Legacy of the Foefire Potential Changes

[Ben Phongluangtham.1065]

We're considering a few potential changes to Legacy of the Foefire in the future to help reduce the "snowbally" nature of the map. We wanted to get your thoughts before we start work to see what people think. This isn't a promise or a guarantee of changes. We're just doing a bit of "thinking out loud."

Reduce the size of midMid is really big, compared to other points. This makes kiting particularly effective, since you can kite a lot and remain in the point. This makes easier to defend in comparison to other points.

Reduce runtimes to homeRuntime to home on Foefire is the longest of all conquest maps. It's difficult to regroup at home after a lost fight to the point where it's likely to get decapped.

[Loop.8106]

For as long as Scourge remain in the state they are in now, don't reduce the size of anything please.

[OriOri.8724]

Keep the size of mid as it is. You guys should honestly increase the size of the midcap on every conquest map.....

Small nodes are too easy to cover up with AoEs, especially since there are so many AoEs now. That's just bad design when the entire game mode surrounds capturing points, no one person should be able to cover up the entire point with dangerous AoEs.

[Eleazar.9478]

to piggback off them, with the aoes its damn near impossible to properly melee, its like play the game the floor is lava but every where is cancer. Really wish aoes were the things you guys were planning on reducing in size

[Aranil.3647]

I think you should make the Scourge sands area as big as the center point, instead of reducing the point, so the pvp will be a lot more fun.

A and the warriors f2 to.

[kKagari.6804]

I think mid could do with a few more pillars that you can line of sight ranged attacks with, if the point gets smaller. Like Temple's mid point.

[Aza.2105]

@"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:We're considering a few potential changes to Legacy of the Foefire in the future to help reduce the "snowbally" nature of the map. We wanted to get your thoughts before we start work to see what people think. This isn't a promise or a guarantee of changes. We're just doing a bit of "thinking out loud."

Reduce the size of midMid is really big, compared to other points. This makes kiting particularly effective, since you can kite a lot and remain in the point. This makes easier to defend in comparison to other points.

Reduce runtimes to homeRuntime to home on Foefire is the longest of all conquest maps. It's difficult to regroup at home after a lost fight to the point where it's likely to get decapped.

What? The mid point size in foefire is the size every point should be. Many people have been saying that for years!!!

The 2nd change looks ok though.

[Daharahj.1325]

People have been complaining about point size being too small which allows specs like Scourge to sweep through teams like nothing and you're considering aggravating the problem even further?

I was expecting some sensible changes like reducing point contribution for PvE objectives.

@kKagari.6804 said:I think mid could do with a few more pillars that you can line of sight ranged attacks with, if the point gets smaller. Like Temple's mid point.

The only thing heavy LoSing does is push ranged builds out of viability, which is something we can't afford right now given the current meta.

[Hana.8143]

I have an Idea.What about the spawns of each teams were in front of each other, and when you jump down, you're in water with a lot of legendary sharks called "Better Version Of The Scourge"Well, it was a good idea but... then it's not PvP anymore !

Now about the size, you really need to do something about that. Too small means some classes will be overpowered, and too big means others will be too.I hate being unable to go on a point because small aoes are enough to cover it. And I'll hate to chase classes with too much sustain in a larger point.

[Vagrant.7206]

Don't shrink the point. If anything, you should consider implementing a dynamically-adjusted cap size -- where the longer individuals are in it, the smaller the cap point gets (to a limit, of course). Dynamically-adjusted cap points would allow for varied combat but would also prevent high sustain classes from continually running away to keep the point uncapped.

I'm ok with the second idea though.

[Ivantreil.3092]

People. try to see this changes as the best for the future and not for the best right now.

Scourge can't go untouched next patch, everyone agrees that a serious hammer nerf will hit them next patch.

See the cap point change if its healthy for the long run, not for the current meta.

[Talzed.4153]

@"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:We're considering a few potential changes to Legacy of the Foefire in the future to help reduce the "snowbally" nature of the map. We wanted to get your thoughts...

From my experience, one of the largest issues is that people tend to push lord at inopportune times, either because of lack of experience, frustration, or even sabotage.The lords can no longer be effectively soloed by most players. I think that requiring two people to be at the doors in order to damage them would force it to be much more of a team decision.

[Interpretor.3091]

What about making it so that on all maps there is no "Neutral." Only Red and Blue caps. Would make fighting on the point all that more important, make rotations really matter and make objectives a strategic choice to go after and consider.The reason Foefire in particular (and maps like Capricorn) are so "snow-bally" and frustrating for teams to play on, is that spawn points are too close to objectives, especially the middle point. It's so hard to cap the center point because you are trying so hard to keep re-spawning enemies from jumping into the circle to keep it from being capped. Tanky bunker guardians/ventari revs are particularly good at kiting and surviving on point. Instead of regrouping and fighting as a team, players will continuously run into the neutral point to keep it from being capped.Making the switch away from Neutral points will push players into playing more of a team game instead of running around and Neutralizing points. Destiny 2 made this switch and it's a great format, maybe something to consider?

[TexZero.7910]

If you're trying to reduce snowball, i don't think shrinking a cap is the way to do it.

Try lowering the reward for getting Lord as a starter.

Not sure how you plan to remedy the home being farther than mid situation. I think it's placement offers a unique strategy component that can shake things up so i'm not sure i'd bring it closer. For fixing the regrouping issue, look to change some geometry. I'd say the biggest problem is that mobility is almost too strong in assisting the snowball so removing the varied high grounds and adding more flat terrain to home/more direct routes might assist.

[Dreggon.6598]

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:Reduce the size of midMid is really big, compared to other points. This makes kiting particularly effective, since you can kite a lot and remain in the point. This makes easier to defend in comparison to other points.I like how Foefire has this as a unique feature - no other map has such a large control point. Reducing it is like shaving a Viking's beard - it wouldn't be Foefire anymore.

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:Reduce runtimes to homeRuntime to home on Foefire is the longest of all conquest maps. It's difficult to regroup at home after a lost fight to the point where it's likely to get decapped.You'd have to move spawns rather than the home point itself, otherwise lord rushing becomes too easy. This could also work for making it take longer for a defending team to get to their own lord so they can't trickle in to keep it alive.

[Loboling.5293]

Not a fan of these suggested changes. Foefire is original in it's large mid point. Nothing wrong with having different strategies on different maps. It's one of my favorite maps, I think it is for a lot of people too. Don't ruin it please, just add new maps. Maybe new modes?

[kKagari.6804]

@Daharahj.1325 said:People have been complaining about point size being too small which allows specs like Scourge to sweep through teams like nothing and you're considering aggravating the problem even further?

I was expecting some sensible changes like reducing point contribution for PvE objectives.

@kKagari.6804 said:I think mid could do with a few more pillars that you can line of sight ranged attacks with, if the point gets smaller. Like Temple's mid point.

The only thing heavy LoSing does is push ranged builds out of viability, which is something we can't afford right now given the current meta.

Temple's pillars are located outside the point, which I think is fine. To make use of them, you need to be outside the point to get some reprieve.

[Helbjorne.9368]

@OriOri.8724 said:Keep the size of mid as it is. You guys should honestly increase the size of the midcap on every conquest map.....

Small nodes are too easy to cover up with AoEs, especially since there are so many AoEs now. That's just bad design when the entire game mode surrounds capturing points, no one person should be able to cover up the entire point with dangerous AoEs.

QFT.

We need bigger mid points so we don't have DH traps, Scourge Shades/ Marks/ Wells, etc. covering the entirety of the damn point. The fact that you guys wanted to reduce its size goes to show how disconnected you are with the meta and the PvP community in general. Just give us deathmatch already so classes that can sit back and spam AoEs on the point we have to freaking stand on don't matter anymore. The community has been begging for deathmatch for as long as I can remember, it was implemented with a very poorly designed map, then abandoned due to negative feedback; that isn't how you implement things.

Same goes for Stronghold; that could have been an interesting and fun gamemode but it was poorly implemented. I think you'd be better off getting a few members on your team that actually PvP'd on a semi-competitive level instead of sitting around a table thinking up ways to even further damage the PvP community through ignorance. Because of the atrocious matchmaking system (matching Silver players against Legends/80% of matches being blowouts), the terrible MMR system (punishing said Silver players for losing despite them not standing a chance), making bad design choices resulting in lower PvP populations (which impacts matchmaking quality), waiting months between balance patches leaving broken builds to run rampant that entire time (again, impacting matchmaking quality), refusing to balance PvP and PvE separately (resulting in balance typically going in favor of PvE), making PIPS ranked only (forcing bad players that otherwise wouldn't play ranked to play ranked), and the complete lack of content for the past 5 years (stronghold doesn't count and the DM map was poorly made), the PvP community is dying.

I've talked at least 5 people in my guild into starting PvP and doing ranked PvP, and all of them but 1 have said the same thing: once they get their Ascended Wings they're not playing PvP again because of how terribly it's implemented.

[Aktium.9506]

If anything I'd say make all Mid capture points on all maps bigger than the side nodes. As annoying as kiting is, I feel it would be beneficial for the game to have larger mid nodes and smaller side nodes.

On another note, make the gates to the Lords take condition damage. It feels pretty restrictive being on a condi build and knowing it will take far too long to bust the gate down thus denying a clutch Lord rush as an option.

[Kata.6795]

Maybe instead of focusing on minor things that have been in the game from launch you can perhaps discuss your thoughts (if any) on the balance ATM. Granted, the meta is developing, but scourge (and to a smaller extent, spellbreaker) are terrorizing the villagers.

I'm not really ready to scream "OP, nerf into the ground", but I am interested in hearing what you have to say about possible changes/directions you are considering for pvp and the hypothetical time frame involved.

The main issue for spellbreaker, in my eyes, is that it currently has too few windows to be killed by marauder's ammy classes, while requiring very little effort to kill the aforementioned. I wouldn't necessarily point my finger at full counter, but I do believe that in conjunction with low cooldown on endure pain (+ traits), over saturation of stability, and a 16 second shield block is perhaps too potent a combination given all of their other strengths. Losing 1 source of stability will allow more counterplay but preserve the warriors niche of being a frontliner. Despite the obvious strengths, spellbreaker suffers from lack of condition removal, smart necros/condi mesmers can easily capitalize on this by stripping resistance, and keeping cripple/chill/weakness up.

I wouldn't say spellbreaker is too scary. It is strong in 1v1s but a good dragonhunter can dance with it, effective kiting greatly reduces it's damage. Not something to engage on Power ranger or thief.

Scourge. What to say, it's not fun to be melee vs. It has too much damage and control (blind/cripple/weakness) over too wide an area, melee can't really compete. This problem is greatly exacerbated, when you add support like firebrand and/or another scourge into the mix. At that point, melee cannot exist in the vicinity, and ranged damage is really well mitigated by guardian bubbles. This makes it mandatory, to have at the barest of minimums 1 scourge, and for melee, a ranged weapon. I wouldn't use the word broken, it can be countered, but it will shift the game away from what it currently is: contesting points by standing on points.

Adding a 2 second delay before sand shades activate could make things interesting. Similarly, you can also mix things up by adding a life force cost to summoning the actual shade and increasing the cast time/shared cooldown for shade abilities/shades get destroyed by each ability.

[Malediktus.9250]

Both changes sound horrible to me, sorry

[Kuya.6495]

I'd be more interested in changing lord mechanics so it actually benefits the team with less caps. A good example is capricorn and skyhammer. Would be nice to decrease points received for lord from 150 to 100, and have it so killing lord caps all points in your favor and gives your team a buff.

Also consider raising lord hp so it cannot be solo'd.

[Kahrgan.7401]

Ah anet, clueless as ever :).

[Xolas.9781]

To sum it up Anet's thoughts-"We feel like Scourge and Spellbreaker aren't dominating spvp enough. We'd like to reduce the size of the mid point on Foefire so that Scourge can now zone 100% of the point with 0 effort, just like every other capture point. Players were also abusing the spellbreaker's sole weakness of being attacked at range, which isn't fair for our warrior-playing devs. Now, in order to contest the point, everyone else must be within hardcounter/melee range so that the spellbreaker isn't punished for running two melee sets."

[Interpretor.3091]

@Kata.6795 said:Maybe instead of focusing on minor things that have been in the game from launch you can perhaps discuss your thoughts (if any) on the balance ATM. Granted, the meta is developing, but scourge (and to a smaller extent, spellbreaker) are terrorizing the villagers.

I'm not really ready to scream "OP, nerf into the ground", but I am interested in hearing what you have to say about possible changes/directions you are considering for pvp and the hypothetical time frame involved.

The main issue for spellbreaker, in my eyes, is that it currently has too few windows to be killed by marauder's ammy classes, while requiring very little effort to kill the aforementioned. I wouldn't necessarily point my finger at full counter, but I do believe that in conjunction with low cooldown on endure pain (+ traits), over saturation of stability, and a 16 second shield block is perhaps too potent a combination given all of their other strengths. Losing 1 source of stability will allow more counterplay but preserve the warriors niche of being a frontliner. Despite the obvious strengths, spellbreaker suffers from lack of condition removal, smart necros/condi mesmers can easily capitalize on this by stripping resistance, and keeping cripple/chill/weakness up.

I wouldn't say spellbreaker is too scary. It is strong in 1v1s but a good dragonhunter can dance with it, effective kiting greatly reduces it's damage. Not something to engage on Power ranger or thief.

Scourge. What to say, it's not fun to be melee vs. It has too much damage and control (blind/cripple/weakness) over too wide an area, melee can't really compete. This problem is greatly exacerbated, when you add support like firebrand and/or another scourge into the mix. At that point, melee cannot exist in the vicinity, and ranged damage is really well mitigated by guardian bubbles. This makes it mandatory, to have at the barest of minimums 1 scourge, and for melee, a ranged weapon. I wouldn't use the word broken, it can be countered, but it will shift the game away from what it currently is: contesting points by standing on points.

Adding a 2 second delay before sand shades activate could make things interesting. Similarly, you can also mix things up by adding a life force cost to summoning the actual shade and increasing the cast time/shared cooldown for shade abilities/shades get destroyed by each ability.

This is a good and constructive comment.