Curse

Selket · Jan 03, 2010, 04:35 PM // 16:35

Preamble
Dragon Arena, in its current state, is not designed well enough for there to be an 8v8 ATS version with significant rewards. In this post, I'll explore the problem and solutions that will allow Dragon Arena AT's to both be fun and fair.

The problem
Dragon Arena focuses on killing people to reach a certain point total. This isn't a bad thing for a random arena -- people aren't often going to try to exploit the system.
The real issue (potential) here is the spawn room or any place on the map that has narrow access (pink in the below image). In all of these areas, it is far too easy to camp here and ensure victory, were you a fully-coordinated team. The mid-points are less of an issue as there are 4 separate points of attack, one of which (the teleporter) doesn't give the opponent as much of a chance to react. The rez shrine can also be countered by running wide upon your rez, but still greatly reduces the enemy's angle of attack. The brunt of the issue persists in the spawn rooms -- there's only a narrow passageway into each of the rooms allowing one to easily defend their team from any attack. Staying in the spawn room in an AT scenario could easily force a draw as the AT system must impose a time limit to ensure a timely completion of any given tournament. At first, this doesn't seem all that bad, until you consider the single elimination portion of the tournament. A potentially weaker team can force their opponent to draw at any time, unless the opposing team chooses to rush the spawn; which, more than likely, will force them to incur more causalities than they will inflict (if any).
In addition, should a team ever gain a lead, they could easily retreat to the spawn room or, to a lesser extent, any of the areas mentioned above to more-or-less ensure their victory.

The solution(s)
So, how do we fix this?
Remove the walls on the spawn room
This can be accomplished by increasing the size of the gate. In this solution, the other areas are still a problem, but they are significantly less of an issue when compared to the spawn rooms.

Objective-Based ATS
Moving the win condition to a team's action over another team's inaction seems to be a better choice. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways:
One Flag CTF
Such a gametype was already implemented at one point in the Hall of Heroes (see Murder Ball) it was removed shortly there after due to the format's abundance of snare skills and inability to generate momentum and replaced with the current HoH relic run which is significantly less fun.
For Dragon Arena ATS we can remove the 60s limit on relics, due to the teleporters granting momentum in either situation. In Dragon Arena, the ability to dodge is incredibly important, so the move speed reduction on the relic should be at most very slight as opposed to how relics normally reduce your speed by a significant amount. In either situation it would still relatively easy to dodge with Trade Winds up at non-point blank ranges. The relic would spawn where the flag stand is (black) and the drop off point NPCs (Guild Lords) at the red circles with the one on the left corresponding to the red team and the other for the blue. The teleporter entrances (dark blue) and exits (teal) allow either team to maintain the momentum of the relic as their own, and require both teams to have a greater sense of positioning.

Two Flag CTF
Each team's flag spawns in its normal location (green). The flag must be taken to the stand (black). Points can be acquired either through simply capturing their flag (like HoH's relic run) or by holding the stand for a period of time.
The issue with emulating HoH's relic run is how boring this can be. While the skills provided in dragon arena mitigate this monotony to a large extent, it may not provide the same excitement as the other modes listed.
In a holding the stand system, the points would be granted after holding the stand for 1 to 2 minutes, as it takes about 45s to run the flag from its spawn to the stand. The problem with this system looks to be that it will be far too easy to pull ahead. In this case, the above option looks to provide less tense but more balanced matches.

Victory Conditions and Time
The matches themselves should not take longer than 12 minutes to complete. The maximum points scored for 'murderball' should be anywhere between 8 or 10, given the time limit. In a two flag stand scenario, there does not need to be a limit to the amount of points as holding the stand for more than six minutes ensures that the other team cannot win. With the flag capture scenario, every game would have to play out its full duration as such a game type will almost always be neck-and-neck.

In all cases, carrying the bundle is not a death sentence, as trade winds can be cast on you by allies -- thus forcing people to position themselves appropriately and coordinate their actions above and beyond what one normally has to do for random Dragon Arena.

Reference figure (I don't own photoshop so this was compiled quickly in mspaint.exe yay artifacts!):

Red: Relic Drop Off NPC
Black: Flag Stand/Relic Spawn
Green: Flag
Blue: Teleporter Entrances
Teal: Teleporter Exists
Pink: Points of Interest/Camping

In my opinion, a resurrection of the murderball gametype would probably be the best choice.

Comments/Questions?

kedde · Jan 03, 2010, 05:24 PM // 17:24

Definitely.
DA would take away most of the issues snowball has that create obvious imbalances between the two teams.

Working to improve the map and possibly formats for it would be awesome, but of course snowball has showed us that the AT system still has huge flaws that will also need to be taken care of.

Shayne Hawke · Jan 03, 2010, 05:43 PM // 17:43

You push for the ATs. I'll push for Nine Rings to be abolished. Then we can have some fun.

Wuhy · Jan 03, 2010, 05:51 PM // 17:51

you could just make it so that you wipe if more than 1 person is in there after 30 seconds of the match start : O : O

Lord Sojar · Jan 05, 2010, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Murderball is /win. I would hereby like to do this:

/signed

Akuma · Jan 05, 2010, 03:39 AM // 03:39

This is the greatest idea for improving Guild Wars I have ever had the privilege of laying eyes on. Well done, sir.

NoConnection · Jan 05, 2010, 07:37 AM // 07:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rahja the Thief

Murderball is /win. I would hereby like to do this:

/signed

this, tough i never actually played it it always sounded like hell of a fun to me

Shayne Hawke · Mar 31, 2010, 04:39 AM // 04:39

Birthday Celebration in like, four weeks. Bumping to get this more attention/discussion.

End · Mar 31, 2010, 04:44 AM // 04:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rahja the Thief

Murderball is /win. I would hereby like to do this:

/signed

wait...rahja plays guild wars?...

on a side note...

/signed for the above reason...

and also to shayne

just sayin...totally joking of course

Shayne Hawke · Mar 31, 2010, 02:17 PM // 14:17

If enough successful discussion goes on in this thread that we can definitely agree on how we want these ATs to work, I can push the idea forth in the Test Krewe and maybe get it implemented, likely not by the time the Birthday Celebration rolls around, but perhaps by the time the Dragon Festival returns.

End · Mar 31, 2010, 07:14 PM // 19:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shayne Hawke

If enough successful discussion goes on in this thread that we can definitely agree on how we want these ATs to work, I can push the idea forth in the Test Krewe and maybe get it implemented, likely not by the time the Birthday Celebration rolls around, but perhaps by the time the Dragon Festival returns.

If it does go through tell them not to rush it...I'd rather see it done well then done fast

thanks