Curse

Spooky · Feb 22, 2005, 11:21 PM // 23:21

Every so often, I get the urge to put together some ideas threads and subject the unfortunate folks at ArenaNet to them .. i've got another in the works, but in the process of working on it, I came up with an idea for a different map type in PvP, and am curious to here what people think of it (or if there's any interest in playing a map of this type.)

The idea is to have a map that supports three, preferrably four teams entering at once. Within each team's base is a relic, an offering, whatever you choose to call it - the name isn't terribly important, but its function is. In the center of the map .. I imagine it as being a sort of landing down in the middle, accessible only by a few staircases .. perhaps water cascading down the sides as you go down to this landing .. where in the center, would be the "Altars of the Chosen" .. perhaps most likely represented by a statue of one of the Primary professions for each (so that they are easily identifiable for what they represent.) By bringing a team's offering to one of these altars, that specific class gains a bonus - think of it as a world enchantment - that effects all players on the map.
Let me give you an example - Team A takes their offering, and places it at the Elementalist's altar. Because of this, all Elementalists in that match gain +4 or +5 to their skills. Granted, that's an entirely made up number to illustrate the point, so .. let's not subject that specific example to balance arguements (though if you want to go on about what you believe would be a worthwhile bonus, go right ahead.)
Only one 'offering' would be allowed 'in play' at any given time - so that if another team makes a new offering, the old one is replaced, and that profession no longer gains their bonus.
Overall, I think this adds the possibilities for some interesting new dynamics in a match. Rather than simply rushing to the middle to obliterate each other, teams might focus instead on getting their offering, and stopping other teams from making them - or perhaps waiting to let the other teams move first, to see if they make an offering that benefits them, etc. Overall, a lot of strategy could potentially come in to choosing what class you want having the bonus. Say you have a team with strong, experienced healers. You could make an offering to the Monk's altar and give yourself healing superiority, at the risk of the other teams now being harder to kill as a result of it. This also makes players decide when it is most advantageous to attempt to go for the bonus. Straight off the bat when it is anybody's game, or try and hold out until later when you know it will affect your team most?
Anyways, just some rough ideas at the moment. Any thoughts?

Brett Kuntz · Feb 23, 2005, 12:21 AM // 00:21

So if I understand this correctly, if a crazy team brought 8 fire elem's, they would want to try as hard as possible to hold the 'elem' spot to gain the bonus to their stats to allow for a better win, where as the all-monk team they fought against will try to grab the monk one...?

Sounds interesting.

mostro · Feb 23, 2005, 12:22 AM // 00:22

I think it is a good idea, although anything that can affect the whole map like ranger's ritual has to be carefully balanced. I like the idea of giving bonuses to certain classes as opposed to only certain teams because it requires more thought in the process.

The other thing to consider is how spread out the altars are to each other. I think the distance between each altar should be far enough as to not turn the map into a dais map. If these altars are place too closely, then the team who hold the middle would effectively control all the bonuses making this a simple dais map.

Brett Kuntz · Feb 23, 2005, 12:24 AM // 00:24

Could also make it so the class spots randomly change every 2 mins to prevent uber camping of one spot for the entire battle. It'd force teams to move around the map more.

elder otter · Feb 23, 2005, 12:25 AM // 00:25

or if you have a relic which gives you no real benefits, you have no memsmers and this relic afects them, then withholding that relic from play so mesmers on the other teams are not helped?

Bobangry · Feb 23, 2005, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Sounds like an interesting idea, more variation in PvP is also welcome.

Here's a drawing I just did on how it sounds it should look to me. (wasn't sure where to put the water, and forgive my lack of Paint skills

)

-The staircases are branching two ways for each team

Correct me on the drawing if it is inaccurate.

Balance is always key in Guild Wars, so they will have to make it a sufficent bonus, but not an overpowered one. an extra 5-10% health/mana maybe? (beyond the current 10%--assuming this is tombs and not another PvP venue)

I definately see the strategy in this type of map.

Would congestion at the staircases cause problems with 4 teams on one at once? I've had some problems falling through staircases lately (will be fixed I'm sure) so is it like a "pit" where the statues are, or are the staircases holding them up?--ie if you fall through, where do you land?

Open Tractor · Feb 23, 2005, 03:48 AM // 03:48

Ok. Well, if you take a team of elementalists into the room, and capture the elementalist relic, you would still get wiped out by the all ranger team(or all mesmer)--as long as they didn't fight the all warrior team first.

I just see class specific rewards going against how hard they worked to make the game balanced.

How about making the relics give just your team a morale bonus? The bonus increases every minute or so, rewarding the well balanced, effecient team in attack or defense. Or maybe multiple relics -- like if you kill the carrier he drops it and it's open for anyone on any team to pick it up and use it? Multiple relics equals even higher bonus? Could you take the tower last and thus gain control of all the relics at once?

Win factors? Gain control of tower for x amount of time? Gain control of all relics? Last team standing?

Forcing all the teams into one spot is nice, lots and lots of death. Any sort of resurrection pedestal?

Spooky · Feb 23, 2005, 01:49 PM // 13:49

I'm not really interested in going the Morale Bonus route, because we've already got that in GvG. As a result, it is pretty much the safest and most reliable way to win those matches .. hold the center, spend 30 - 45 minutes stacking up the other team's DP, and then move in. It's nice for what it is, but incongruous to what I have in mind here. I'm looking for something fast paced and unpredictable, and I think a global class bonus would provide that.
I'm also not worried about percieved imbalances, because that's exactly the idea - you want to have a bonus at the risk of someone else benefitting, otherwise there's no real strategy in the choice you make. As it stands right now, most maps are balanced for just about everything (perhaps the two most apparent exceptions are the relic maps which favor Warriors for speed buffs and high defense, and the KotH map which favors AoE Ellies) and as a result of that level playing field .. you end up with the aforementioned scenario of everyone meeting in the middle to clobber each other. The biggest strategy that comes into play in that case is how you use your skills - not how you attack. (If that makes any sense.)
The ability to sway the balance of power here and there makes for a very volatile match - which theoretically should keep it fast paced and interesting, and that's what i'm going for. We need different maps to serve different purposes, rather than all trying to cater to the same goal, or what you end up with is bland with little variety.

As for a map.. well, I can draw one up myself, i've made a few level maps previously. But that is pretty much the general idea of things, yeah. I think of it as a level that slowly progresses downwards to the middle from where you start, as most maps tend to be flat, with only the occasional slight inclines. I might seperate the staircases out a bit more, such as one in each of the four cardinal directions, rather than two by two. That way they can be used as a tactical chokepoint, without cutting off access entirely.

Open Tractor · Feb 23, 2005, 04:53 PM // 16:53

Ok... How about when you start out four of your eight skills are blacked out, and the only way to gain access to the other four skills is to capture the four relics? Or to get to the pedestal area you must take very long bridges, infact the only open fighting area IS the pedestal area?

If you are going to do class based rewards then how about just for the team that controls the room? Otherwise it somewhat lessens the reward factor when you know you just worked your butt off and now everyones necros are better. After you capture one, will another widget spawn and allow you to maybe gain another class bonus by making the run again?

Klael · Feb 23, 2005, 04:57 PM // 16:57

It seems interesting but I believe that the teams will end up fighting over between the warrior, elementalist and ranger relics. I don't see teams forming a necromancer nor a mesmer heavy team. Even with the bonus, they'll be having a hard time defeating the rest. Not many teams will want to boost the monk as well since every team will have monks. It comes down to a three way fight and most likely will end up as a messy battle in the middle. Just an opinion for you to consider..

Sausaletus Rex · Feb 23, 2005, 05:16 PM // 17:16

Yes, I'd agree with Klael. If there's a shrine for each profession then some shrines are going to be mor desirable to hold than others. And that desire changes based on the make-up of your team so it's hard to design in a bit of increased difficulty for the more powerful shrines. There are certain truisms, any team with a healer will want the Monk shrine, any character that's pumping an attribute as high as they can will want their associated shrine, and characters spreading their attributes out like most Mesmers and Necromancers won't care because what limits them isn't attribute points, it's skill slots (Mostly. I mean, whoo, +4 to Domination, now Diversion last for 50 seconds instead of 40 or whatever it would be. It's a lot different for the Elementalist or Ranger trying to stack up every last bit of DPS) so maybe you can get around it.

As well, a bonus to primary attributes is likewise troubling. You say "to skills", Spooks, but does that mean when you cast your Ether Prodigy with a base Energy Storage of 12, you're bumped up to a 16 for the effect or do you walk around with a temporary bonus to your ES of +4 as if you had a hat and rune? Is it working on the effect or on the attribute, in other words, and if it's the later it brings up balance issues because of what happens when things like Expertise get to really high levels as well as the uselessness of getting things like Soul Reaping that high.

Still, I like the underlying idea of fighting over a bonus other than morale which pretty much drags down a lot of GvG fights. Something more strategic, where you have to pick and choose the bonuses you want and can maintain is an idea I like. I just think that basing bonuses by profession is problematic. What if you did it another way? Say those shrines provided a sort of ritual for your team or for everyone? One might lower all skill costs by 5 energy. Another might shorten recharge times. Another might cut casting times. Another might give everyone on your team a bonus pip of energy regen or the equivalent of Mending. Or you could be more specific and do things like "while you hold this shrine, all your resurrection skills take 1 second to cast, all your opponent's take 3 times that amount." In other words, the shrines provide a way to tweak or twist the basic rules of the game. There'd be too many to have them all at once so your team gets to pick the ones they like best. And what they like is based on what sort of strategy they'll be using.

Also, shrines could perhaps have NPC guardians. Some mobs standing around guarding it. You can't capture the shrine until they're dispatched but if you're not careful in dispatching them you can get sandwiched between the mobs and the other team meaning that even if you don't want to capture any shrines yourself they're still tactically valuable as they can be used to entrap your opponent. Once the mobs are defeated the shrine will be open to be fought over but perhaps you could include a switch that would return the shrine to a neutral state and respawn the monsters so that defending a shrine is not simply a matter of keeping people from running that relic. Two points to defend mean you'll need to split your forces or your attention.

Acronym · Feb 24, 2005, 04:26 PM // 16:26

This ideal would work only if there is one relic/offering so each team has to fight over it which would prevent camping of a staute/ alter/ shrine for a certain class. Maybe set it in the middle of the map and set the statues/ alters/ shrines around the map away from the relic/offering then have the starting points be at each staute/ alter/ shrine would make it for a more interesting battle.

semantic · Feb 24, 2005, 10:03 PM // 22:03

Neat idea. You could randomize the shrines a little bit and give them a pool of off-the-wall effects, but make it absolutely necessary to take and hold some number of them. For example:

- all Rune penalties are doubled
- lightning damage is increased by 25%
- the effect 'on fire' lasts 25% longer than normal
- all health regeneration is halved (but not direct heals)
- all blood sacrifices deal PBAOE dark damage equal to the amount of the sacrifice to nearby enemies
- all hexes have a 25% chance to backfire on the caster
- all piercing damage causes Disease

So there might be 3 shrines or sigils or something that need activating to complete a ritual before a victor can be proclaimed, and each one applies a random effect from a large, possibly ever-changing pool.

This is a little outside the scope of the idea, but perhaps something is summoned by the shrine that benefits from the enchantment. Some sort of vengeful spirit of the world or minor deity (or demon) that attacks anyone in range. So you can't plan for what you'll get and whatever shows up throws some chaos into the battle, possibly at a very critical moment.