Curse

Lhim · Dec 14, 2008, 10:40 PM // 22:40

I like Upier's idea of adding an objective for the Kurzicks in order to win. It's not very difficult for the kurzicks to wait it out till the meter is full and win. Maybe add the objective to bring a certain ammount of amber to Gunther in order to win? And if that objective isn't reached, but the meter reaches full, it will result in a draw.
^And to the above post of House Silvermoon: you can always give selective examples which show that the opposite side has a seemingly disadvantage. That doesn't mean anything.

Dmitri3 · Dec 14, 2008, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

The only chance you have is to Rend and spike at the same time that the turtle attacks. And HOPE that none of the 8 guys behind the door casts anything in that moment. And that they are so dumb that they can't count to ten and then just blindly hit WoH in anticipation of the Turtles hit.

Not the only way, but if you think it is, more one-way thinking to you. Plus if gate is broken, they will not be able to repair it at all.

---------------------

As for draw, just no:

Luxon: Keep turtles alive. Keep mines capped for close rez. Break the gates. Kill Gatekeepers and then Gunther.

Kurzick: Keep gates alive. Keep mines capped for running amber. Run amber. Kill turtles. Kill big Luxon threats. Keep Gatekeepers and Gunther alive.

Kurzick already has a lot of objectives, on par with Luxon, if not more. Maybe you should try to play it instead of hypothesizing. And draws will simply piss off both teams and make FA a desert place again.

And deank81, same as with any other post in this thread. House Silvermoon's points are pretty legit, except of course interrupting clause that I don't agree with.

The Meth · Dec 14, 2008, 11:17 PM // 23:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by House Silvermoon

wow just wow. like aspenwood isnt stacked against the kurzicks enuf, we have people wanting to add to the luxon advantage. ok lets list this.

-luxons start with mines under their control and respawn there as well.

-turtles are nigh impossible to interupt now and remove enchantments from everyone in the blast radius which is freaking huge.

-turtle teams come with wammos and mines are guarded by rangers that cripple runners. kurzicks get all squishy allies who arent anywhere near as effective at doing anything.

-the gatekeepers will literally run outside the fort all the way to the outer gates and get stuck. this happens every so often.

-turtle teams respawn very fast after elimination and have no penalty for death. i.e. they dont need amber to be restored....

-if luxons get too close to gunther none of the npcs will except amber rendering anyone holding the amber useless till luxons are forced out, if they are forced out.

this is just about it. i feel that if a luxon team is semi decent they should win every match. even with the lessened timer. now they have beefed turtles its pretty gg.

i feel that the interupting clause for turtles should be removed, and amber should be required to return the turtle teams. that might fix it up a bit.

All of this means rather little when you consider two simple details:

Luxon turtles still fire into walls. lols

Kurzicks respawn in 5s with infinite energy right ontop of the battle.

Kurzicks still pull ahead. Gates mean nothing, holding the mines mean nothing. Against any good kurzick team an equally good luxon team will be destined to fail, because any good kurzick team can negate all luxon advantages way too easily. The turtle changes would be make the luxons great if turtles didn't fire into the side of the walls still. Until that is changed the turtles are only better against dumb kurzicks. As I said before, all that needs to be done is a small AI change on the turtles. It's just rediculous that any character of any profession can stop the most important advantage of the luxon side by standing in certain places.

If you are winning as luxon its because the kurzick team was bad and failed to f**k up the turtles properly, not because your luxon team was good.

Fix turtle group AI so they go after NPC's correctly and all will be fine. If anything luxons will probably end up a bit overpowered.

Dmitri3 · Dec 15, 2008, 01:55 AM // 01:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Meth

If you are winning as luxon its because the kurzick team was bad and failed to f**k up the turtles properly, not because your luxon team was good.

Fix turtle group AI so they go after NPC's correctly and all will be fine. If anything luxons will probably end up a bit overpowered.

Oh no, they did, more that once. But anything that goes through walls can still target and kill them, that's why going as any physical profession is pretty much stupid on Luxon side.

Though I agree that Turtles could use some AI improvement. For example, after 2 hits, make them disregard the player. Making them completely ignore players will have a negative effect of Kurzick ganking turtles even more. 2 hits are plenty to kill a normal unprotected player.

Shriketalon · Dec 15, 2008, 02:16 AM // 02:16

If there is one aspenwood aspect that has never been addressed, it's the NPCs.

For comparison, the Luxon NPCs are very well designed. The mine keeping rangers can cripple, harming anyone trying to run amber. The warriors can chain Coward with perfect accuracy thanks to AI reflexes. The green mine has a healer to keep the rangers alive, and priests support the captains. Not perfect, but each fulfills their roll very well.

Meanwhile, the Kurzick NPCs fail. And fail hard.

The minekeepers are spirit summoners with the same skillbar, making each other redundant, and take far too long to finish binding, by which time their squishy caster hides have usually been filled with arrows. Or set on fire.

The gate NPCs are completely impotent, as the siege turtle can fire from far outside caster range. Moreover, the necromancer's skillbar is a joke.

The little guys inside the base are useless, as they are completely out of the battle once killed. Every luxon NPC is capable of respawning, but the small army of kurzicks is always removed in the first few minutes of battle.

And the juggernaut. Oh, the juggernaut.

He's supposed to be an anti-turtle monster. Sadly, he's a meleer who has a slower pace than the turtles he's supposed to hunt, he has only two skills, a knockdown with a terrible recharge, and a useless energy buff to allies which disappears the instant he wanders off, and the fact that he is tied to the gate means monks have to run around trying to help him as he walks out of caster range. He can be literally defeated by a combination of wanding and walking briskly.

If there's something that needs changing, it is the utter failure that is the kurzick army. Maybe it's making the mine cleansers channeling rits. Maybe it's adding another level of amber running, one that allows you to respawn the courtyard NPCs if all gates are whole and you talk to a gatekeeper. Maybe it's doing something to fix the juggernaut's bitter, bitter failure. But for Gunther's sake, something needs fixing.

The Meth · Dec 15, 2008, 02:50 AM // 02:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dmitri3

Oh no, they did, more that once. But anything that goes through walls can still target and kill them, that's why going as any physical profession is pretty much stupid on Luxon side.

Then they need to be better at distracting turtles while keeping out of caster range. Or be a monk. Doing either of those I've been able to stand around idle distracting turtles the whole match. Trying to get me from the other side is just playing into my hand because I am now not only distracting a turtle group but also an enemy player. 2 for 1.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dmitri3

Though I agree that Turtles could use some AI improvement. For example, after 2 hits, make them disregard the player. Making them completely ignore players will have a negative effect of Kurzick ganking turtles even more. 2 hits are plenty to kill a normal unprotected player.

If they completely ignore npcs and have to go through kurzick players, the luxon warriors will be with the turtles to smash anything getting near. The luxons can defend the turtles as well, and I believe it should be a part of the luxon strategy to defend the turtles above mindlessly zerging the enemy.

The main point is that the turtle should not be firing at the wall with its siege attack though. Any AI update that would help this would be good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shriketalon

snip

You don't seem to understand FA. Every kurzick NPC in the map could be deleted and a good kurzick team will still win easily against a good luxon team (note: this is hypothetical, entire good teams don't exist in FA). 5 second respawn with full health/energy and no DP is just THAT good.

The Turtle groups are overpowering if they can attack players but are worthless if they can't attack players. The Turtle groups SHOULD be overpowering in comparison to kurzick NPC's because the luxons are the ones who stand to lose in a stalemate, so they should get the offensive NPC advantage. This works just fine at the moment if FA is composed of 100% stupid players. The problem is that as soon as you get 1 smart player on the kurzick side they can stand in certain spots and totally nullify the luxon NPC advantage, and without the luxon NPC advantage the match becomes an 8v8 with instant spawn where the luxons lose in case of a tie. That is the problem. Turtles need to be given a workable AI so that they can't be disabled by such simple tricks. Once that is done we can quibble about the balance of NPC power, but until luxons NPC's can't be rendered 100% useless by a player with an empty skill bar we have a bigger problem.

jayce · Dec 15, 2008, 03:13 AM // 03:13

Everyone is whining about the turtles. I still haven't seen the juggernaunt be of any use whatsoever. I have never seen the juggernaunt 2-shot anything. Single target or AoE. And rarely will the lone juggernaunt ever reach one of the two turtles to combat it. If it does, the juggernaunt should kill it almost instantly to make up for the insane damage the turtles do to everyone else.

Jayce Of Underworld

AKB48 · Dec 15, 2008, 03:34 AM // 03:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by jayce

Everyone is whining about the turtles. I still haven't seen the juggernaunt be of any use whatsoever. I have never seen the juggernaunt 2-shot anything. Single target or AoE. And rarely will the lone juggernaunt ever reach one of the two turtles to combat it. If it does, the juggernaunt should kill it almost instantly to make up for the insane damage the turtles do to everyone else.

Jayce Of Underworld

Agreed, the Juggy is completely useless, even in melee, because of its slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww speed, character with no speed boost can get away from it safely. I suggest something stationary that deals massive damage like the turtle, or another healer of some sort. The Juggy is useless, a living target that exists for the Lux. to score an easy kill.

UnChosen · Dec 15, 2008, 03:36 AM // 03:36

With the latest update the balance pretty much shifted completely toward the luxon. Before the match is won by several people capping amber mines and running amber back while a ranger/monk/mes stall the turtle, but now with the auto enchant strip/interrupt resistance whenever the team goes out to run the amber the luxons just need to pressure the monk/ranger a bit and all the gates fall apart. Nearly every match now I run out of the portal and get an amber only to see "Outer purple gate has been breached!", "Inner purple gate has been breached", "Green gate is under attack!" before I even get halfway back.

The alternative is that I stay back to help the ranger/monk fight but then what happens is that we can't get a mine efficiently, and the gates eventually breaks anyways. Not to mention the luxons can recap the mine so easily because of the useless kurzick mine NPCs...

Then once they get past inner the monks become useless with double AoE enchant strip...

Dmitri3 · Dec 15, 2008, 05:39 AM // 05:39

My point is: QQ from both sides nullifies itself, so FA is basically balanced now.

Celeborn10 · Dec 15, 2008, 05:43 AM // 05:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by jayce

Everyone is whining about the turtles. I still haven't seen the juggernaunt be of any use whatsoever. I have never seen the juggernaunt 2-shot anything. Single target or AoE. And rarely will the lone juggernaunt ever reach one of the two turtles to combat it. If it does, the juggernaunt should kill it almost instantly to make up for the insane damage the turtles do to everyone else.

That Juggernaut is the only thing that prevents my fire ele from wiping out green in under 10 seconds. If you want to swap it out with a lower armor npc with big dam0ge like an assassin that's alright with me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shriketalon

Snip

Ouch, so you want a side that can respawn every 8 seconds right back at the fight to also be able to generate endless waves of npc's? Luxon ganksquads are endless simply because Luxons respawn so far back and it would be impossible to output constant pressure on the endless Kurzick without them. Kurzick npc's already have a decided advantage in terms of antimelee. Mesmers have excellant interrupts that can be rather irritating. Necros have Plague Signet which keeps Rangers on their toes with Dshot. Ritualists have Displacement which can wreck havok with quite a few builds.

Luxons have to build around these or alter a playing style specifically to counter them in addition to adjusting to the meta of the Kurzick side. Kurzick need to Mend Touch that poor cripple (I do hope you didn't die from bleeding, if so I truly do pity you) and perhaps coordinate/block stance to get past the Luxon gank squad.

If you're going after the Luxon monk npc's and your team loses it is partially your own fault that the Luxons won. As for the turtles, just have two rangers focus on one turtle now if one can't handle it. If they still can't 'rupt a 3 second cast they need some practice with the sheep.

AKB48 · Dec 15, 2008, 06:35 AM // 06:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celeborn10

That Juggernaut is the only thing that prevents my fire ele from wiping out green in under 10 seconds. If you want to swap it out with a lower armor npc with big dam0ge like an assassin that's alright with me.

But then Anet might as well as to swap it for a giant gate with high armor and loads of health. And I'm sure that your fire ele is the most powerful chara. in GW.

Back on topic, the Juggy attacks slow, moves slow, so its easy to fight it, get hit by a few hits, run away and heal and then come back perfectly fine and not worrying about the Juggy chasing you. The turtles moves slow too, sure, but at least they do ranged damage that actually serves a purpose: breaking down fortified Kurz. positions. While the Juggy either heal other npc/allies in the defense of the Fort nor damages enemies fast enough so it actually becomes a threat. I'm sure if you ever played FA, most of the time what you will see the Juggy doing is treading slowly across the map chasing somone who is already 10000000miles away from it.

The Juggy, for all its worth, is but a meat shield. An easy target for the Luxons to score yet another kill.

Seef II · Dec 15, 2008, 06:46 AM // 06:46

For those saying the Luxon mine rangers are worth anything: they are running something like 3 superior runes and have no health. Kurzick mine NPCs are just as useless.

upier · Dec 15, 2008, 08:35 AM // 08:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dmitri3

Not the only way, but if you think it is, more one-way thinking to you. Plus if gate is broken, they will not be able to repair it at all.

You're gonna have PS, Spirit Bond, Veil, Spotless Soul/Mind, SoA, RoF on recharge, Guardian, hopefully no-one start bringing Peace, Patient hell you'll even end up with some Healing Breezes (

) thrown all on the ele.
And everyone is pretty much going to repeat that on RECHARGE! (It really doesn't matter that certain things are useless - you just bury them so deep that if things do get removed you still have some things staying around.)
And that's just the enches.
Add in all the WoHs, Dwaynas, ...
Add in the ritu with things like Life, Recoup, spamming Vengeful and Xinrae, with the possible WoW (but if SoD or Guardian is going to be up there is no point in running that because the guy is going to stand in a ward with Sliver - might as well negate other damage).
The worst kind of luck that you can get in this scenario is when you get 8 resto rits running the same bar!

You want to attack with the turtles so that they hit the unprotted ele with that 300. And you need to make that happen fast otherwise the guys on the other side will react!

Have the Kurzick monks bring fast corpse exploits - and you remove the danger of Profane (WoWeariness or WoBlood). Hell, throw PS on yourself and then Consume things.

That's what going to happen when the Kurzicks stop being morons who rely on luck.
And then the game is going to die. Because there is no way in hell that you can win against that - and because the Luxon faction is rewarded based on how many gates you break - nobody will even bother leeching.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dmitri3

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As for draw, just no:

Luxon: Keep turtles alive. Keep mines capped for close rez. Break the gates. Kill Gatekeepers and then Gunther.

Kurzick: Keep gates alive. Keep mines capped for running amber. Run amber. Kill turtles. Kill big Luxon threats. Keep Gatekeepers and Gunther alive.

Kurzick already has a lot of objectives, on par with Luxon, if not more. Maybe you should try to play it instead of hypothesizing. And draws will simply piss off both teams and make FA a desert place again.

And deank81, same as with any other post in this thread. House Silvermoon's points are pretty legit, except of course interrupting clause that I don't agree with.

The problem is that the Kurzick objectives - outside of keeping Gunthy alive - are completely optional. The last thing you want to do, when you have the ele so heavily protected, is to open the green gate to bring in amber. Because you're going to have smart Luxons rushing in, attacking the NPCs, preventing them from taking the amber.

If the green gate is secure - all everyone else does is get in the way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deank81

I like Upier's idea of adding an objective for the Kurzicks in order to win. It's not very difficult for the kurzicks to wait it out till the meter is full and win. Maybe add the objective to bring a certain ammount of amber to Gunther in order to win? And if that objective isn't reached, but the meter reaches full, it will result in a draw.

I have to say I REALLY like this variation!
It keeps the game fast paced (compared to my suggestion that only handing amber in raises the Vengeance) and forces the Kurzicks into an active objective!

Shriketalon · Dec 15, 2008, 08:55 AM // 08:55

Perhaps I phrased that badly. Let me put it another way.

I think the problem is that the game is decided by the random party selection, and there's little room for tactics.

With the update, as has been mentioned, amber running is becoming much more pointless. Enchantment tactics are prone to difficulty. Self-buffing enchantments will be removed by the incredible range of siege fire, which hurts a lot of the individual builds run by non-monks. The NPCs crumble like dust.

But spamming heals or overwhelming enchantments works. And it's kind of a downer.

Because the luxons hit the wall that is the 8 second recharge, and gameplay breaks down. I can definitely see the point that's been made, both in game and on paper, that monks who can unload their skillbar to defend Gunther completely shift the battle. The "smart" kurzicks who can spam healing all day until they die, then get up again and continue can hold off Gunther's timely death for quite a while change everything. But they have a much greater problem nowadays holding the extended defenses. You can spend 75% of the game in the green gate against that metaphysical wall, luxon PCs running in again and again to die.

So to try to convey this in a much better sense: my problem is that the game goes two ways: 1) the kurzicks have no healing, and thus are demolished, or 2) the kurzicks have healing, and the two sides play the Green Gate Game, in which luxons fight against quickly respawning kurzicks. The result is that the only NPCs who matter much are Gunther and the turtle squads. And everything depends on the randomness of party selection.

So we can try to balance the game accounting for kurzick monks, and any party without them will fail. Or we can balance it accounting for a non healer party, and the kurzick will perform a turtle maneuver and hide in their shell, irony aside.

Or we can try to shift things around to change both a bit.

Hypothetical: What if the kurzick NPCs were bolstered a bit, given a bit more staying power, and the turtles lost their interruption defense to allow more defensive play against them.

And in turn, the Luxons gained the ability to use the warp points in the field to move directly into the base if both gates on that side fall? Or maybe have an NPC that spawns in the center courtyard, a little shrine all their own which becomes a respawn?

It might be a completely foolish idea. But my point is: at the moment, it's hit or miss. Lots of monks, kurzicks do well and don't need to step outside the green gate. None at all, and the luxon forces that are boosted for taking on monking tactics will overwhelm. If we can chip away at both sides, it might find a better middle ground then trying to balance one or the other.

mage767 · Dec 15, 2008, 09:20 AM // 09:20

Anet really messed up the balancing. They should either revert the luxon tutrtls abilities to former versions or do the following to the current release:

1. Lower the turtle's damage ability per hit. Cmon, 300-400 damage on squishies is ridiculous! The kurzicks on the frontlines have NO chance of fighting luxon players backed up by a humongous damage dealer. The damage should be lowered to 100-150 instead or its area of effect drastically decreased. It nukes the shyt out of everything over an entire area. I'm happy if they upgrade the HP of the turtle to compensate for this or LOWER the rate of fire (so kurz can heal or get the hell ouf of there!)

2. Turtle respawn INSTANTANEOUS! WTF! There should be a 1 minute cooldown or something allowing kurzicks the chance to rebuild their gates. Now, the luxons know that they can keep pressure 100% of the time, because a turtle dieing has NO PENALTY.

3. The turtle also 'run's pretty fast if you haven't noticed. When both gates are down, it takes less than a minute for the turtle to reach kurzick base from where it has spawned. Needs a fix too.

Let's sum this up:

Turtle ability: Mega damage dealer, enchant remover, run's like a cheetah, and protected by 4 warriors, no death penalty, instataneous spawn. GG indeed anet.

Hyper.nl · Dec 15, 2008, 09:36 AM // 09:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dmitri3

My point is: QQ from both sides nullifies itself, so FA is basically balanced now.

Nominated for the Thread Winner Award.

The Meth · Dec 15, 2008, 03:35 PM // 15:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by mage767

Let's sum this up:

Turtle ability: Mega damage dealer (if its not shooting walls), enchant remover (if its not shooting walls), run's like a cheetah (if its killed, why bother killing something that shoots walls?), and protected by 4 warriors (that do nothing unless you go near it), no death penalty, instataneous spawn (except it takes a minute to get up to kurzicks anyway), and lets not forget does no damage at all if its firing at a wall. GG indeed anet.

fixed.

The turtles were perfectly fine before EXCEPT for the fact that they were shooting into walls. With the recent turtle buffs they are overpowered, but only when the kurzicks actually let them attack. The turtle buffs didn't fix the problem, they just swept it under the rug by making sure the kurzicks wipe unless they exploit turtles. So far since the update I have lost 1 of 7 kurzick games so far and I can say the only reason we lost was because there wasn't a second person just like me messing up the turtle on the other side. As it is now the luxons are overpowered if their turtles actually work but underpowered if they don't. If anet were to fix the turtles so they didn't shoot the wall then scale back some of the buffs we would have a much more balanced fight without exploits dragging things down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

I have to say I REALLY like this variation!
It keeps the game fast paced (compared to my suggestion that only handing amber in raises the Vengeance) and forces the Kurzicks into an active objective!

I also really don't like stalemates. How about instead making it so the gates can ALWAYS be repaired as long as the npcs are alive, and that the repaired gates have somewhat stronger/more NPC's? That way amber runners don't end up rebuilding gates that die instantly, they will actually have some effect on the match.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyper.nl

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dmitri3

My point is: QQ from both sides nullifies itself, so FA is basically balanced now.

Nominated for the Thread Winner Award.

+1

upier · Dec 15, 2008, 03:54 PM // 15:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Meth

I also really don't like stalemates. How about instead making it so the gates can ALWAYS be repaired as long as the npcs are alive, and that the repaired gates have somewhat stronger/more NPC's? That way amber runners don't end up rebuilding gates that die instantly, they will actually have some effect on the match.

I was actually thinking more in the lines of something like:
Each amber is worth a specific number of points.
If you give it to Gunthy - you gain the full amount of points.
If you give it to Raddy or Polly - you gain a lesser amount of points - but you are able to fix both gates on one side.

Still, ANYTHING that will FORCE the guys into running amber (or any other active objective) in order to win - is a huge step forward.
(Of course, then I don't mind in the slightest if the turtles get toned down. Hell, removed even. Less moronic AI at Aspy would make the game much better.)

Shadow Kurd · Dec 15, 2008, 04:49 PM // 16:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyper.nl

Nominated for the Thread Winner Award.

QFT!

The update hast been out for a week so most people are still trying out new builds. Give it a week or two till people can get used to the new way of playing.