Guild Wars 2

I haven’t played a super large sample size of stronghold yet (in the range of 10-15 games), but I’ve found that blue overwhelmingly seems to win, with only one of my games with a red win. While not statistically significant, I still feel like this is way off the mark for a map that should theoretically have a 50/50 win rate. A couple of things that tend to be consistent across the matches.

1. Early game
-Blue can typically down the gate guards before red can defend, while blue can more readily defend their guards
-This usually leads to blue downing the outer gates first, though red typically follows soon after

2. Mid game
-With the slight advantage early, blue tends to be able to rush the second gate much earlier, typically with notably more door breakers than red.
-With the inner gates vulnerable earlier, red tends to pull back, allowing blue to focus a bit more on offence. This is the only time where the game seems to stagnate a bit, and the main window where red has an opportunity to push to inner gate.

3. Late game
-Once inner goes down, a large amount of resources are devoted to defence. This is another area where I’ve noticed the biggest disparity between the two sides. Should red defence get killed off, it seems like the window that blue has to finish the lord is long enough that the lord kill will typically not get contested a second time. Conversely, blue defence seems to be able to respawn more readily, making red pushes significantly slower.
-My guess is that this stems from the fact that red has to travel further from spawn to lord room, long enough that if 1-2 defenders go down, blue is almost guaranteed a lord kill.

Is anyone else noticing something similar? I haven’t seen any other posts about it so I was just curious if it’s just in my head.

What the hell is stronghold? I thought I deleted this mode by unchecking the box?

10/15 games is nowhere near enough to get a gauge on things. Do a couple hundred before getting close to enough of a sample size

There are some subtle advantages for blue, but I don’t think any are game-breaking:

• Blue seems to start closer to the gate and it’s not on a hill, so they get an extra second or two to pre-buff and can get back into action a second or two sooner.
• Blue can drop down directly on the DB barracks, but the red DB door is slightly off-set.
• The path between outer and inner for blue is a little narrower and the first set of inner guards is a little closer to the path compared to the same set for red.

The only difference that makes me want to be blue when our team gets red is one thing. The blue team gets rum, why don’t the pirates get rum? >>

Exedore.6320:

There are some subtle advantages for blue, but I don’t think any are game-breaking:

• Blue seems to start closer to the gate and it’s not on a hill, so they get an extra second or two to pre-buff and can get back into action a second or two sooner.
• Blue can drop down directly on the DB barracks, but the red DB door is slightly off-set.
• The path between outer and inner for blue is a little narrower and the first set of inner guards is a little closer to the path compared to the same set for red.

Except a team that is aware of these advantages can make good use of them to turn the game in their favor. I play a MOBA (and stronghold really feels like playing conquest) that has a problem like this as well, where one side of the map, just due to layout, actually has a greater win percentage. In ranked, when you win on that side, you gain fewer points, and lose more if you lose on that side, since it’s supposed to be the easier side.

I know it won’t happen soon, but if the blue side does have an advantage just due to map layout, then hopefully they tweak the map to make it more even. You should win a match based on skill, not on hoping you get lucky and are put on the good side.

Conquest is still the competitive mode. I don’ think it will be adjusted any time soon.