Should "Stronghold" get another chance ?

[Vieux P.1238]

Can we focus on new map's with new concept instead of fixing the old failed ones?

[Westenev.5289]

I was never overly fond of Stronghold, mainly because nobody ever tries to play it seriously. I fear that even if we did get another game mode (or revamped old ones), it would probably recieve the same treatment.

[Maliheim.2591]

I find stronghold infinitely more enjoyable than conquest. Conquest is boring, and the fact that it's played more than Conquest thoroughly surprises and saddens me. Call of Duty syndrome has unfortunately found a home in MMORPG's now.

[FrigginPaco.4178]

When Stronghold was first announced I thought it would be similar to GW1's Fort Aspenwood. That's the PvP map I spent the MOST time on because I thought its mechanics were fun, easy to learn, hard to master, and there were SO MANY viable alternative builds to run in there. Instead, as more info came out, I was saddened to learn it was basically a way to make SMITE for GW2 and I really didn't jive with the idea. I mean... Jade Quarry is a map that revolved around node capture and ESCORTING of all things, and even THAT was more satisfying to play than Stronghold.

I ask myself frequently why Anet doesn't simply bring PvP/GvG/Alliance Battle (Medium Scale WvW/PvP hybrid) formats from GW1 straight into GW2 in some form. The game has been around for over 7 years and it's only got 2 ranked PvP modes? Are you kidding me? It's a bit much frankly.

[Eddbopkins.2630]

It's a dumb/bad concept to have some pve boss in a PvP game mode. Stronghold is in no way a competitive mode that utilises team coordination and strategy to achieve a beat down of the enemy team. Witch is what PvP playerVSplayer should be.

Not 7 years of 3 node circle jerk. Witch is what we got...../sad

Long live gw1 pvp scene!

[Aza.2105]

@sephiroth.4217 said:I think maybe simple changes like making it an 8v8 and not making it as PvE heavy

Yep 8v8 would make it a better map.

[saerni.2584]

It’s not terrible as a concept but needs some refining. Anet might actually be able to pull that off with less resources as compared to some things people ask for.

I’d like to see in general:

• Less NPCs
• More Player driven
• New maps/mechanics.
• Use Stronghold in between ranked seasons for ranked queue.
• Competitive titles tied to a Stronghold ranked leaderboard
• Unique skins tied to Stronghold

More specific:

• I’d like to see the archer/siege NPCs go away. It makes half the game about clearing NPCs and distracts from playing actively. We should be the ones building siege as if this were a mini WvW match with fewer players. We can invest our resources in defensive siege or offensive siege and have pre-set build points where we do that. Obviously, make these gates weaker than in WvW to let things progress smoothly.
• Resources should heavily come from winning fights in the map.
• Heroes should be summoned when a team has successfully destroyed outer and inner gates. The current mechanic is more “summon NPCs to do things for you.”
• Killing an enemy hero should confer a significant resource bonus to allow comebacks and make the hero valuable to the team effort to turn around a game where their lord is vulnerable to attack but they beat back the NPC assisted assault.

Some new map ideas:

• Floating Asuran labs fighting over ancient ruins with interesting buried technology. Portals, Asuran themed siege, and the Lords are Golems.
• Skritt gangs fighting over shinies. Lords are Skritt, and the siege looks less than high quality. Map involves either paying off a Skritt to get through the gates or usual siege.
• Charr Legions. Training exercise between legions. Fight over the mega siege cannon to win the day.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

its a simple fix:remove supply. running it is garbage game play. make the heroes the gate destroyers, capture point for them opens every 30 sec to 1 min.make the old supply depot a waypoint that opens for 10 sec every minute for who ever has control over it. it opens immediately upon capture.change heroes so that they all do equal damage to gates but provide different bonuses. nerf some since they are grossly op. no more map wide skills.make the gate guards a lot stronger.make it a 10v10 map. its just too big and too much going on for a 5v5.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

Stronghold is actually pretty fun now that DPS is much higher. Blowing up NPCs is waaaay easier to do now than it was before.

Seems like what was boring to people in the past, was having to spend time to DPS down a group of rats while a tempest tried to heal it or something. Those days are long gone in Stronghold, as anyone would know who has played it recently. Current meta specs just absolutely tear through the Stronghold NPCs like paper. This results in the game mode being a lot more about players vs. players, with much less time spent worrying about NPCs.

But on the other hand, rats are so easy to kill now, that I've encountered games where quite seriously not a single rat ever reaches either of the first gates. And this results in a completely kill oriented death match between two teams, where there is sort of a consistent hanging objective of: "Don't let rats touch the gates while we fight for kill points." I find this fun actually... it ends up being a better death match than the intended Courtyard actual death match, because there ARE still objectives with the death match, other than just respawning & killing. But ultimately, I'm sure Arenanet wouldn't like that dynamic as it really wasn't intended to be played that way.

Guarantee you that when two plat level teams go against each other in Stronghold with such DPS nowadays, that is what happens 9/10 games ^ This posses problems for Stronghold's dynamic, if players seriously wanted it to be reviewed and maybe put into ranked or unranked rotation. Things would need to be done to fix this effect. Maybe things like this:

• Gates need less health
• Rats need more health
• Rat bombs need to deal more damage
• Remove archers and replace with a way to use supply to summon player wielded siege "Like a Charzooka or something" so it is easier for higher tier players in more strategical games to actually get inside of those gates.

And on a different note:

For players who haven't tried Stronghold lately, I suggest doing it and see if you notice the same thing about the dynamic that I did. For those who think that dynamic is fun, what I had mentioned in the above, it had made me consider the idea of reimplementing death match but with objectives in the death match.

Imagine an open arena like the 2v2s, but it was a 5v5, and objectives would spawn around the map that would effect the 5v5 death match. Things like the Sword & Shield artifacts, or the old meditation shrines that granted +5 points on a kill, ect ect.. Honestly, there is a lot that could be done to make Death Match 5v5 player or new 2v2 Arenas really really really spicy and new. Just devise new types of interesting objectives that players must split and contest. It would bring stronger elements into Death Match styled games. This would be REALLY EASY to do on Arenanet's part, and probably the quick fix that this game mode needs for some kind of a new mode that is able to match Conquest in "strategy required" because let me tell ya boys, the reason why these other game modes failed isn't because they were so bad, truth be told, it was because Conquest is so well designed. Conquest remained the preferred mode because your brain has more to think about than simply "winning combat". Conquest is so well designed because rotations and raw experience working objectives and knowing the maps, is every bit as important as mechanical combat skill. If we ever wanted a new game mode to succeed or to bring back old modes, they need to be updated so that they match Conquest in this aspect.

Think about it, you know it's true.

[Khalisto.5780]

make the maps bigger and turn it into a gvg stuff

[Bewt.9258]

Damn I'm gonna que some stronghold right now thanks for reminding me.

Yes, anet should definitely improve on stronghold and the community should make an effort to embrace it again.

[Chaith.8256]

Premise: Stronghold can be a fun and competitive mode as long as it starts prioritizing the defeat of players before the PvE objectives.

Vision: Player killing should be the priority to progress towards the finish line, but current objectives should still not be ignored.

Purpose: Stronghold starts being a great, addictive, game mode.

Strategy:

• Killing a player should spawn a strong NPC.
• Killing a player applies a powerful stacking buff to your teams NPCs
• Dying results in an increasing penalty of longer spawn timer for that individual.

[Bladestrom.6425]

Make map larger, make it 8 v 8.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Fort_Aspenwood.

I. E make stronghold an invasion style arena.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

I'm split between not liking Stronghold, and wanting dev-time put into other Arenas. Arenas that could potentially be ranked like 2v2 deathmatch or an actual team vs team.

When it comes to Stronghold, I just don't like MOBAs. I play sPvP to play sPvP and Stronghold just doesn't feel like it. It's got a lot of the same problems that just about every other MOBA has like easily Snowballing, being too heavily impacted by the meta, and overly reliant on skill-based matchmaking which sPvP just doesn't have.

[DonArkanio.6419]

Stronghold is actually a great PvP concept for an MMO game. It just needs more incentive from the Devs. They just left it over.

[Daishi.6027]

You need In lane jousting if you want this type of thing to be fun.

[Knighthonor.4061]

No 5v5 is bad. Stronghold should been minimum 20 vs 20

[aymnad.9023]

Either option 1 or 2. I would definitly like a new take on Stronghold.I think the main issue is the 2 lane. Have just side/team attacking, the other defending then switch.If by MOBA style you mean people are locked into specific builds (like wintersday), why not! You can also have regular waves where you do not control but can improve the npc.

[Mandatory.6590]

@Eddbopkins.2630 said:It's a dumb/bad concept to have some pve boss in a PvP game mode. Stronghold is in no way a competitive mode that utilises team coordination and strategy to achieve a beat down of the enemy team. Witch is what PvP playerVSplayer should be.

Not 7 years of 3 node circle jerk. Witch is what we got...../sad

Long live gw1 pvp scene!

Oh, so you only liked random arenas and formerly team arenas in GW1.

[Mandatory.6590]

@Multicolorhipster.9751 said:I'm split between not liking Stronghold, and wanting dev-time put into other Arenas. Arenas that could potentially be ranked like 2v2 deathmatch or an actual team vs team.

When it comes to Stronghold, I just don't like MOBAs. I play sPvP to play sPvP and Stronghold just doesn't feel like it. It's got a lot of the same problems that just about every other MOBA has like easily Snowballing, being too heavily impacted by the meta, and overly reliant on skill-based matchmaking which sPvP just doesn't have.

Why not 1v1? That's how you can see true individual skill in PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER. It would be like any fighting game, and you can choose your hero and adjust as needed. If we had a 1v1 leader board, it would be undeniable who was the best, whoever that may be. At least for that season. I don't think people want their ego busted though.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

@Mandatory.6590 said:Why not 1v1? That's how you can see true individual skill in PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER. It would be like any fighting game, and you can choose your hero and adjust as needed. If we had a 1v1 leader board, it would be undeniable who was the best, whoever that may be. At least for that season. I don't think people want their ego busted though.

It doesn't feel like a fighting game either. I play fighting games competitively(Games being MK and SSB) and the potential for cheese that exists in Gw2 doesn't exist there because most fighting games are balanced well, or at the very least better than gw2. Every character feels like they're at an even playing field with some more and less favorable matchups, even zoners.

Gw2 just has too many cheesey ways to troll, or be Overpowered/Underpowered that a 1v1 mode feels impossible. I guess they could try it at the very least, but i'd want that mode split from the standard Ranked queue.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

@"Mandatory.6590" said:Why not 1v1? That's how you can see true individual skill in PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER. It would be like any fighting game, and you can choose your hero and adjust as needed. If we had a 1v1 leader board, it would be undeniable who was the best, whoever that may be. At least for that season. I don't think people want their ego busted though.

It doesn't feel like a fighting game either. I play fighting games competitively(Games being MK and SSB) and the potential for cheese that exists in Gw2 doesn't exist there because most fighting games are balanced well, or at the very least better than gw2. Every character feels like they're at an even playing field with some more and less favorable matchups, even zoners.

Gw2 just has too many cheesey ways to troll, or be Overpowered/Underpowered that a 1v1 mode feels impossible. I guess they could try it at the very least, but i'd want that mode split from the standard Ranked queue.

I had already worked out rules for all of this 1v1 stuff several several seasons ago, when Guild MM and I were hosting tournaments for the community.

It's actually very easy to formulate somewhat balanced 1v1 rules for GW2:

1. Once you load into the match, you get a certain usual amount of time to swap class or character or change your build structure.
2. When the first round begins, the players must stay on the characters they chose to play in the first round, for the rest of the rounds.
3. Each round is a 1v1 match styled around the idea of side node battles. So rather than just 1v1 combat each other, which truth be told can be broken and never end with sustain setups or overly mobile setups, which results in needing too many meta to meta changes in restrictions on certain things, the idea is to "win the node." So points will go back and forth to each player, just like in a conquest, for who held the node more often during the 1v1. If a player dies within the 3 minutes, he respawns and has a chance to attempt to decap and/or kill the other player to catch up in points for that round. Kills should reward more than +5 points for a 1v1 styled match up. Maybe more like +25 or even +50. In the rare even that neither player dies, and the node never flips from neutral towards any color, the winner will be the player who has the best stats concerning these stats, in this priority order -> Victory goes to player who spent the most time on the node. If it is somehow still equal, then the Victory goes to the player who took the least amount of damage. In the 1/1,000,000 chance that the amount of damage taken is equal, then we allow the game to freeze, DCing both of them, requiring them both to restart their client. Or, just make it a draw and they have to redo the round. There are 3 rounds to each match. Victory goes to the player who plays the best out of 3.
4. Say Player (A) wins round 1. Player (A)'s character and build becomes locked during the start of round 2, meaning he can change nothing. Player (B) on the other hand, is allowed to swap anything on his current character's build, but not swap characters. This is to allow counter player for players who may have been hard countered, and also to put pressure on the player who is dominant. So round 2 will be potentially different than round 1, in terms of builds being used.
5. The same thing happens at the start of round 3. The victor of round 2 will become locked so he cannot change his build that won the round. The loser will be able to swap his build for the start of round 3.
6. By the end of round 3, one of the players will have a best 2 out of 3 victory for the match.

I know a lot of players would toss would-be suggestions and criticism at this idea ^ But for those of us who have ever seriously sat down and considered the problems with a 1v1 styled game mode or even a small community ran tournament, or for those who have had the balls to organize and run a few or maybe many, those players would recognize that something like the above, is the only way to make such a game mode functional and dynamic in Guild Wars 2, while offering counter play choices, and keeping all gear selections viable without needing to put special restrictions on some kind of 1v1 death match with no node play.

[rbbthole.9074]

Strongwhat?

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

@Trevor Boyer.6524

Idunno. Sound idea I guess. I'm not for shooting down ideas before they see the light of day, it just sounds pretty ripe for trolling and snowballing.

Plus, if i'm being entirely honest; i'd want a ranked arena that pulls away DuoQs from Ranked 5v5 conquest. I know 1v1 wouldn't likely do that because there's nobody for them to play with, and good players absolutely hate being matched against other good players.

I'd rather a 2v2, 3v3, or separate Team Arena like I said before. If they make it like you say; based around a node, kills scoring much higher, I think that would work even better in teams of 2-3 being that the scope is narrowed.

[Ourasa.7306]

The first way I believe would make stronghold any real fun is by increasing the player count so that multitasking isn’t a pain. Yes, multitasking encourages flexibility and decision making, but being constantly forced to alternate between the two can really get on the nerves.

Another way would be to make teams that specifically focus on one objective. As in, one team is trying to break through, and another is trying to defend. The offense’s goal is to kill the lord, while the defense’s goal would be to stall for time, in which reinforcements would come and finish off all the attackers permanently. Gates and the likes would still be a thing.

Also, I believe players would like to take a more active role in attacking and defending. Sure, we got trebuchet for defense, but that’s it. Why not throw some iron pots, cannons, and high ground behind gate for rangers? As for offense, why not give them bundle weapons? A ram would be nice, and some catapults to counter the high grounders hiding behind the gates. (Yeah, I know it sounds like WvW)