Guild Wars 2

I definitely think this gamemode has potential, but I feel Stronghold doesn’t really promote doing PvP. I know that it’s probably too early in the 2nd beta and people still need to figure things out, but some issues are already clear.

Currently the best tactic is to avoid any PvP interaction and fous on NPCs 24/7, by spawning, escorting and hunting skritt down. It’s basically Silverwastes with worse rewards.

I believe the issue is that the doordbreakers/archers are spammable not to mention running supply is a boring, monotonous role. I understand that the supply depot is supposedly where duels/teamfights happen, but with stability, blocks and blinds channels will go through thus PvP can be avoided most of the time.

Suggestions:

1. Supply could be replaced with 1 or 2 capture ponts (I understand that Anet tried to avoid adding Conquest elements to the new gamemode, but it could help a bit). Either make the entire middle a large capture point, or make 2 smaller ones next to each other and while a team holds the point, NPCs spawn periodically.
   1. 2 capture points: 1 for spawning archers and 1 for doorbreakers
   2. 1 cap point: would spawn doorbreakers as long as enemy gates are up and archers after the gates are down.
   3. Maybe a 3rd option could be a mix of these – 2 cap points, both spawning doorbreakers as long as the gates are up and archers once the gate’s down.
2. Other solution would be to make mobs spawn periodically without any need for supply or cap points (in a moba way), instead add something else to middle, like a buff which makes NPCs more resilient or when the buff is claimed it grants stealth to NPCs for 5-10 seconds.

By making NPCs spawn periodically there would be less zerging and more counterplay as pushes are anticipated/happen in a wave.

What if by bringing in supply, it stocked up the available NPCs and then they all released like every 3 minutes?

Or what if they actually removed supplies completely? You would have doorbreakers spawn periodically, their damage reduced and vulnerable to guards. There, one pve element removed.

I agree with the OP. I didn’t like Stronghold that much so far and was chatting with my team mates and reminiscing about Fort Aspenwood from GW1, which I loved. It made me think about what was different as in many ways this is a similar game mode to that but not as enjoyable for me. It clicked that it was the spammable NPCs that was just dull – yes they had them in FA, but they were on a set timer and most of the action other than killing the lord was all PvP. This is definitely too much PvE for my liking.

I think points gained from killing other players takes away from the objective of the game and turns it into a death match. An organised crew can just roam together picking people off who are trying to complete the objective. I suggest removing points gained from killing players, so it loses its team death match properties.

can’t agree to this. the game mode is perfect because you need to run compromise builds.

conquest builds are more or less not that effective and neither are pure 1v1 builds. you need to find a build that is useful for surviving against players, killing npcs and if needed fighting for the buff.

this is stronghold, it was clear from the start that it was not as pvp based as conquest.

It would just be death match if NPCs spawned on their own

Every team should have limited supply to spend in set time period!

Eurantien.4632:

It would just be death match if NPCs spawned on their own

As opposed to just running back and forth with supply? There would probably have to be another map mechanic to compensate, but ‘supply-running’ seems like an incredibly passive unfun role, imo.

witcher.3197:

Currently the best tactic is to avoid any PvP interaction and fous on NPCs 24/7, by spawning, escorting and hunting skritt down. It’s basically Silverwastes with worse rewards.

So much this.

Spawn skritts.
Resupply.
Spawn more skritts.
Resupply.
Spawn more skritts.
Occasionally check for the Hero.
Resupply.
Spawn more skritts.

Enemy team defending? Waste of time. Too many skritts.

Frenk.5917:

witcher.3197:

Currently the best tactic is to avoid any PvP interaction and fous on NPCs 24/7, by spawning, escorting and hunting skritt down. It’s basically Silverwastes with worse rewards.

So much this.

Spawn skritts.
Resupply.
Spawn more skritts.
Resupply.
Spawn more skritts.
Occasionally check for the Hero.
Resupply.
Spawn more skritts.

Enemy team defending? Waste of time. Too many skritts.

Every time I see this, I have to ask: do you use the treb in game? It kills the whole groups of npc in just a few hits.

Instead of capture points, why dont make that the npc will be summoned each time that a players is killed, something like

2 player killed: 1 archer and doorbreaker is summoned
10 players killed: 1 hero is summoned

Sunshine.5014:

Frenk.5917:

witcher.3197:

Currently the best tactic is to avoid any PvP interaction and fous on NPCs 24/7, by spawning, escorting and hunting skritt down. It’s basically Silverwastes with worse rewards.

So much this.

Spawn skritts.
Resupply.
Spawn more skritts.
Resupply.
Spawn more skritts.
Occasionally check for the Hero.
Resupply.
Spawn more skritts.

Enemy team defending? Waste of time. Too many skritts.

Every time I see this, I have to ask: do you use the treb in game? It kills the whole groups of npc in just a few hits.

Once I had a teammate of mine using the treb to kill the skritt: I thought that was a good idea, cause I recalled reading something on the forum about trebs oneshotting doorbreakers.. then he got annihilated cause the other team pushed with 5 players.

I’d also want to add that I have had like 3 (or even less) in the past 2-3 months, and just today I had 2.

Laraley.7695:

Or what if they actually removed supplies completely? You would have doorbreakers spawn periodically, their damage reduced and vulnerable to guards. There, one pve element removed.

I just proposed the same thing in another thread.
This would be better than what it currently is.

I currently think that the PvE or just running from A to B is indeed way too high…(between both betas, I have about 80+ SH-games and I theorycrafted a ton about the mode)

Offense is just a sustainy char that kills the NPC’s while staying alive against the enemies defending. I don’t ever need to attack a player in offense.

On defense, you either kill the DB’s, or you have very high dps-classes that just spam stuff onto the Cele-Rifle or Cele-Staff-Ele while he kills the NPC’s…. That’s not real PvP either.

Here’s what I really like: The really cool part for me is always the mist-essence spawns, I think this aspect of the Map is amazing and works perfectly. I also like the dynamic of the spawning NPC that can often force big teamfights with neat interactions like trying to slow the NPC don before he reaches the doors, deciding whether to DMG him or maybe take out a glassy DPS-dealer of the opposing team first etc.

I also really like the Lord-Room and that the lord goes into down-state (stealthing him doesn’t really seem to work though, as he keeps attacking or sth.)

here’s what doesn’t work for me as of yet though:
The supply-running is boring and too less teamfights happen in the area of the supplies.

-> I really like the Idea of a “Node” in the middle: as long as you have sm1 standing in it, you’ll spawn DB’s and archers at a certain rate. You don’t need to cap it and both teams will get the benefit, as long as at least 1 is standing there. No boring running and more PvP!
Just make the node big enough and a bit more open than it is now.

Just had an even better Idea for more PvP, less running and still a lot of options:

- Make some DB’s and Archers spawn per default; Supply gathered would only increase that number, but you wouldn’t have to do it.

This way, the focus could be spread out between offense and defense-lane and teams would have the option to go for big pushes.

With only 5 players, I think it would be good to try and keep the main-focus on 2 points and have some other objectives. If you force ppl to spread out between 3 important points (middle and both lanes), it’ll be spread to thin IMHO….

Well, it may be the best tactic but won’t you meet your opponents while they try to focus on hunting down your skritt or escorting their own? At least i did not have a problem finding players to pvp with while going for objectives (though i am sure there will be a lot of “Dusk rankfarm” servers, but that is a different story).

I think it would be better to have DB’s and Archers spawn automatically every 2-3 mins, with supply used to upgrade their power/defense/numbers (need a certain amount of supply to reach new tiers). It would also be nice if lord spawns would be delayed for the next push so that the lord could support your troops with the defensive buff and allow you to keep them up if the other team is turtling.

While I understand the motivation behind “supply area is a capture point.” I think it would just be better if there was only 1 pile in the very middle, and any damage interrupted channeling. Honestly, interrupts are never worth using to stop such a simple channel, and the channel is so short its not like 90% of builds can’t just ignore whatever dps is inc. Further, I noticed a LOT of times both teams would just ignore each other and grab supply, b/c fighting over it did no good. While a capture point would be nice, it would just motivate super-tanky builds that could just run around, LOS, and deny access to supply indefinitely.

For me the real problem is that the npcs are so important that you often don’t even have the time to finish a fight, you’re just running from one side to the other. Basically it all becomes about Killing npc and disrupting your enemy with ccs, and we all know some classes are better at this than others.

Xillllix.3485:

For me the real problem is that the npcs are so important that you often don’t even have the time to finish a fight, you’re just running from one side to the other. Basically it all becomes about Killing npc and disrupting your enemy with ccs, and we all know some classes are better at this than others.

True, i’ve seen people get up by themselves quite often because they were left alone by enemies.

Laraley.7695:

Or what if they actually removed supplies completely? You would have doorbreakers spawn periodically, their damage reduced and vulnerable to guards. There, one pve element removed.

or what is they removed pve completely from pvp? just saying…because you know, it’s pvp…not freakin wvsw

oh right pve heroes are gonna rage cause no mobs and stuff to balance their lack of individual skill.

all hail pve….i suppose…

Archaon.9524:

Laraley.7695:

Or what if they actually removed supplies completely? You would have doorbreakers spawn periodically, their damage reduced and vulnerable to guards. There, one pve element removed.

or what is they removed pve completely from pvp? just saying…because you know, it’s pvp…not freakin wvsw

oh right pve heroes are gonna rage cause no mobs and stuff to balance their lack of individual skill.

all hail pve….i suppose…

Again with this nonsensical “argument”.

Some of the best, most successful and fun competetive PvP-Games have “PvE-Elements” in them:

- Every Moba, arguably the most successful competetive game-mode ever.
- WC3, one of the most successful RTS-Games.
- GW1 PvP, which was absolutely amazing.

The Problem is (which is the case in Stronghold atm), when the PvE and running around takes so much time and effort, that the PvP-Element gets cut short. The PvE-Elements should be there to force and encourage PvP-interactions and not take focus away from them.

It’s all about how it’s done, not about the fact whether or not there are PvE-Elements.

Just imagine that sm1 (or more than 1 in a 5-man team) would have to walk from mid to base in a Moba to spawn the lane-minions: It would completely destroy the game-mode.

People have had very little time to adjust to this mode and find builds that work well or strategies to play. Supply running can be a key part of success, so if a team is letting you get away with it then they are likely playing a different strategy to you. I think once we get used to how the mode works, we will be able to see what plays are being made in the initial few seconds of a match.

Supply is important, and it will create opportunities for pvp, it certainly did in most of the games we played. In fact, for many games we played, more conflicts occured at the supply area than anywhere else.

As to mobs spawning automatically, mob summoning needs to remain under player control, to provide that extra strategy element. Stronghold is supposed to be a more stragetic game type than conquest, so it needs these decision points to make it interesting and more flexible. The more strategic decisions that are available to the players the better. There are many options available in Stronghold precisely because these things are under the control of the players. If you remove those decisions, you dumb the game down and it will be less appealing to players that are after a more strategic gameplay.

If you want tactics more than strategy you have Conquest, if you want more strategy than tactics, you will have Stronghold. Once players learn the mode, and learn how to react to different tactical and strategic plays, I am sure the pvp aspect will increase. But as far as I am concerned, so far it seems pretty prevalent already.