Guild Wars 2

Hi guys!

I was very excited initially for the Stronghold game mode, but upon playing it in the betas and finally in the final form we see now one can’t help but feel it isn’t what PvPers want or enjoy. What most people don’t know is that stronghold actually allows for a lot more build diversity than conquest and as a result has a lot of potential.
With this in mind I have come up with not one but two suggestions to improve the game mode but first we need to determine the major issues behind the game mode and why PvPers don’t enjoy it.
I will only be discussing the first suggestion in this thread to avoid clutter, the other changes are also a lot more comprehensive and does away with most of the NPCs in the game mode.

My opinion on the major problems are two fold.
A major issue is that actually fighting other players isn’t necessary for the majority of the match or can even be detrimental to winning in a lot cases.
The other issue is that strategy and decisionmaking has very little influence on the game, generally speaking the best option is for one player to stall the enemy advance by cleaving DBs down, ignoring fighting players while the other 4 players push as hard as they can. This has given rise to a lot of “cheese” strats like invisible DBs and such. Even most secondary objectives and mechanics have muted influence.

My first suggestion require relatively minor changes compared to the second option.

The supply depo becomes a capture point. Unlike conquest this capture point will decap itself when no one is present to hold it.
You can not get supply if you do not control the capture point.
To compensate for this mechanic the channel time to pickup supply should be greatly decreased and the exit points from the middle need to be moved further from the respective bases, rotating them a few degrees on a 90 degree angle to the map would be sufficient. This allows more time for someone to intercept supply runners so that supply depo control does not steamroll the game too hard.

The supply point was always intended to be a point worth contesting, forcing fights, but this isn’t the case right now and these changes solidify that.

A good counter to the control in the middle is the treb, making that mechanic indirectly relevant again.

Doorbreakers die too easily to players, even when heavily defended. To counter this I suggest giving them a “strength in numbers” buff that increases their toughness dramatically the more players are escorting them.
Addtionally I would suggest making AoE deal less damage to them the more are being cleaved with the exception of the treb which ignores the AOE reduction.

Mist Champions already are a contested objective despite being quite weak as an objective.
To make them more relevant the strength in numbers buff should double when the champion is near doorbreakers.
Additionally each mist champion should have a unique interraction to the doorbreakers and archers when they are nearby.
Suggestions for each :

Turai – Applies aegis periodically to NPCs near it. Also cleares conditions from NPCs at a more frequent rate.
Tybalt – Adds a mini-daze to every second archer attack. Adds an AOE mini-daze to every doorbreakers door bomb.
NIka – Pulses invisibility to NPCs. Addtionally archer attacks out of invis increases damage significantly.
Grimm – Doorbreaker bomb damage dramatically increased and now does a small amount of damage to players in melee range to the DBs.

Doors should have higher HP to once again promote it as a point for fights between players to break out.

Increased player count. The only issue with these changes I can foresee is that players will be overwhelmed by the objective diversity and as a result fights will still be rare compared to conquest because of this, players will go for different objectives passing eachother by.
One way to combat this effect owuld be to increase the players per side to 6, 7 of even 8.
Alternatively objective spacing and game pacing, decrease the frequency with which mist champs channels become available and slightly increase the game time limit by a few minutes.

Right so what do you guys think?
Good ideas? Bad ideas?
Would you play stronghold more if the problems I am trying to address in this suggestion were fixed? Even if my methodoly isn’t ideal?
What is your reason for not liking stronghold?

You can discuss this on the reddit here : https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4k7ql0/stronghold_my_suggestions_for_a_more_enjoyable/

why are we still talking about Stronghold? i mean really?

Vieux P.1238:

why are we still talking about Stronghold? i mean really?

Would you rather it be another wasted game mode and resources?

Wait people still Q for stronghold? I had that piece of $%^& premade, pip farming map unchecked in my preferences for months now. Anyone who solo Qs should never have stronghold checked.

Spartacus.3192:

unchecked in my preferences for months now

So then, you have really no experience on it then?

OP, as someone who’s solo Q’d on Stronghold for probably 95% of the year, no I do not like your suggestions. Nor do I even see your point of view on what the issues are. And yes, I have “The Ascension” already which was earned in Stronghold. Think I may have played a dozen conquest matches the entire year. After 3 years I really can’t stomach any more conquest.

Novuake.2691:

Vieux P.1238:

why are we still talking about Stronghold? i mean really?

Would you rather it be another wasted game mode and resources?

I would rather that dev actually waste resources on idk? .. like making new maps that are actually fun & not broken or boring.

DeWolfe.2174:

Spartacus.3192:

unchecked in my preferences for months now

So then, you have really no experience on it then?

How did you get to that conclusion? I played it in beta and some matches in Season 1. It was a premade pip farm. basically felt like PvP designed for PVE players. Boring as heck and premades with proper comps literally destroyed soloq teams.

Thats when i unchecked it. If i want to PVE theres the whole world of Tyria out there.

Disagree with most of your suggestions.

Supply Depot as a Capture Point
This is a really bad idea. This mechanic would allow one team to completely snowball the match by denying the other any supply. And because it’s a capture point, you only need one person to contest it. Conquest has three capture points in order to prevent this problem. And players start with supply in stronghold so that the map didn’t turn into a big fight at the supply depot every match with the winner being able to snowball.

Grouped NPC Health Buff
This makes stronghold worse, not better. In your intro, you complain about cheese like invisible DBs, etc. Giving them more HP makes that “cheese” even easier to pull off. And by doing this, you’re also causing ripple effects which you’ve had to address.

Mist Champions
Giving them extra effects won’t do much unless they’re ridiculously powerful (like CC which you proposed) and that just makes it frustrating. The problem with mist champions is that they’re too easy to kill for the benefit that they provide. There’s no urgency in stopping them. And by buffing their group mechanics, they’re just helping a snowball rather than turning a game around.

Player Count
No compelling reason to increase it. First, keep it at 5 to allow teams to queue into both. They would if stronghold wasn’t so bad. Second, stronghold was designed with more things to do than there are players. The idea was that teams would have to prioritize and it allowed the opposition to take advantage of your weak areas. Teams being able to do everything at once really stagnates it.

The key problems with Stronghold are:

1. No reason to defeat players. It’s much better to do something with the objective (supply, hero channel, NPCs) and leave than sit in a drawn-out fight in order to win the objective.
2. Too easy to snowball. The team that gets ahead early usually maintains the lead easily.
3. Archers are totally useless

Here’s what I would change:

Doorbreakers are One-and-Done
As soon as the doorbreakers attack, they die (or run away). Damage per DB is increased. This gives a huge impact to killing a single DB. You can’t break through just by keeping one or two alive. It also stops a team from getting through both gates with the initial wave of DBs and a bit of cheese (stealth, immunity, etc.). That in turn makes the supply depot more important.

Buff Archer Damage and Fix AI
With DBs being one attack only, archer damage and HP can be safely increased. Archers are the slower, but also safer and reusable alternative to DBs. Change their AI to only attack NPCs and gates so that they can’t be distracted indefinitely. Reduce bonus damage against NPCs. As a whole, this should make it hard for a defender to kill the archers quickly and run when the archers are defended.

Damage Interrupts Channel
Stab channel allows players to completely ignore most efforts to top a channel. Only boon strip and trebuchet will stop it. This puts too much emphasis on counters which are so narrow. Speed up the supply channels to compensate. We have great fights at the channel points on TotSS, which are interrupted by damage. You have to actually kill or chase away players to take the objective.
Because of this change, remove the trebuchet stripping all stability stacks.

Mist Champions
Buff damage vs. gates slightly. Their ultimate attack now works on gates and takes 50% off of it (has a cooldown). This gives them more of a comeback mechanic. To differentiate them, maybe have their damage, ultimate damage, HP, and move speed vary.

Novuake.2691:

Vieux P.1238:

why are we still talking about Stronghold? i mean really?

Would you rather it be another wasted game mode and resources?

2late

Sigh

I also do not like the supply depot as it currently stands. It is a huge new player trap early game and having one or more teammates go there at the start can cost the match early. Not sure what the solution is maybe making players drop one supply if they are not behind enemy lines and 2 when behind regardless of what they are carrying? That way at least killing players early would have more of an impact.

As far as mist champions go it certainly does seem the bigger value in getting the summon is just the straight 20 point tick rather than any big effect on the battlefield. It is hard to balance with aurashare out there as making them too much tougher could make them extremely hard to stop.

The thing is there, map concept and such but the implementation and lack of support is no where to be found (hopefully not) if only they made this game mode a Three lane and go beyond mainstream, imagine all the profit if they hooked all those Darksoul fans. its not too late anyway, map still salvageable.

Stronghold is like desert borderlands. Anet wasted resources to built something that people don’t want because they can’t support it very well. The conquest and league system are broken so I doubt they will have resource to focus on this topic.

I think that there is nothing wrong with stronghold being a “PvP for PvElers”, to be honest, that is what brought me into PvP in the first place, also i thing that it has a lot more room for tactical depth then the “run-around-and-stand-in-circles-mode” called conquest. That being set, exactly this " tactical depth" isn’t really there at the moment because who ever gets the better rush, at the start, usually wins and most of the time this comes down to who ever has more/the better heal ele. now my major pain points and suggestions to fix them would be:

1. Archers are currently useless because Players are way faserter and more efficient in killing guards.

Fix: Buff guards so that players can no longer just cleave them down while fighting a player at the gate. Let them 1-hit doorbreakers while they them self get 1-2-hit by archers like this attackers have 2 sets of NPCs to protect. This will break up the “5 breakers 1 healer meta”.

2. Supply respawns to quickly

Fix: A lot of it should already get fixt by introducing the need for archers, if necessary, reduce respawn even further or maybe put supply respawn on a fixed timer, like champions , with a notification broadcast, wich will lead to more fighting over supps.

3. Champions are to Common and too Week

Fix: Buffing champions (effect and HP) but making them rarer. Champions should be valuable for what they bring to the fight not for the points.

4. Comebacks are rare and hard to pull off

Fix: Let breaker archer and champion kills reward a FEW points. Like this pointless rushing and constant pressure on the defending team actually becomes counterproductive and it shifts the focus to more “coordinated” team advances. Teams with a good defense can still win games after they get “behind in gates”. The mistessence will breakup “all-in-def-strategies”. Also consider making the mistessence always spawn on the side of the team that’s behind in points and not only the first time.

Alternate Fix: Remove time limit and point ticks all toggelter. (difficult because this can lead to VERY long stalled out matches.)

5. Just 1 map

Fix: More maps. Slightly deferent layout and routes, copy/past secondary mechanics from conquest if necessary.

But what ever you do DONT let this gamemode get to waste.