Curse

Fahhhh · May 25, 2010, 11:27 PM // 23:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by own age myname

With that logic, JQ should give the luxons an advantage.

I agree there should be an advantage to the luxons on JQ. I also think that AB maps should have home field advantages. They would rotate faster that way...

dancing gnome · May 26, 2010, 11:42 AM // 11:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by trcvrs

During the last ZQ, I won 4/5 of my matches as luxon... playing as a Mo/E with aura of restoration and a half empty bar.

You say that it is possible for Kurzicks to abuse certain mechanics, and I agree, it is possible. But the fact is, in reality this doesn't happen very often. From my experience playing both kurzick and luxon, the actual win ratio is very close to even. And so, until kurzicks learn to play in such a way that would significantly change the ratio, the game is balanced in effect even if it is not balanced in theory.

I just got rank 12 Luxon this weekend for the first time, and I did the vast majority of that in Fort Aspenwood over the last three years. I have played against the warrior stall bug (which aggroed warriors and dragged them to teleporter exits and left them there for the whole match) and all the bugs/AI abuses mentioned above (including numerous turtle stall bugs). Your 5 match win streak could be explained by the simple reality that sometimes in Aspenwood a good team is entering on one side against an average team on the other and you will rack up lots of wins in a couple of hours. If you played all day, or for several hours each day you would have a better view of how the games pan out (you would likely get sick of it before then though).

When a Kurzick abuses AI or takes advantage of a bug, the win ratio is not even. I don't believe the win/loss ratio is even without these abuses/bugs, let alone with them (I'm confident the Live Team would have access to statistics which show the win/loss trends in Aspenwood).

Currently the arena promotes defensive based play with little strategic arena based skill beyond stalling turtles via AI abuse. There needs to be more incentive for the Kurzicks to do more than huddle behind gates or stall NPCs. Amber running is a significant existence in the arena, but it hasn't been promoted/optimised and no-one does it to speed up wins (9/10 times when Kurzick teams have 8 players and Luxons have 2 players and 6 leavers, you still will never see Kurzicks run amber, they just take every post and then grief the respawning Luxons). Instead of reducing match times they should have increased match time reduction from running amber. The buff exists there, Kurzicks just have to strive to reach it.

On the other hand, Luxon aggressive play needs to be promoted and fixing the turtle's aggressiveness is a good way to advance that along. It's not enough to tell players they need to run amber or kill Kurzick NPCs/play more aggressive, they need to be convinced that doing those things is the better than fighting the sin at the command post or wailing on the defy pain warrior for the entire match.

I would also like to note, immunity skills like Shadow Form and Obsidian Flesh are particularly broken in this arena when it comes to stalling turtle squads. They also make an ele/sin attacking command posts impossible to stop.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fahhhh

I agree there should be an advantage to the luxons on JQ. I also think that AB maps should have home field advantages. They would rotate faster that way...

While there might be a slight Luxon disadvantage in JQ with a larger distance between a mine and deposit locations, I don't believe this is intended (if it is true in the first place). I also don't think there ever should be an intended advantage to either side in FA or JQ. FA is particularly difficult to balance due to different win conditions, but this can be minimised.

AB does give home field advantages, the only map which is supposed to be neutral is Saltspray Beach with Grenz Frontier and Etnaran Keys giving slight advantages. This is part of the design of AB.

AtomicMew · May 26, 2010, 05:44 PM // 17:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by dancing gnome

I just got rank 12 Luxon this weekend for the first time, and I did the vast majority of that in Fort Aspenwood over the last three years. I have played against the warrior stall bug (which aggroed warriors and dragged them to teleporter exits and left them there for the whole match) and all the bugs/AI abuses mentioned above (including numerous turtle stall bugs). Your 5 match win streak could be explained by the simple reality that sometimes in Aspenwood a good team is entering on one side against an average team on the other and you will rack up lots of wins in a couple of hours. If you played all day, or for several hours each day you would have a better view of how the games pan out (you would likely get sick of it before then though).

You are right, 4/5 matches is not significant. On the other hand, it is still my impression and if you want to be convincing, you need to present data that is significant. Since today is FA day, it is a good time to gather data.

Also realize that Luxon wins take less time, and so a lower win ratio can STILL be balanced.

Shriketalon · May 26, 2010, 08:52 PM // 20:52

The biggest problem with Aspenwood is that everything on the Luxon side depends upon the turtles.

Take a look at their actual stats and skills for a moment. They are obscene. You have a high health creature with nature damage reduction that has an aggro range attack that can deal up to 330 damage per shot and remove one enchantment from everything in earshot. They can spam 100 damage point-blank-area-effect knockback, and have resistance to interruption.

Thing is, they are glass cannons.

If the turtle is hexed, degenerated, or distracted via AI manipulation, they are useless, and it is easy to kill them if they are left alone. If they are shepherded around by a monk, they are a walking apocalypse, busting through anything in their way. The Luxons, therefore, are at their most powerful when their team brings healers, not good damage dealers. Three monks are better than any other class for the luxon team, because they can escort the turtles to the green gate without worry, thus allowing them to pummel the gatekeepers and gunther into oblivion. If the turtles are left to their own devices, they are picked off too easily. If they are escorted by a healer, they are ridiculously overpowered.

The Luxons have all their eggs in one basket.

That needs to change. The solution isn't to buff the turtle. The solution is to weaken the turtle, and strengthen the rest of the squad.

The warriors are useless. Aside from chain-spamming Coward with perfect AI reflexes (which, if you are on the receiving end, is total bull****), they make no contribution whatsoever to the assault. Likewise, the majority of the Kurzick NPCs are pointless, because they never even fight; they stand and die as the turtle rains jade doom upon them from outside spell range. Those that do get a chance to activate their skills are often pathetic, with terrible bars that provide no resistance.

If they want to even out Aspenwood, they should make the game depend less on the turtles, more on the NPCs in general. To do this...

On the Luxon Side

1) Reduce the Siege Turtle Attack's range to normal spell radius, thus giving the kurzick NPCs a chance to fight.

2) Remove the STA's enchantment stripping. It doesn't do its intended job (break bonds, but cover enchantments prevent that), but it does massively annoy anyone in the Kurzick region, because even a simple four damage shot will take away an enchantment from you, despite the fact that the turtle was halfway across the map and not even aiming in your direction. Enchantment stripping should be moved to a different bunch...

3) Change the squad's lineup. Add more utility (enchantment removal, hex removal, counters to degen) to make them survive better on their own. Two warriors, a mesmer, and a ritualist would serve nicely for this function. They'll be in charge of breaking bonds, countering easy kill tactics, and pressuring the enemy, while the turtle will provide AoE damage as backup.

4) Make the squads deploy automatically. The requirement for someone to pull back and chat up the NPC is currently a waste. Change it, and fix the eight-warrior bug that keeps popping up.

On the Kurzick Side

1) Make the Kurzick NPCs not suck.

-The Mine Cleansers are two spirit summoners with identical builds. They summon identical spirits, so one of them is wasting time. They are absurdly vulnerable to AoE and take ~ten seconds to fully activate their redundant skills, during which time they usually die horribly. Change them to have either defensive capabilities (restoration) or offensive power (channeling), because right now, they have neither. They are impotent.

-The Courtyard NPCs are worthless. They are the only NPCs in the entire map who do not respawn, and they die too swiftly and easily to make any difference. In keeping with the Everyone Fights, Not Just Turtles idea, allow the courtyard NPCs to respawn if a Kurzick brings amber to a gatekeeper when all gates are up.

-The Juggernaut is a joke. A slow-as-mud melee combatant with a passive buff and a single knockdown, the Jugg's only asset is his health and armor, but that is diminished by the fact that he walks away from the gate he is supposed to hold. Either make the Juggernaut a ranged attacker (some sort of blue beam of doom would do nicely), or change the green gate so that there are two juggernauts, but they aren't part of the gate squad. Instead, four normal NPCs would hold the gate, and juggernauts would deploy to fight the turtles.

-Gunther is far too vulnerable to hex spam. Just like the turtles, he is too easy to degenerate to death, leaving the Kurzicks in a lurch unless they have massive amounts of hex and condition removal. Give him an ability to cope with such problems, such as "Gunther gains one pip of health regeneration for each ally within earshot as long as their are no enemies within earshot", or something.

Taken together, this makes normal NPCs more important. The Luxon attack squads gain a buff while the turtle gets a nerf, making the entire group powerful overall rather than a single NPC being the only power in the entire pack. In turn, the Kurzicks gain a little traction, and their NPCs can fight with the Luxons (turtle shooting in spell range rather than beyond), thus making the battle a little more even.

Dusk_ · May 27, 2010, 06:28 AM // 06:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by dancing gnome

When a Kurzick abuses AI or takes advantage of a bug, the win ratio is not even. I don't believe the win/loss ratio is even without these abuses/bugs, let alone with them (I'm confident the Live Team would have access to statistics which show the win/loss trends in Aspenwood).

Wow, so the Kurzicks are willing to run highly specialized, one-hit-wonder builds, and the Luxons aren't willing to run the obvious and easy counters (any hex builds).

Yeah, I'd say the team that runs the arena specific builds will win more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dancing gnome

Currently the arena promotes defensive based play with little strategic arena based skill beyond stalling turtles via AI abuse. There needs to be more incentive for the Kurzicks to do more than huddle behind gates or stall NPCs. Amber running is a significant existence in the arena, but it hasn't been promoted/optimised and no-one does it to speed up wins (9/10 times when Kurzick teams have 8 players and Luxons have 2 players and 6 leavers, you still will never see Kurzicks run amber, they just take every post and then grief the respawning Luxons). Instead of reducing match times they should have increased match time reduction from running amber. The buff exists there, Kurzicks just have to strive to reach it.

...so when you're outnumbered 4:1, you want the other team to have to work to get a win? Are you serious?

There's a reason why people don't run amber: because Kurzick NPCs die too fast. Repairing gates is only useful when the enemy team has no offensive power, and when they do have that power, have 1/4 of your team not fighting is a hindrance.

dancing gnome · May 27, 2010, 07:51 AM // 07:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dusk_

Wow, so the Kurzicks are willing to run highly specialized, one-hit-wonder builds, and the Luxons aren't willing to run the obvious and easy counters (any hex builds).

Yeah, I'd say the team that runs the arena specific builds will win more.

...so when you're outnumbered 4:1, you want the other team to have to work to get a win? Are you serious?

There's a reason why people don't run amber: because Kurzick NPCs die too fast. Repairing gates is only useful when the enemy team has no offensive power, and when they do have that power, have 1/4 of your team not fighting is a hindrance.

The build isn't the problem, the AI abuse is the problem. A super defensive elementalist/warrior in AB isn't going to be a huge threat unless the opposing team wastes large amounts of time killing them, which rarely happens because most players are smarter than that or will give up after some time. A super defensive/immune class in FA can completely negate one or both of the turtle squads for the entire match. In some cases they can do it in an area unreachable by players. I'm not complaining they are bringing arena specific builds, I don't have a problem with arena specific builds like bonders or rampart rangers, my point is the tank builds abuse bad AI in a method which is highly effective and incredibly difficult to counter, even with a specific build.

My point about amber running is it speeds up game win times for the Kurzicks. If you have the other team outnumbered 4 to 1, you could easily win in a fraction of the time just by running amber to Gunther (with no risk of losing), but they don't. There needs to be greater incentive for players to run amber to Gunther instead of just mindlessly heal NPCs and wail on the closest Luxon to attacking a gate.

The power for Kurzicks to win faster exists, it just requires them to work like Luxons have to do, and most players would rather blow up the nearest Luxon than play strategically. The problem here is if Luxons play like that they lose, but Kurzicks are encouraged to play like that.

Without requiring amber running Kurzicks are basically encouraged to create a situation where they can completely halt a Luxon invasion. If such a situation is possible most of the time, the arena is unbalanced. They should have to work to balance between slowing down the Luxon advance while speeding up Gunther's timer at the same time.

Roupe · May 28, 2010, 04:00 AM // 04:00

Perhaps they should have Luxon defend the fort too, against vengefull Kursicks liberators.

They could even make it that both teams are luxons, though viewing the opposition as kursicks, rivals or cultists.

And more explosions -to make it feel like war.

stupidjoe26 · May 29, 2010, 02:19 AM // 02:19

Ironically everyone seems to be saying that when either side uses tactics, or even thinks for a moment about the objective of the match and how to achieve it, that team or player is much more powerful and has a huge advantage. Hopefully everyone right now is thinking to themselves that I just stated the obvious because I did.

Simple fact is that most people go into FA without really thinking about how they can best help their team win. Most players on both sides will always go for a kill over supporting an ally, tanking, etc. It seems that running around chaotically killing anything you come across is the most fun way to play. Or at least that is what I see the vast majority of players doing. So long as that is the case quite honestly the map is balanced. Kurzicks fight luxons that really are not harming them and are often drawn out and killed beyond the fort walls without really doing much. Luxons so often leave courtyard npcs to be killed by the turtles ignoring the fact that these npcs are more valuable to the kurzick team than their own players(by virtue of every bit helping and them not respawning like players do). Then again kurzick monks often ignore healing npcs that aren't on their party bar.

The complaint seems to be that someone who puts a little bit of thought into exploiting a bug, bad AI or human thoughtlessness gives their team an unfair advantage. If anyone would like to nerf our ability to think be my guest. But until that happens the simple fact is the team that plans a little will win more, even if just one person on the team plans. It just so happens that it is much more obvious when a kurzick player does think and brings a tank or other frustrating build than a luxon player running an equally well thought out build that abuses dumb AI and bad kurzick players.

dancing gnome · May 30, 2010, 04:56 PM // 16:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by stupidjoe26

Ironically everyone seems to be saying that when either side uses tactics, or even thinks for a moment about the objective of the match and how to achieve it, that team or player is much more powerful and has a huge advantage. Hopefully everyone right now is thinking to themselves that I just stated the obvious because I did.

Simple fact is that most people go into FA without really thinking about how they can best help their team win. Most players on both sides will always go for a kill over supporting an ally, tanking, etc. It seems that running around chaotically killing anything you come across is the most fun way to play. Or at least that is what I see the vast majority of players doing. So long as that is the case quite honestly the map is balanced. Kurzicks fight luxons that really are not harming them and are often drawn out and killed beyond the fort walls without really doing much. Luxons so often leave courtyard npcs to be killed by the turtles ignoring the fact that these npcs are more valuable to the kurzick team than their own players(by virtue of every bit helping and them not respawning like players do). Then again kurzick monks often ignore healing npcs that aren't on their party bar.

The complaint seems to be that someone who puts a little bit of thought into exploiting a bug, bad AI or human thoughtlessness gives their team an unfair advantage. If anyone would like to nerf our ability to think be my guest. But until that happens the simple fact is the team that plans a little will win more, even if just one person on the team plans. It just so happens that it is much more obvious when a kurzick player does think and brings a tank or other frustrating build than a luxon player running an equally well thought out build that abuses dumb AI and bad kurzick players.

I disagree. If a Kurzick is in some way impeding a Luxon from either advancing into their base or entering the base at all (fighting outside the walls) they are doing a lot to help their team. If a Luxon is attacking a Kurzick player, 9 times out of 10 they aren't helping the advance, they are being pushed into a huddled defensive play scenario. Because players resurrect so fast, killing them becomes meaningless after a while.

There are few Luxon builds which can abuse bad AI. The only ones I can think of are AoE nukes, which to be fair, don't do a lot more than simple DPS couldn't do. There are far more ways to abuse turtle ai simply by standing somewhere.

locao · Jun 01, 2010, 05:20 AM // 05:20

i agree with turtle bug fix and melee... i love melee and dont play them as luxon cause they are useless.and dont come say the win ratio is even im r12 on both love fort aspen and played a lot there.u need a good lux team vs a very bad kurzick team to win on lux side. /sign