Guild Wars 2

Hi Hugh,

Can any comment on giving stronghold it’s own queue when the expansion hits? Lack of build templates combined with conquest, tdm, and stronghold on the same queue will just lead to more frustration.

Thank god you fixed it!!!!my first thought after my team won was “why isn’t the Lord celebrating??”

Drennon.7190:

Hi Hugh,

Can any comment on giving stronghold it’s own queue when the expansion hits? Lack of build templates combined with conquest, tdm, and stronghold on the same queue will just lead to more frustration.

Totally agree with this.
Stronghold should deserve a different que.

Drennon.7190:

Hi Hugh,

Can any comment on giving stronghold it’s own queue when the expansion hits? Lack of build templates combined with conquest, tdm, and stronghold on the same queue will just lead to more frustration.

This has surely been something talked about for a long time but has always remained at the discussion stage I suppose the best response we as players could do is to run roamer/zerker builds that are least impacted by different gamemodes. I am not sure if this is a way to make the bunker builds fade out when more SH maps become live.

If you’re still looking at the thread:

I, and a couple others I played with tend to find that in close matches, the ones you really want to see win by a lord kill, the game ends anti-climactically by running out of time and ending in a point victory (this was even a problem in the WTS a few months back with the first Stronghold feature match).

I think it’s worth a look at alternatives to ending the game. Either extending the time limit on matches by a couple minutes or, even better, instituting a GW1-type system where, at timeout, the lords come forward to fight each other. Lords could have buffs applied to them based on score so that the leading team goes into sudden death with an advantage, but the lagging team could still win if skilled enough.

I think it’s a much better alternative to having really close, back-and-forth games between equally matched teams just end by an unsatisfying timeout.

Thanks!

Darmikau.9413:

at timeout, the lords come forward to fight each other. Lords could have buffs applied to them based on score so that the leading team goes into sudden death with an advantage, but the lagging team could still win if skilled enough.

I’m against this, because that would be too much clusterkitten if there is a 10 man fight in the middle of the map + NPC’s.

Just sudden death (no more respawns) would be nice, no need for the lords to move. But I agree something besides ending the match needs to happen after the timer runs out.

So, are archers still useless then?

Kinda looks like they pointed all changes towards “faster game-mode” instead of “better game-mode”…..

Next beta event, consider giving people with custom arenas access to the map for testing within guilds or controlled groups. It would let us really put the map through the paces.

Also – during the last beta event – once people had gotten used to the format (later into the evening) – many matches simply became a PVE race down respective lanes. Basically the winner was determined by who could get to and kill the enemy lord first rather than any sustained actual player vs player activity (small potential for some as people were getting mist essence). The generally accepted “strategy” was for all players to stay clumped in their lanes and rush the enemy NPCs to clear for the doorbreakers. If either team deviated from that strategy, it usually didn’t end well.

Has anything been done to discourage or change that approach since the last beta? I also worry that removing a set of guards will make this an even more accepted strategy.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

opportunities for line-of-sighting

I know what you mean, but…the grammar…

No Call of the Mists for this…

Archers still useless.

Some of the main issues I had with the map was the fact you can channel the buff while being hit, which is not really fair to many specs, the fact lord was soloable, which I assume it still is and the size of lord room. Still not fixed, still not interested.

yeah this new pve mode is really fun, but why do we have to queue from pvp?? they should add stronghold to lion’s arch, divinity’s reach, etc. so it’s more accessible to the pve scene. IDGI?? Why do I have to go to PvP to do the new PvE mode?

Bettik.4982:

No Call of the Mists for this…

that’s better… thank you!

Blaeys.3102:

Also – during the last beta event – once people had gotten used to the format (later into the evening) – many matches simply became a PVE race down respective lanes. Basically the winner was determined by who could get to and kill the enemy lord first rather than any sustained actual player vs player activity (small potential for some as people were getting mist essence). The generally accepted “strategy” was for all players to stay clumped in their lanes and rush the enemy NPCs to clear for the doorbreakers. If either team deviated from that strategy, it usually didn’t end well.

Has anything been done to discourage or change that approach since the last beta? I also worry that removing a set of guards will make this an even more accepted strategy.

Nope none at all.

Honestly I’m not even going to bother logging in to test this. Devs can have fun tanking what’s left of the pvp in their game.

Jelle.2807:

Blaeys.3102:

Also – during the last beta event – once people had gotten used to the format (later into the evening) – many matches simply became a PVE race down respective lanes. Basically the winner was determined by who could get to and kill the enemy lord first rather than any sustained actual player vs player activity (small potential for some as people were getting mist essence). The generally accepted “strategy” was for all players to stay clumped in their lanes and rush the enemy NPCs to clear for the doorbreakers. If either team deviated from that strategy, it usually didn’t end well.

Has anything been done to discourage or change that approach since the last beta? I also worry that removing a set of guards will make this an even more accepted strategy.

Nope none at all.

Honestly I’m not even going to bother logging in to test this. Devs can have fun tanking what’s left of the pvp in your game.

It says they buffed the hp of guards by 10% (Does this mean lord, too?) and added a new skill to the lord. This changes nothing, I was able to easily solo the lord on fresh air in the last beta and I highly doubt this change would affect it.

Aomine.5012:

Drennon.7190:

Hi Hugh,

Can any comment on giving stronghold it’s own queue when the expansion hits? Lack of build templates combined with conquest, tdm, and stronghold on the same queue will just lead to more frustration.

Totally agree with this.
Stronghold should deserve a different que.

I completely agree. In fact, I think they should go the checkbox route. You check which maps you want to encounter in queue and hit the queue button. So if someone wants a chance for stronghold, but still do some conquest he can. If someone wants to just do TDM he can. Any permutation works. And it allows players who just want to queue for one map the option. No more “queue for ranked if you don’t like skyhammer or spirit watch”. Just queue for the maps you want to play on. By default, everything can be checked. So new players get the intended effect. But I don’t have to play on khylo anymore. Along with many players who would benefit.

If the argument is that restricting the queues would lead to longer queue times. Players unhappy can simply check everything (or leave it all checked) and only suffer a slight increase in queue time (probably 10-30 seconds), while players wanting a certain map might be forced to wait a few extra minutes, but it was their choice to make.

@ devs: please change stolen spells off NPCs…. why do they give possibly worst stolen spell in entire game (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tooth_Stab) ?

also waaaayyy too many places where teleport skills like signet/steal etc. don’t work on flat terrain….

This:

Thank god you fixed it!!!!my first thought after my team won was “why isn’t the Lord celebrating??”

x)

the game mode is faster, but again why is there archers? They don’t seem useful rather than free kill npc.
Second, the map is done in a way that we feel there are two matches at the same time (path of attack and path of defense). We don’t really feel the pressure of choice between attacking or defending, maybe reducing the ways between the two paths could increase this pressure.

New skill: The lord will now execute an attack that pulls nearby enemies in, knocks them down, and then does a devastating 360 degree spin. Don’t let it hit you.

So you just gave them Kholer’s skill from AC? Seems a bit lazy to me, something unique to them would have been more fun

Stronghold It´s a bag bag, that map for 24 hours is a lot of. sorry my bag english

Archer.4362:

Stronghold It´s a bag bag, that map for 24 hours is a lot of. sorry my bag english

don’t know what this is, but i approve

We need to be able to save our builds because we have to spec differently for team death match, conquest, and stronghold.

Big Initial PROS:

• LORD SPIN ATTACK – that thing hurts , we managed lord defense a lot easier as well as in other match wiping 3x TIMES before finaly getting it.
• Treb – i suppose , havent seen good action from it yet like to prevent the hero spot

Big CONS:

• Archers are useless. I could respawn and run back as a freakin necro – and 3 archers didnt do almost anything to the gate.
  The killing guards role is much easier done with players.
  Like you could spawn 5 archers to let them kill the inner guards – and 1 player will kill them in seconds.

Edit:
- a bit of fanboyism but:
- Necro is slooooow
- Condi nec is useless even with epidemic – unnerf the bleeds
- Power necro has good aoe, but its all on long CD – staff ele is better + support

I think the Lord is abit too powerful now tbh lol.
That Aoe push is an AOE death sentence if failed to dodge once XD.

Flumek.9043:

Big Initial PROS:

• LORD SPIN ATTACK – that thing hurts , we managed lord defense a lot easier as well as in other match wiping 3x TIMES before finaly getting it.
• Treb – i suppose , havent seen good action from it yet like to prevent the hero spot

Big CONS:

• Archers are useless. I could respawn and run back as a freakin necro – and 3 archers didnt do almost anything to the gate.
  The killing guards role is much easier done with players.
  Like you could spawn 5 archers to let them kill the inner guards – and 1 player will kill them in seconds.

Archer’s role is clear now after Lord’s buff: It’s used to kill lord when all gates are down.

Blaeys.3102:

Basically the winner was determined by who could get to and kill the enemy lord first rather than any sustained actual player vs player activity (small potential for some as people were getting mist essence). The generally accepted “strategy” was for all players to stay clumped in their lanes and rush the enemy NPCs to clear for the doorbreakers. If either team deviated from that strategy, it usually didn’t end well.

There was not nearly enough time for players to determine which the best strategies for this game mode were. This is a hasty assessment based on anecdotal evidence. Not saying that this is will not be an accurate assessment after a suitable amount of time and experience on part of the players has passed, however there is simply not enough player experience to determine that yet.

Jelzouki.4128:

We need to be able to save our builds because we have to spec differently for team death match, conquest, and stronghold.

This is my biggest fear. The lack of build templates is going to simply kill the PvP modes that are all thrown into the same queues. This would be worse than Stronghold simply going into the same queue as other game modes, as bad as that would be.

Adding CONS:

• Rampage chanelling still not fixed – idk why it even exists no other chanel has it.

• SoloQ stronghold is very boring – a lot of map is runing and pressing F, if you have noone to talk to its very monotone

Boring. As. Hell. Do not want.

Just saw the red lord be alive after killing it and winning the game. I think it was a banner.

MMR is killing these games. Also the amount of premades has inverted this. So now you have to group up to play stronghold in unranked which means soloq is going to be an issue at go live. You really need to bring back soloq because premades are going to create issues with queues.

well this is one of the map i will never choose for spvp

4 attack the lord – 1 thief slows down the enemy team attack.

Same strategy as last beta.

I assume that once it’s in regular rotation, the population will be back to more regular PvP players and result in more use of the functionality of the supporting elements in the map.

Honestly, I’m not certain what I’m thinking about the map anymore. I can appreciate all the work that went into it, but something doesn’t click with me.

It just seems like you have to be all over the place all the time:
one lane to defend
one lane to attack
must fight for supplies
must treb supplies
must run back and forth for supplies
must defend heros / must kill heroes
must rush lord
must go south or north for heroes spawn
must keep track of all the scores

And everything happens pretty fast, by the time you win a fight at the supply area 2 of your gates can be down by 1 player with a bomber or two.

Maybe greatly increase the gate HP?
Make the bombers twice slower but with twice more hp?
Maybe make it 8v8 instead of 5v5 after that?

Anyway, not sure the game mode has been perfected yet.

My FPS is worse than previous beta. Granted my PC isn’t top notch and framerate always sucks in newer areas like the Magooma desert or whatever (I don’t PvE), but I’ve always managed to pull a playable 40fps on Niflhel and Legacy (lower on Khylo but playable). On this map how ever its like 20 or less. Please give options to turn off useless stuff like the mile long waterfall, mist essence glow thingy and what ever else can take resources. Otherwise I literally can not partake and will have to afk every time this map is voted for.

First OBT here, really loving this game mode so far. It’s a nice change from conquest which was tiring me out to no end. So far haven’t really experienced glaring bugs either. Still half a day to test.

Stronghold is PVP? I thought this was a new activity…

1. Need Tutorials: Somewhere in Heart of the Mists THERE NEEDS TO BE npcs that simulates the Stronghold map. When half of matches are about new players coming in and not knowing how to spawn archers or doorbreakers at all you know you did not explain the rules well enough.

2. Make Doorbreakers 25% slower and 50% sturdier. The amount of players rushing speed meta and racing to churn out these skritts are alarming

3. New maps please. If you can’t make it happen by next Beta~well, alright~say something that hints about them? If you’re advertising this thing as a ‘mode’ not just a ‘map’ variety is definitely going to matter

how long this terrible mode will be for unraked i want go play normal pvp not this —-——

I really enjoy the game mode but there is one thing i’d like to suggest. The 1st gate is really easy to get past even with someone on the treb because the gate guards get taken out really easily. I’d like to suggest giving the guards a radius where they prioritize door breakers and archers over players.

I really like the mode, I’m also laughing at all the QQ posters that aren’t good enough to understand objective based PvP.

Pros:

• The map and mode.
• Fighting a Guild Lord.
• Treb is very handy.
• Drinking booze at the bar, a very much YES!

Cons:

• Archers are useless, Guards are easily handled by players.
• Guards are super squishy, making it hard (pointless) to defend them.
• The treb is very handy at times but hard to utilize without a teleport.

Suggestions:

• Limit the amount of NPC’s that are summoned on the field. This will allow balancing NPC’s to be much easier.
• Clean up pushing and defend objectives.
• Drop the skritt suicide bomber concept completely. Have a Guild Fighter summon instead that can cast vulnerability on the gate, allowing players and the NPC to damage the gate. This way, you can’t have a single Bomber completely destroy a gate if left alone for 15 seconds. Not to mention pushing NPC’s ONLY rewards supporting players, having a glassy power house wailing on the gate allows more risk and reward plus build variation.
• Add a new NPC, Guild Protectors. These guys will run to guard supply, attack foes at the supplies and supply buffs. They will run to Mist Essence once the 30 second timer starts to secure that position. They don’t do much damage, have no CC but are tanky and supportive.
• Instead of a Tengu Archer, have a Guild Hunter that will go after Guild Protectors and guards. They will clean up any Guild Protectors at their post before moving to the gate. Give it Barrage, lastly, unless the gate has vulnerability, Guild Hunters will wait at the gate.
• Give NPC’s guild armor, weapons and colors to the premades team.
• “Victory or Death!” Don’t end matches on a timer. L-A-M-E.
• Remove the treb, its role is too limited and doesn’t add much in terms of objectives.
• Give NPC’s the ability to move and attack.

You have to do more with the NPC’s other than hope that the enemy team doesn’t get to them in time.

few suggestions:

1. LOS is very nice and important – keep it
2. make the supplies channeled interruptable with any attack which cause some mid fights and control to prevent supplies rush
3. archer need to do more dmg and have more hp. as for now ppl ignore them
4. if skritt get attacked it can use his bomb for aoe dmg around 4k. as for now thief just ignore anything and just easy killing them (beside thief any other class does it easily) so make the skritt do dmg . also this make defending more important and attacking more tactical.
5. npc around lord should protect it with aoe and cc. as for now we can ignore and rush lord freely
6. canons – why cant we used them – more defense tactics

my points are that we need more tactics to be involved beside rush lord with skritt . team should choose between 3-4 tactics like defend and offense, deny supplies and offence , full offence etc..

Why are people already kittening about Stronghold? So many new threads,how it’s only pve,etc. Below are my thoughts overall on Stronghold:
I played Stronghold yesterday and I played it for about 9h,had break(sleep,work,etc.) and then played it again today for about 3-4h. Queue pops were frequent,I think longest I waited was 5-6min tops. Matches were fun,there was PLENTY OF PVP to do. I am talking about this as solo q experience. If you avoided players whole time (which is impossible to do),then you played wrong. If you go on offense,there is a chance,that you’ll meet people defending either their gate or at supply or at hero and so on. I played everything…from offense to defense…switched it on a fly,if we need to rush lord or defend. It is a fun map to play and it’s a different game type…WHICH IS A GOOD THING PEOPLE. Be grateful for this. Pvp scene needs diversity.

Only thing I’d recommend for change,is that at start,this game mode can be overwhelming. Maybe numbering gates with 1 and 2 in circle in user interface might help a bit. Trebs didn’t really play big role in this,so in my opinion, I’d remove trebs from Stronghold. Supply depots are bit spammable…make it,so that only one at time can use it. Oh and at either lord…it gets too croweded too fast and with everything flying around,it’s hard to see sometimes. I think you’d have to be Norn to see well. You get NPC’s shooting,Lord himself goes berserk,then you got enemy players,your allies.

NPC are a bit dumb(well alot),but I like that. I like that they only have one goal. Maybe hero could defend himself a bit,when he runs to enemy lord and he does a knockback or blind. Not just run and run and run,ignoring the fact,that peole are killing him.

changes for next beta-event:

1) Archers deal twice the amount of DMG to players
2) Increased HP and thoughness for all Guards outside the Lord-Room by 20% each
3) 2 Archers and 1 Doorbreaker will now spawn every minute by default.
4) decreased channeling time at the supply by 50%
5) Lord won’t attack and get revealed from stealth while downed
6) Players are able to do a small amount of DMG to the doors now (equal to 10% of the DMG they do to doors on Foefire)
7) Guards attack DB’s at first priority, even when aggroed by players
8) Introducing defensive Archers: Spawned by supply only (not per default like the offensive ones), which will create an Archer on your defensive lane, spawning on the outer most unopened door, or the Lordroom if all doors are down.

will also add this to this thread:

npc:

all guards are too weak. i rush to the enemy gate on start and i take them down in less than 10 seconds.

the inner guards take maybe 20 seconds.

the lord guards deal more damage but die just as fast…

as it is right now you don’t need to care about gate npcs because 1) they die way too fast and 2) if you kill the doorbreakers you won’t need the npcs anyway.

defending guards is impossible, make them take less damage from players on gamestart (a lot) and reduce that defense over time. so the longer you’re into the match the more damage they take. this will shift the tactics from yolo killing guards to actually stun/blind/reflect their attacks for your doorbreakers. this would also make archers more viable.

what i did today was, when i was at the enemy lord and my team wiped / i was there alone, and i was about to die, i made sure that i kept the lord at 1-5% hp, not putting him into downed state. if you res the lord he will get 50% hp so it’s better to keep him at 1-5%, die and go back to finish him.
give the lord a bodyguard, an npc that gives him protection and actually heals him. the npc could even cast swirling winds like the foefire wizzards. the lord needs something that can heal him up again because right now it’s just stupid and player heals are too weak.

spawn:

make the players spawn at the frontgate. not on the pier or in the alcohol house. it’s bad for prestacking and putting down fgs etc.

channel

channeling for mist essence is just wrong. no stability skill in the game should be as long as the channel.

ways to solve this:

- when channeling it halves the duration of stability
or
- when channeling every second removes 1 stack of stability
or
- channeling takes 15 seconds

oh and remove the rampage channel… it’s just lame

players:

respawn times need to increase the longer the match is taking.
for example: 15s respawn on matchstart and +2s respawn for every minute that passes.

timer:

needs to go. let the match continue until the lord is dead or make it a VoD and let the lords clash at 20 mins or so.

if nobody is able to get through the gates people just start going for the spawn npcs or hunt players down, this defeats the purpose of the game mode and needs to go.

Darmikau.9413:

If you’re still looking at the thread:

I think it’s worth a look at alternatives to ending the game. Either extending the time limit on matches by a couple minutes or, even better, instituting a GW1-type system where, at timeout, the lords come forward to fight each other. Lords could have buffs applied to them based on score so that the leading team goes into sudden death with an advantage, but the lagging team could still win if skilled enough.

Thats a really nice idea, Its nice seeing constructive feedback

Simple fixes

Problem: Guards are too squishy
Fix: make all guards at least veterans, and slightly increase hp overall. Using a staff mace/shield guardian I was able to keep the guards alive vs anything but direct fire from zerkers

Problem: People are just rushing the gates and zerking the lord
Problem: Archers are useless
Fix: Make DoorBreakers cost 10 supply and buff them slightly

jebro.6370:

Thats a really nice idea, Its nice seeing constructive feedback

You’re acting like there is no constructive feedback at all. I already saw a lot of good and constructive feedback.
Ofc there are a bunch of reets but that’s common in forums I guess :P.

One problem I have is that we gave a lot of constructive feedback after the last beta and almost nothing got adressed (e.g. Archer beeing useless).