires much less effort to land strikes than it would on the trebuchet.

All in all I feel that complaints about Skyhammer are a true L2P issue. I’d say we need more maps like Skyhammer to get people used to the idea of spiced up conquest dynamic but I can say that if ONE thing needed to be done, you guys need to figure out a way to keep more focus on the mid point skirmish and less focus on skyhammer skirmishing. I believe this could be easily achieved by making the use of the skyhammer a significantly larger investment of time:

• When a team attempts to configure the Skyhammer to their color, it should take as long as it does to cap a point. This leaves plenty of time for the other team to interrupt the configuration and would deter players from so casually fighting over the Skyhammer. It would also prove to be a detrimental error for the team who attempted the Skyhammer cap but losses it, similar to a failed Lord/Tranquility push. This would be balanced.
• If the enemy team has the Skyhammer configured, your team can first kill the configuration in a short amount of time by neutralizing it so to say, just like on a cap point. Then you can quickly go back to node capping or chose to stand and attempt a full configuration yourself to use the Skyhammer.

The above would create apprehension towards fighting over the Skyhammer, keeping the fight mostly mid “where player want it”. A failed Skyhammer approach would award the players who are not over-committing to the Skyhammer, just like vs. Tranquility or Lord but players who successfully configure the Skyhammer will have truly deserved it this way.

You could also simply make the Skyhammer go online only a few times a match, maybe for durations of 1:00 at a time, similar to shrines or make kits that spawn somewhere in the map that require a run to the Skyhammer which allows maybe 1:00 of access to the Skyhammer, similar to trebechut repairs.

Whatever it is you do, aim at a dynamic that keeps the fight mid and makes the Skyhammer an “optional” side objective with punishment for failing, not something that is important to fight over the entire match.

this post so much! (hid most of it with spoiler tags as it’s a long post to be quoting)

the only things i would add is the only real change i see that is needed to make skyhammer a more viable map is to create a build template system! if this was done then people could figure out an optimal build for skyhammer and switch to it easily when the map is picked, instead of trying to play witha build that is far inferior to ones that have been designed with the map in mind.

if the KB deaths & hammer are removed imo the map will be killed off and become an incredibly boring map to play& will be picked less than it already is…

Rename it to "Ground Hammer" and relocate it accordingly. Fixed.

Battle of Kyhlo is my favorite map. The trebuchet can get annoying sometimes, but it’s different from the cannon in Skyhammer in some fundamental ways. There’s no door to get to it, so the trebber is exposed still. The trebber needs special knowledge of how much to press the buttons to reach each capture point (and each point has a different distance and angle), while the Skyhammer has a brainless area ring to show you where it will hit. When you get hit by the treb, it knocks you back, but unlike in Skyhammer, there’s no chance of falling off the map.

The trebs on Kylo are OK (the sound for the trebshot warning could be louder though) because there are two of it

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

• Most of you like periodic secondary mechanics that remain “secondary” and don’t try to overtake the conquest part of the maps.

Careful with this. It’s true what you said, but that’s only due to how maps are designed. People wanted to embrace the hell out of something like Spirit Watch for CTF.. but it just ended up not being the reality of the map. Don’t interpret that to mean that were all about conquest all the time. A real CTF map with a functioning flag (disabling abilities and what not) would be the bees knees.

Regarding treb: it’s almost never worth giving up the man advantage to use. I’m sure you noticed that in pro league. Forest is a good mechanic because it’s a meaningful choice when you don’t have another play or are slightly behind. Foefire and Temple are good mechanics because they are interval’d game changers. Treb is neither.

I don’t know what I would change. It’s a treb. Maybe let shots decap nodes? Not instantly.. but maybe like 25% of a decap per shot (meaning 4 shots would decap an empty or contested node). That might put it in the ‘forest’ category mentioned above.

Exedore.6320:

Minor gripe that mesmer portal with repair kit makes fighting against one using the treb a bit frustrating.

This. I don’t like the treb, and I never vote for Kyhlo because of that dislike. People in the thread have raised some great points about how it is balanced. I agree with a lot of those points.

However, as someone who has mained condi necro since launch (even when it was trash, before we were the op monsters we are today), I have always hated it for the reason I have always hated “objects” (doors, turrets, even some world bosses before they were changed) in this game: CONDIS DONT AFFECT IT. Oh, and did I mention half my cooldowns do nothing to it either, since staff marks are only triggered by players?

As such, it takes me forever and a day to destroy the thing (if that proves necessary because the other team has a good trebber and my team isn’t paying enough attention to go do it). And, as Exedore pointed out, a mesmer with portal can get the thing back up almost instantly.

A power class like rev, on the other hand, can destroy the thing super quickly and get right back into the fight.

That, to me, creates imbalance in the treb. Stopping the person on the treb should be entirely a matter of 1v1 skill (I’m assuming no team is dumb enough to send more than one person to stop the trebber). It shouldn’t be that I kill the person on the treb quickly, and yet take so long to dps down the stupid treb that said person respawns and comes and kills me because I haven’t been out of combat from our first fight (still “fighting” the treb) to get all my health back.

The treb is close to balanced. Again, people in the thread have raised great points about that and about how it’s better than the skyhammer. But there are a few points of imbalance that make me consistently vote for other maps instead.

If you are looking for model secondary mechanics, I would say the beasts in Forest of Niflhel or the buffs in Temple of the Silent Storm are ideal (the removal of Ferocity was an excellent choice, btw – map feels much more streamlined now). Temple’s mechanics especially fill that “swing” role you were talking about. I’ve won games where I was down 300-200 (and lost ones where I was ahead 300-200) because of the tranq/stillness pop at 8:30. They require a decent amount of strategy, which is great – send enough people to get the buff, but don’t get three capped while doing it and spend so much time on the buff that the other team overtakes you in points. Forest’s beasts… well, they are model just for being inobtrusive. They’re there, but rarely affect a match (except I guess in lower divisions, when people don’t know how to deal with the properly and let their team get murdered while they spend 30 seconds fighting an NPC). Though I have seen once or twice a close game (480-470, say) won by a last second beast kill.

ZBeeblebrox.4928:

This. I don’t like the treb, and I never vote for Kyhlo because of that dislike. People in the thread have raised some great points about how it is balanced. I agree with a lot of those points.

However, as someone who has mained condi necro since launch (even when it was trash, before we were the op monsters we are today), I have always hated it for the reason I have always hated “objects” (doors, turrets, even some world bosses before they were changed) in this game: CONDIS DONT AFFECT IT. Oh, and did I mention half my cooldowns do nothing to it either, since staff marks are only triggered by players?

As such, it takes me forever and a day to destroy the thing (if that proves necessary because the other team has a good trebber and my team isn’t paying enough attention to go do it). And, as Exedore pointed out, a mesmer with portal can get the thing back up almost instantly.

A power class like rev, on the other hand, can destroy the thing super quickly and get right back into the fight.

That, to me, creates imbalance in the treb.

Is this necessarily bad, though? It creates an impetus in teams to carry both Power and Condi builds when that may not be a strong option in the meta. Of course, the current meta has room for both of those builds, but we have experienced metas when one of those two was not a viable option.

Sarrs.4831:

Is this necessarily bad, though? It creates an impetus in teams to carry both Power and Condi builds when that may not be a strong option in the meta. Of course, the current meta has room for both of those builds, but we have experienced metas when one of those two was not a viable option.

That’s true, but look at it this way: necro is hailed as the ideal 1v1 class. I almost never lose a 1v1. So I’m basically the ideal person to go and nail the treb guy quickly. But then I’m suddenly not, because it takes me like 30 seconds wailing on the thing in reaper shroud (wasting all my LF) to dps it down? When a mesmer can just port back and fix it up as soon as I leave? Doesn’t make sense.

I just think that any “damage-dealing” spec should be able to dps it down in a reasonably equal amount of time. The key thing should be winning the fight against the trebber, not dps’ing an object. If I can kill the guy trebbing in 10-15 seconds because I’m more skilled at 1v1, that should be it, I should be able to get back to the fight. If I’m bad and it takes me a minute to fight him, then that’s my fault and I should have let someone on my team who is better at 1v1 go take care of it.

Now I’m not asking for its health to be reduced. You wouldn’t send your support ele to kill the beasts in Forest, and you certainly shouldn’t be able to with treb in Kyhlo. I’m just asking to allow conditions to affect it, as has been done with other “objects” in the game (most “objects” in pve now take conditions). An alternative would be to make it in some way “Decappable” (like having to do a channel skill to destroy it), but I wouldn’t recommend that because then you really could have your support ele or really anyone go blow it up.

Related to your point, it’s also imbalanced amongst power classes. A power class with lots of cleave or aoe will likely destroy the thing before they even kill the trebber, whereas a more focused class (thief, though I’m thinking without Bound) will have to win the fight and then take care of the treb separately. And, frankly, building off that, a support ele probably could kill the thing faster than condi necro if they get off their overload aoes – so that’s what really doesn’t make sense to me.

And I guess finally getting back to your original point, I think it would actually be a bad thing if treb were seen as an impetus to bring a Power class in a meta where Power classes were bad. That would make treb into a “primary” mechanic, not secondary, and then if the other team doesn’t even try to use/repair treb at all, you’re stuck with a suboptimal Power class the whole game and are likely to lose because of lack of class balance in your team comp.

1. Give the jump pads use prompts, to trigger the jump on demand by pressing the Use key [F] in case it doesn’t trigger when stepping on it.
2. Slightly increase the recharge of the skyhammer. Slightly reduce its damage. Increase turn speed considerably. Improve the AoE indicator with one of the filling AoEs seen in raids. When the inner circle reaches the outer circle, the skyhammer strikes. Consider replacing the knockdown with a daze or stun. Consider splitting the skill into two: One deals less damage and a few stacks of burning for a few seconds; the other one stuns, deals more damage and breaks platforms, but takes longer to recharge.
3. Make the skyhammer platform larger, shaped like an hexagon with the 5 raised platforms disposed each on a side, then the door in the 6th side.
4. Add a floating frameless platform north of the skyhammer plaform midway between the skyhammer platform and the raised structure under it. It will be possible to leave the platform and take less fall damage without using the portal with that platform, but it will disappear for a while after use.
4. Disable the holographic platform blinking for a while after a point changes its status and after they trigger:

• While the blinking is disabled the platforms will look translucent light blue like now, and won’t disappear even if hit by the skyhammer.
• While enabled they will turn translucent orange.
• While triggering they will turn opaque from the inside, filling its area. When they are fully opaque, they will break. Using orange is more consistent with the color used in dangerous areas like environmental effects and boss attacks. These areas should be used also for other environmnetal weapons in PvP. For example, the trebuchet in Khylo would show the orange area that fills from the inside. When full, the trebuchet projectile hits.
• The orange panels will also disappear instantly when hit by the skyhammer.
• After a panel reforms itself, it will go on cooldown for 30 seconds, during which it will stay blue.
• After a point changes its capture status all holographic panels reset and go on cooldown for 10 seconds.

5. Add holographic railings around the capture points. They will be tall enough to prevent being thrown over them with a Launch. Probably make them directly window-tall panels covering the entire area between the raised stone platforms over the points and the floor around the points. They will blink and disappear if an enemy is pushed towards them like the blinking platforms. Meaning that to push someone through them, you will need two pushes: one to break the panel, one to send the enemy through before the panel reforms. Like the blinking platforms, they will reset on point status change, staying disabled for 10 seconds, and stay disabled for 30 seconds after they trigger once.
6. Add a series of large hexagonal disappearing floating platforms with no frame (like those in Spekk’s Laboratory, but larger) under the main areas around the capture points. Players thrown may try to aim to them to prevent defeat from fall damage. The higher their health, the easier will it be to survive as they will have more chances to fall in a different platform if they miss a higher one or it has already disappeared.
7. Add a series portals on the sand level, in case someone survives the fall, they can go back up to their own base if they avoid the wurms and reach any of them. Doing this won’t give any points, though, to prevent people trying to jump down on purpose to score. The only benefit from this is not giving 5 points to the enemy, and saving time they may have spent waiting to respawn.
8. Make the wurms on the path to the portals behave like the wurms in the event at Onyx Field in Southsun Cove about gathering Golem Parts. No ranged attacks, instead, they quickly dig underground towards players and pop out dealing immobilize and massive damage downing in one hit, defeating in a second. They can be dodged and blocked. There will be a time limit, though. Players down there will get an effect. If a player doesn’t reach a portal before the effect expires, an unavoidable wurm pops right under them and swallows them whole, defeating them directly, Dune style.

I think that should adjust the map to make it more reasonable and enjoyable.

I play unranked to play skyhammer. Its a FUN map. Adding a secondary platform below to keep players from dying on knockoff/fallthrough is a great idea. Just keep in mind if it takes more than 12ish seconds to get up its worse than death was. LOS props in the hammer room would fix some issues. I approve.

Remove the knockback instakill option from the skyhammer control room. Make the actual skyhammer more utility focused (knockback?) instead of damage, making the player controlling it able to knock others off ledges if he aims well.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Thank you everyone for participating in this thread! It has been very helpful to get constructive feedback from everyone about Skyhammer.

Quick question and maybe this seems off base…

But how does what the player feedback compare to what the initial design for Skyhammer differ ?

Like what was the initial design concept and who was skyhammer aimed at for the crowd that should enjoy it ?

The map is way to small.
Many times the pads wont give the boost and you will need to use them again.
Make another paths on a lower level, at least 2.
I like the holes where you can fall, but as other said it can be abused to much at the A/C.
The cannon speed of fire is ok, The knock down effect is also ok. Maybe lower the damage a little and make the aoe smaller.

Crimson Shi.5047:

How about just making new maps, or bringing back the old ones. Deathmatch, with maybe diffrent areas to spawn so that you can’t be farmed in the ONE spawn. Escorting an NPC/Goods while the enemy team tries to kill it. I don’t know but more map diversity would be better, not fixing an old map.

The spawn has 2 exits. But yeah, I’d also love to see this map back, maybe even a game mode option for deathmatch and additional maps where it’s just about fighting, not capping points.

I used to hate Skyhammer but after playing Forest and Foefire in ranked all the time I actually enjoy playing Skyhammer in unranked for diversion now. Maybe a damage nerf on the Skyhammer would be good but apart from that it’s fine. You learn to not position yourself on glass panels or somewhere you can be knocked off with time and judging from a lot of perfomances that I see in unranked matches those might actually be valuable lessons for players.
I actually don’t like the idea of the jump pads behaving like bouncing mushrooms because the way they are now you are more flexible. Just because you use a jump pad doesn’t always mean that you want to end up on top, you can also use it to skip aoe etc.

for my experience, asking the players isnt a good start to be honest.
Last time we fellow random players suggestion, we got condi buff and the insane amount of condi spam meta we are actualy in, with the subsequent autoprocs of defensive traits added to try to counter it.
You should ask to progamers instead of random people.