Change Svanir and Chieftan on Forest of Niflhel

The map Forest of Niflhel is a classic and plays really well in organized 5v5. However, in solo/duo queue players are led to believe that objectives on the map are a good thing to do because that makes perfect sense. If a developer is to make secondary objectives, surely they are worth doing right? Wrong. At least 99% of the time Svanir or Chieftain is killed it is a detriment to that players team because they could have been doing something more useful during that period of time. It's really frustrating to be in matches and watch teammates constantly do these objectives that hurt your team. There have historically only been 3 good times in organized 5v5 competitive matches for players to kill Svanir or Chieftain.

1. When it's really close, you are behind, and the game is nearly ending where 25 to 50 points can win you the match. If you are ahead and it's close it's almost always a bad idea to do them because you are giving your enemies the chance to steal them rather than just letting your winning points tic over 500 while they have to decrease the whole health pools of Svanir and Chieftain.
2. When you are a home node defender and can pick off Chieftain or Svanir while still in range to make it to home when someone tries to decap you, a much more realistic strategy for Chieftain side.
3. You win the team fight middle and pushing far is too risky so your team kills your sides creature while you are waiting for the enemy to respawn, which is just smart use of time that couldn't have been spent doing much else. Even so there are a few times teams attempt to do this and it is a mistake. I wouldn't ever give a solo queue team the benefit of the doubt that this would be a good idea let alone have them be organized enough to attempt such a decision.

In solo queue only one of these situations really ever comes up and that is # 1. Which is great and should be kept intact. Even so it is still rare. # 3 arises very rarely in solo queue. # 2 is also extremely niche and even in competitive play was often more useful for your home noder to rotate to middle if their home node was not expected to be decapped and even if it was expected to be decapped going middle could often be the better choice to just win the team fight and retake home from the thief easily after.

I have ideas for what could be changed but first I just want to get it out there that this is a real problem. I find it incredibly odd that players have to learn that an objective on a map is a bad thing to do.

This problem has occured a few times in my history playing GW2 on Legacy but it is much less of a problem there. It's only a good objective to do at 350 and people have to learn that but I think people learn that the first time they ever attempt to do lord and realize it's not a cake walk to kill like it used to be.

Imo it's more of a problem of the players than it is of the game design. I mean, you correctly mentioned the situations in which bosses are viable, the problem is just that most people don't know them. On Kyhlo the secondary objective is even worse than on Nifhlel, but there the majority of the playerbase has understood that trebbing is a bad idea and will just leave your team outnumbered (maybe in the lowest tiers it still happens once in a while).

@Falan.1839 said:Imo it's more of a problem of the players than it is of the game design. I mean, you correctly mentioned the situations in which bosses are viable, the problem is just that most people don't know them. On Kyhlo the secondary objective is even worse than on Nifhlel, but there the majority of the playerbase has understood that trebbing is a bad idea and will just leave your team outnumbered (maybe in the lowest tiers it still happens once in a while).

You're right in a way. People do treb on Khylo too and it's not a good choice most of the time but it is much rarer than forest. Same with Legacy, people generally know its a bad idea to go for Lord especially before 350. Forest is just this in between where people don't realize it's bad because it's close enough to being a good idea. Or an idea that isn't as easy to identify as bad. Either way it needs to be addressed and I think the easiest way to do that is just change Svanir and Chieftain somehow.

I personally think that it's a good thing that it's like this. Objectives shouldn't necessarily be super black and white. They are risks for potential rewards. Learning when to beast and when not to beast is part of learning the map, and Conquest as a whole. Sure it is frustrating to be on the team with a misplay, but that means there needs to be more thinking involved than other map's objectives, which is healthy (in my eyes). Beasts can die so quickly with how much damage is powercreeped anyway that the risk has decreased over time.

I posted years ago that creatures shouldn't spawn right at the beginning when they used to. I just got told people need to learn how to play, but Anet did change it the next year. I think the Forest objectives aren't the only problems, some other objectives clearly favor certain team comps. If they have fb/scourge on Capricorn and you don't (even worse if you have a naked scourge), you have to severely outrotate the enemy team to win without capping a single bell, which is typically 3 a game. This is why I like Temple's objectives more than other maps. Yes it favors people with more teamfight in general, but factors like the long channel makes it so with good mobility you can still stall for a long time. To actually win it you also usually have to commit a lot of players to a secluded area which makes it easy for the enemy team to get stillness and decap all your points. Capricorn bell is literally just in the middle of the map and very accessible by anyone without much downside to committing to it.

There's definitely a player element to it, and because of how random the matchmaking is it can be frustrating to be a top player like you and be placed with people who have no idea how to manage these objectives. They just end up being flytraps for your teammates, making it harder for you to "carry". So yes, people do need to learn how to manage these objectives, but unpredictable matchmaking makes it difficult to know what to expect from your teammates. And yes, I'll still have games where a teammate spends half the game trebbing even in plat 2 queues.

For creatures specifically, I'm not too sure how to change them. Maybe make them much harder to kill so you have to commit a lot of players to it, increasing the reward? Maybe only have 1 creature somewhere in the center in a pit or some place that's harder to commit to like tranquility? I'd love to hear what your thoughts are though.

I think the beasts should just turn into 15 second channels that award 50 points.

If you get hit, it cancels the channel, similar to buffs on temple. The numbers can be changed, but I think a high risk high reward channel is better than the current system since its pretty RNG who gets the kill on a contested beast.

This idea would also make them worth fighting over leading to some cool splits like 1v1s on all 3 nodes and 1v1s at beasts as well.

But yeah, I don't like the current iteration. I have too many bad experiences with them. Here are some:

1. I am holding 1v3 at far. My team loses cap at mid and home. Wondering why, I look at the map and see 3 of my teammates WAITING for svanir to respawn.
2. My teammate pings and (tries) to kill the beasts every time they respawn. We were losing the other points so I told her to help the team instead of going beasts. She gets mad and at the end of the match states that the only reason we won was because she got 3 beasts kills. Meanwhile I was winning 1v3s the entire match on a neutral node.

The extreme toxicity that arises on this map is much greater than on any map as well. Fights are always breaking out between players fighting over how dumb the other is for trying to kill/not trying to kill animals. Don't know how many different names I've been called just trying to explain why going beast is a bad idea. They should really just take this map out of rotation like they did that other map that is so bad I can't even remember the name of.

@"Rufo.3716" said:The extreme toxicity that arises on this map is much greater than on any map as well. Fights are always breaking out between players fighting over how dumb the other is for trying to kill/not trying to kill animals. Don't know how many different names I've been called just trying to explain why going beast is a bad idea. They should really just take this map out of rotation like they did that other map that is so bad I can't even remember the name of.

When creature spawned at the very beginning, every game I'd have to type "please go mid don't kill creature" and the usual response was "stfu retard".

Aaaand we lost mid (:

Yeah, it's almost always a loss when you have 2 people going to the beast at the start of the match, especially if they take longer than 10 seconds to kill it. I had a match the other day where 1 guy sat at our empty home base, 2 people attacked the mob for what felt like a good 30+ seconds, and then the remaining teammate and I were 2 v 4 at mid. We lost mid, then there was a 3 v 1 at home in which the 3 were being farmed somehow and actually dying to the one guy.

I don't think it's a problem with the game, though. Some people just need more experience playing. (Although considering this is the only pvp game mode we've had for years, it's surprising to see how many people still don't understand the basics of it. Maybe there are just a whole bunch of new players trying it out, who knows?)

I think this is one of the least balanced maps, and not due to the beasts. The side nodes are too friendly to experienced players that want to kite, harass, and hold an advantage 2v1 or even 3v1.

The beast mechanic is largely fine in my view relative to this.

@Julius Seizure.4985 said:I think this is one of the least balanced maps, and not due to the beasts. The side nodes are too friendly to experienced players that want to kite, harass, and hold an advantage 2v1 or even 3v1.

The beast mechanic is largely fine in my view relative to this.

Can you explain why is rewarding skill and experience a bad thing? If anything, seeing an experienced player kite on these nodes in person should serve as a very good learning experience.

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Julius Seizure.4985 said:I think this is one of the least balanced maps, and not due to the beasts. The side nodes are too friendly to experienced players that want to kite, harass, and hold an advantage 2v1 or even 3v1.

The beast mechanic is largely fine in my view relative to this.

Sure thing-- every side node has the opportunity to harass/kite. And simply put, you can do this better through experience on every map as you become more familiar with hidden jumping areas and LOS possibilities. An experienced player should always be able to do this better than an inexperienced player.

The difference, however, is that the side nodes on this map are drastically larger and more complex than any other map. This leads to a significant imbalance between experienced and inexperienced players, providing an advantage that is hugely greater than any other map.

This is a far greater source of imbalance than beasts are.

@eksn.7264 said:

@"Rufo.3716" said:The extreme toxicity that arises on this map is much greater than on any map as well. Fights are always breaking out between players fighting over how dumb the other is for trying to kill/not trying to kill animals. Don't know how many different names I've been called just trying to explain why going beast is a bad idea. They should really just take this map out of rotation like they did that other map that is so bad I can't even remember the name of.

Get mid or die trying :lol:

This is entirely a learn to play issue, not on your part OP but that of the people who don't already know. When you start playing any game you have to learn your classes, your skills and the map which includes when to exploit aspects of it or not. I think it's more telling on how GW2 has changed to become something many players are no longer enjoying and so taking breaks leaving queues absent of veteran players which leads to this situation.

The change you want Phantaram isn't to the map, it's to the game which encourages people to stay, learn and improve. It would solve more of your issue as well like poor matchmaking and team mates though is a harder problem to solve itself. I think in general the pace of the game has run away with itself where we have got more damage but also more defence all on lower cool downs than before we had the expansions and a healthy PvP scene which leads to the feeling that you're balancing on a knife edge.

@Julius Seizure.4985 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Julius Seizure.4985 said:I think this is one of the least balanced maps, and not due to the beasts. The side nodes are too friendly to experienced players that want to kite, harass, and hold an advantage 2v1 or even 3v1.

The beast mechanic is largely fine in my view relative to this.

I understand what you're saying but I believe the issue is with the players rather than the map.

You said that the map layout leads to a greater imbalance between experienced and inexperienced players. However, if there were enough players so that it always matched experienced players with experienced and inexperienced with inexperienced, this wouldn't be a problem.

To be fair, there will always be a noticeable gap between experienced and inexperienced players. One of the worst things to do is nullify a player's additional experience and skill. There will always be someone worse, that doesn't mean it's imbalanced.

Here's a good representation.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:I personally think that it's a good thing that it's like this. Objectives shouldn't necessarily be super black and white. They are risks for potential rewards. Learning when to beast and when not to beast is part of learning the map, and Conquest as a whole. Sure it is frustrating to be on the team with a misplay, but that means there needs to be more thinking involved than other map's objectives, which is healthy (in my eyes). Beasts can die so quickly with how much damage is powercreeped anyway that the risk has decreased over time.

The only thing to learn is to not do the secondary objective. Ever. That's not interesting.

what if they started running or walking towards the sidenodes as soon as they spawned and could cap them for the team on the opposite side?

like utahein caps henge for red team and svanir caps mine for blue team

I agree with the OP. Maybe a simple yet effective solution would be to just make them worth more points ?

Games come down to Svanir/Chieftan kills a lot in normal ladder. The map is fine the way it is, if your team chooses to go for it over point-objective that's their mistake or perfection based on the scenario and if they read it properly.

Is treb useless? You probably won't ever see it used in plat3+ games so i guess it is? No. I guarantee you when enemy team has teamfight composition and you have two thieves that throwing in a treb shot (if the situation allows for a 5-10s deviation) to eat a defensive CD in mid (or a dodge roll more than likely cause if you dodge treb that means you're 100% open to get destroyed by players coming out of that dodge) and rotational mobility superiority, with the right coordination and highly reactive players the mechanic fits in perfectly.

Its not the game's fault the players are faulty. I'd rather see the players improve then the game continue to numb itself.

@"apharma.3741" said:This is entirely a learn to play issue, not on your part OP but that of the people who don't already know. When you start playing any game you have to learn your classes, your skills and the map which includes when to exploit aspects of it or not. I think it's more telling on how GW2 has changed to become something many players are no longer enjoying and so taking breaks leaving queues absent of veteran players which leads to this situation.

The change you want Phantaram isn't to the map, it's to the game which encourages people to stay, learn and improve. It would solve more of your issue as well like poor matchmaking and team mates though is a harder problem to solve itself. I think in general the pace of the game has run away with itself where we have got more damage but also more defence all on lower cool downs than before we had the expansions and a healthy PvP scene which leads to the feeling that you're balancing on a knife edge.

"leads to this situation" bruh it's been happening since day 1 of playing this game. Nothing lead to it. It's always been this way. Maybe on the 10th Anniversary players will have learned by then.

@Phantaram.1265 said:

@"apharma.3741" said:This is entirely a learn to play issue, not on your part OP but that of the people who don't already know. When you start playing any game you have to learn your classes, your skills and the map which includes when to exploit aspects of it or not. I think it's more telling on how GW2 has changed to become something many players are no longer enjoying and so taking breaks leaving queues absent of veteran players which leads to this situation.

The change you want Phantaram isn't to the map, it's to the game which encourages people to stay, learn and improve. It would solve more of your issue as well like poor matchmaking and team mates though is a harder problem to solve itself. I think in general the pace of the game has run away with itself where we have got more damage but also more defence all on lower cool downs than before we had the expansions and a healthy PvP scene which leads to the feeling that you're balancing on a knife edge.

Well yes it would happen on day 1, people haven't played the game to understand beasts :lol:

It's an education issue and a consequence of the upper end of PvP leaving so fast, back in season 5-6 even mid plat rarely saw people going beasts let alone people in legend and upper plat. They've all left because of power creep making the game not fun. The plebs are taking over, sit back and accept your fate or try to educate, your choice, here's something to listen to while you contemplate.

Edit: No salt, I just really like the song and think it fits. I am sorry that you're not having a lot of fun at the top of the league though.

What if they just joined your team after being killed? Would follow the player that got the kill. In addition to the points gained.I'm only half serious. :lol:

@Phantaram Thanks for your video guide on d/d ele might rotations, I learned a lot from it.

What I see here: A former ESL player asking ANET to change the game to suit "Pro League" playstyle. ANET has followed that path before and it was unsuccessful. I don't think it's a good idea here either.

Nifhel is one of the maps I'm glad to get. There are already too many maps with harsh game flipping mechanics. The new Capricorn is the most egregious. Such mechanics overemphasize AOE and specific classes, like Scourge.

I agree that this 2-bosses system on Niflhel is not really enhancing the quality of gameplay on that map, but it's not so easy to find better objectives I think. The good thing about Svanir and Chieftain is that both teams have equal chances at getting them, plus the rewards for killing it are OK (not too much, not too little). You could replace it for 1 larger boss somewhere in the middle of the map (down from the Keep or at the beach area for example). This boss is harder to kill and requires more than 1 player to kill it, but it takes some time to kill it and is therefore risky. You get 50 points for it and a stat bonus for example. I don't know, just throwing an idea here.