Bringing KUF2/CB mode into GW2.

[Nabbut.7480]

A PvP map where each participant brings with him a custom troop, like in Kingdoms Under Fire 2 or Conqueror's Blade.

Many of us are Commanders and deserve to command own retinue not only be gladiators / pack of wolves!

Development expenses shall be small as most assets can be taken from other modes.

And it opens up a new skins/collectibles/achievements market.

[Zephire.8049]

So a Hack and Slash/RTS mode?

 

If done well I could see that possibly working but given how GW2's combat is all about movement, telling troops to stand in one area would make them really easy to take down. They actually used a similar system with a couple hearts in POF but the result was rather janky and they haven't used it since, which tells me they were trying it out to see if it would work but it didn't work well enough to continue using given how other pieces of new tech from that time got over used when they got it to work (e.g. the infamous spin cycle attack).

 

Also model/art assets are the smaller part of the cost. The sheer amount of coding the map, events, and the AI need would take up a lot of resources, meaning both money and developer time. Plus all the development time planning such a feature out. Sure you could theoretically pop in various generic soldier models, but you need to have things like pathing, attacks, response time, and how the player character issues orders coded in first otherwise you'll just have soldiers t-posing or wandering around.

 

Or both.

 

Given how GW1 Factions had an emphasis on PvP and EOD is going back to Cantha, something like this may fit in, but I'd rather they adapt it to GW2 instead of directly copy it from other games much like how mounts in GW2 are both similar to but very different from mounts in other MMOs.

[Nabbut.7480]

I think "AI" of NPC companions you get on story missions should suffice, to tag along and attack closest.

Events? What do you mean by this?

[Zephire.8049]

The AI that has NPCs stall or run in the opposite direction? That has them completely ignore combat randomly? IBS and LW4 improved it some, but it's still far too unreliable to make it a core component of a game mode. And if its current state is fine, that just means players will ignore anything to do with them as player characters would be vastly superior and it would be easy to get by them or line-of-sight them.

 

Even if you compensate by making NPCs tankier, people would avoid engaging them as it wouldn't be fun, especially if another player is there attacking you at the same time. Same if you increase their damage to compensate—it's not fun to engage with enemies if you know you're going to die if you do. Particularly if the mode is marked as PvP but the meta has shifted to using bunker builds to protect/heal NPCs and let them do the fighting.

 

The AI in such a mode would need to be extremely responsive and reliable for it to be engaging. What we have now for story NPCs is less intelligent than the AI for necromancer minions, and that's saying something.

 

One of the reasons why I'm emphasizing AI is because there are two large-scale PvP modes and sPvP which has a MOBA-esque mode in addition to its conquest mode. Practically no one plays Stronghold (the MOBA-esque sPvP map) in part because the AI is lacking and fighting NPCs is boring when you want to fight players. If the AI isn't interesting to face in what you're suggesting, most people will move back to WvW or sPvP and cut out the annoying gimmick after they test it out or get what they want. That or the NPCs will be completely ignored by everyone because it's easier to play if you aren't micromanaging NPCs while also fighting other players 1v1.

 

And by events I mean things like "Defend X", "Attack Y", "Destroy Z" plus anti-spawn camp events like there is in WvW. And that's assuming there are no special event chains that can trigger, or more PvE-esque ones, just the stock PvP/WvW events that exist to guide players in what to do and where to go. It wouldn't be the hardest thing in the world to adapt those events but it would still require a lot of testing as a broken event chain in PvE is one (granted annoying) thing while a broken chain in PvP where one side can't progress no matter what is another and would absolutely kill the mode until a fix is implemented. That's if Anet doesn't disable it completely until fixed.

[Linken.6345]

Anet should just ask how the bots in spvp work and implement that?

[Omega.6801]

No.

[Dami.5046]

didn't they do this in GW1 with heroes?

Edited June 8, 2021 by Dami.5046