Curse

Ghorta · Aug 16, 2006, 09:29 PM // 21:29

Ok first off I DO NOT want any favored comments on Kurzicks or Luxons. This thread is not for you to say "Ah screw Kurzicks, who cares if they can't win!" or vice versa. This is not seeing who's better and who's not. This is clearly to fix an uneven power that the Kurzicks face.

Anyways I've noticed an uneven balance of power in Fort Aspenwood. The Kurzicks are guarded by severely weak NPC's and the wall can be breached in a matter of seconds. The siege turtles can tear through the walls alone...which is quite unfair because the wall can not be defended by the NPC's alone. When the wall is breeched, you have to not only capture a Mine to fix it, but put yourself in the middle of all the luxons and leave the inside defenseless. Now once you fix it, that's fine, but in comes another set of turtles (unless they haven't been killed yet.) Ok Well now the wall is breeched, you've just wasted your time to get some amber to fix the wall BUT there's no guarantee you're going to get back in safely. If the siege turtles haven't been killed, well they're not going to follow you, nah, the group of warriors guarding it is. They can kill a caster in 3-4 seconds, but it takes a little longer with a war or ranger.

Ok well if you still don't believe they're overmatched think about this. Leechers happen all the time in the game, usually 1-3 at a time. If Luxons get leechers, big deal, that's what maybe 10 seconds of down time for them? If Kurzicks get leechers, they're out in Major defense. The siege turtles are all the luxons need to break in the walls. Kurzicks however have weak NPC's guarding them on the inside and one Juggernaut guarding the three main NPC's.

I'm putting this here because apparently I need other players to recognize this as well. Go out to Fort Aspenwood and try it out. You'll see what I mean. Try it on both sides. I played with Kurzicks, and won twice out of the many times, and that was because some luxons left. I played with Luxons and never lost a match.

My idea is to try and give the Kurzicks a mine on the inside which the Luxons can destroy. This will help delay them in the beginning so the Kurzicks can worry about defense in the last half. Another idea was to have a group of Fung Wallows be able to follow the players around and help fight against the Luxon threat breaking into the fort.

Now I will say this one more time, do not reply with an answer favoring one side. I don't care if you favor the Luxons or the Kurzicks more, I want your honest experience you've had in the game. If you're Luxon and you've noticed that you can finish the thing in less than half the time they have to make the weapon (which is what happened EVERY time I was a Luxon) then please, state so. If you're a Kurzick player and you, too, realize that the wall is weak, you can't do defense as well with leechers, and you are just simply overpowered with the luxon NPC's, please state so. I want Arena Net to realize that this mission is one sided...and it needs to be fixed. I love this PvP zone, but I can't have any fun as a Kurzick when there's no way to defend.

Wasteland Squidget · Aug 16, 2006, 09:52 PM // 21:52

Moved to Alliance Battles.

Paperfly · Aug 17, 2006, 05:53 AM // 05:53

One of twenty billion similar posts. here's the most recent one.

...You're also wrong. It's quite clear you're unfamiliar with how the map plays when there's a high proportion of competent players on both sides - try playing at different times of day, that makes an enormous difference for some reason.

Here are my win percentage observations, cut and pasted from the thread I linked:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paperfly

Both teams are scrubs - Kurzick assassins who gank commanders vs. Luxon stance tanks: 75%/25% in the Luxons' favour

Both teams are intermediates - straightforward bonders and competent mine-cappers on the Kurzick side, MMs and turtle-healers on the Luxon side: 35%/65% in the Kurzicks' favour

Both teams are experts - advanced bonders and interference-based casters on defense; spirit-spamming rangers and necro bond-strippers on offense: Now these are fun. I think I've only ever had ~10 games where there was this level of competence on both sides, and they all ended with a "gg" from all parties, usually with less than a minute's defense/offense separating the winner from the loser.

...52%/48% favouring Luxon, I think. Ask me again when the metagame shifts some more, I would've claimed the opposite a month ago! I call that as close to balanced as makes no difference.

For the record, I play Kurzick 90% of the time and have almost a hundred hours on the Aspenwood clock. Proof, or close enough.

Ghorta · Aug 18, 2006, 01:48 AM // 01:48

Bonding or not, you're not going to always have someone who can do that. If you were to have regular players with basic knowlage of the battlefield, more than likely the Luxons will win. Bonders are a great asset to Kurzicks, but they only get you so far if you only have one. One fact of the matter is you CAN'T choose who's on the team. If you could, well you'd have better defense. It's like this is Random Arena while AB's are Team Arena in a sense. You're not going to choose the players, I'm more than sure that if you have the exact same people on both sides, the Luxons would still have the advantage for the fact that the NPC's overpower the Kurzick NPC's. Your guide to the mission may help some, but as you may or may not have realized, not everyone reads.

Matsumi · Aug 18, 2006, 03:56 AM // 03:56

Well, I play on the kurzick side a majority of the time, and I have noticed how much easier, and how little effort it takes the luxon side to break into the base. That alone, has kind of detoured me away from joining the other side, because I like things that are more of a challenge.

A turtle with 4 luxon warriors can break down both outer and inner gates without any supervising luxon players at all, and without a problem. The juggernaut will not move unless he is first hit by a seige (or any damage), then he slowly makes his way out there to take on the turtle, along with more seiges along the way. The green gate guards remain stationary even after taking a seige, as well as the other gate guards. The Luxon warriors remain mobile with the turtle like a trojan horse, unless the turtle is attacked, which doesn't happen until it is inside the base. These observations are with no other players around, but what I'm trying to point out is the overall weakness of the NPC's. With the luxon warriors unleashed to save the turtle from attacks, the other NPC's engage the luxon warriors, but quickly are killed by a couple of seige attacks. Now the turtles advance further and seige the green gate, dealing with the juggernaut easily, and move on to kill gunther and the gatekeepers. Pretty much, if you left the game to run itself on both sides, the luxons would win every match easily.

Now introducing random teams, it's still easily won on the luxon side. Some of the random party members on the kurzick side usually include:

Turtle killing and interrupting (common, at least the killing part)
bonders/healers (might see one on a team)
mine cappers (not seen as much)
overall defenders (anti melee/caster or mm)
afkers/leeches/leavers (quite often at certain times)

Now, taken into concideration how the map is easily won by luxons without human players... with the added defense boost of some human players on the kurzick side, then add the same amount of offense to deal with that on the luxon side, and it's pretty much is still uneven either way. The only winning factor is the random distribution of the defense on kurzick side, and of the type of offense randomly assigned to the luxon side, assuming everyone knows what to do. It's kind of like playing dice. If you have bonders on the kurzick side, and no enchant strippers on the luxon side, the kurzick side will win most likely if they're bonding the gate NPC's. If you've played enough battles to know who or what will most likely be on your team, you can adjust accordingly, unless you just wanna wait for a lucky roll and not change your build or switch characters. I usually ask myself "what are we lacking, or seem to be lacking here?".

What I also find myself doing more and more, is being more focused on the NPC's in the battle rather than the players. So, when a luxon player comes up and kills me, it's not him/her I'm even focused on, but more of capping a mine, killing a turtle, or killing luxon warriors. Unless the player is a threat to the other NPC's, like an ele, mm, toucher, or EoE bombers. Or, prevents me from killing an NPC like a turtle or mine keepers.

Repeatedly repairing the gates over and over again seems to be of high importance, but almost fruitless if there's heavy offense on the luxon side. So, in some cases, without monk support, and the inability to take and hold a mine, you have to engage in a long PvP battle in hopes that gunther hurries up with the construction. Which, usually turns out to be a luxon win, unless they have a bad random team.

*rolls dice*

Lord Oranos · Aug 18, 2006, 06:52 AM // 06:52

Yeah, theres soooo much unfairness.

Today, faced 3 monk teams in succession with a ritlord aiding.

Yeah, thats real fair in a random area.

Paperfly · Aug 18, 2006, 08:24 AM // 08:24

Quote:

You're not going to choose the players,

The moral to the story? Run a halfway decent build yourself. Your team will probably be 25% better for it!

Quote:

I'm more than sure that if you have the exact same people on both sides, the Luxons would still have the advantage for the fact that the NPC's overpower the Kurzick NPC's.

My earlier stats claimed 48% vs 52% in the Luxons' favour if both teams are manned by advanced players. With EoE's nerf this afternoon, that may even drop to 50%/50%. In other words, I disagree!

One - and people keep disregarding this particular point, which is why I tend to be grumpy when posting this sort of thing! - it's mandatory for Luxons to have strict NPC superiority. Notice that little timer thingy on your screen? That says that if the game goes long enough Kurzicks win!

Fort Aspenwood is not about a level playing field! It is about a situation where, given sufficient time, Luxons should win 100% of all conflicts! And the only way to guarantee that, given that both teams have unlimited PC spawns with no penalties, is for Luxons to have better NPC resources.

Two, those NPC resources can be less relevant than people give them credit for. Matsumi is beginning to concentrate on NPCs and ignore the PC combat altogether - which he's right to do, it's what separates an intermediate player from a novice. A team of eight people who realise this much is all you can ultimately ask for.

But at the highest levels of play - and it happens more often than you're giving the map credit for - we come back to the fact that it's the human players who have the smarts to adapt to a gameplan, not to mention the ability to come up with those superior gameplans in the first place! Sure, you should concentrate on killing NPCs since they're a less-renewable resource - heck, your build should concentrate on shutting down specific NPCs more or less effortlessly. But.

But.

A little intelligence shows how you can negate those NPC advantages with minimal effort. Turtles are slow creatures who fire off a single high-damage shot at a very low frequency, and have to pass set choke points. A single maintained Shelter or Protective Spirit effect at those chokepoints is enough to reduce their offensive potential to nothing. The same goes for any ranged skill interrupt effect, fast degen to kill it before it comes into play, a single Meteor Shower to KO it repeatedly and put it near death, snares to keep it from influencing even the inside courtyard for as long as possible... Heck, even the low-spec heals I was running on my N/Mo (when I first started FA) for use on myself were enough to keep a turtle from influencing the game for three to five minutes.

All of the above take up one slot on your skillbar. They're things you can do easily, and that you should be doing automatically! And it only takes two players per team who understand this.

But, you say, it's easy to counter these things! An enchantment stripper, an enemy elementalist, a monk healing the turtle, or even a crazy good melee fighter can ruin all your not-so-hard work! Ah, I reply, but that will always require human intelligence! That's where it becomes about fighting PCs countermeasure to countermeasure, gameplan versus gameplan! That's where it becomes interesting again!

In short:
Luxon NPCs have a single limited tactical application, which is devastating if you let it come into play*. So the game becomes about denying them the use of this asset (on the Kurzick side), or defending and maximising it (Luxon).

We having fun yet? See you at the competitive weekend.

*At the highest levels this "application" is to double-turtle blast the inside of the Green Room to keep multiple monks/rits from defending Gunther indefinitely. Just FYI.

Cebe · Aug 18, 2006, 10:38 AM // 10:38

I enjoy defending Fort Aspenwood for the Kurzicks, I much prefer it to attacking...when I'm attacking I have to move around too much and get killed off by the Kurzicks far too often for my liking! My current favourite thing to do it to take my Mesmer to the Kurzick side and stand by Architect Gunther....then if I notice anyone from the Luxon side getting too close to Gunther's gate I pile on the hexes and burn up their energy, if anyone does get inside the last gate they can usually be wanded to death.

TheOneMephisto · Aug 18, 2006, 06:28 PM // 18:28

Keep in mind that the Luxons are suppose to be better. The point is that the Kurzicks are just suppose to slow them down.

JoDiamonds · Aug 18, 2006, 06:58 PM // 18:58

Paperfly is mostly just right on this (as with other things he's stated elsewhere).

Quote:

What I also find myself doing more and more, is being more focused on the NPC's in the battle rather than the players. So, when a luxon player comes up and kills me, it's not him/her I'm even focused on, but more of capping a mine, killing a turtle, or killing luxon warriors. Unless the player is a threat to the other NPC's, like an ele, mm, toucher, or EoE bombers. Or, prevents me from killing an NPC like a turtle or mine keepers.

Yes. This is a big step up in the learning process, for sure, and you should tell your allies if you want to win. =-)

Killing enemy humans isn't very important (while obviously not worthless). Killing enemy NPCs is key to winning (in Jade Quarry, Fort Aspenwood, and Alliance Battles).

Quote:

Repeatedly repairing the gates over and over again seems to be of high importance, but almost fruitless if there's heavy offense on the luxon side. So, in some cases, without monk support, and the inability to take and hold a mine, you have to engage in a long PvP battle in hopes that gunther hurries up with the construction.

Er. You have the crux of it, but don't seem to understand that's how the battle should work.

If Luxons do nothing ever, Kurzicks just win. Therefore, as others have stated, the game must be weighted so that Luxons will win eventually. The entire map is just a race. Can you hold out long enough? Can Luxons break through fast enough?

Is it worth it to repair the gate if a turtle is already inside? (aka: Will we kill this turtle?) Is it worth it to set up running skills to carry amber back and forth to Gunther, or would it be better to just fight and delay? These are all interesting strategic and tactical decisions.

Personally, I'd like to see ANet allow for players to play these battlefields with preset teams. Set it up as something like GvG skirmish battles, where you simply select a map location (and therefore gameplay type). Challenge another 8 players to Fort Aspenwood, or another 12 to Etnaran Keys, playing as the Kurzicks, because you want to show just how good you are.

Etc., etc.

Ghorta · Aug 18, 2006, 09:19 PM // 21:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Keep in mind that the Luxons are suppose to be better. The point is that the Kurzicks are just suppose to slow them down.

I understand they are supposed to have a high offense, but the thing is, the Luxon NPC's overpower the Kurzick's ability to slow them down. Kurzicks just have to defend, and find any way they can to waste Luxon time. The Thing is, the Luxons don't have very much to slow them down, other than the fact they have to send out the turtles. The Kurzicks face BIG downtime by having to run to the mine in the middle of the hostile, luxon area and probably have little chance of doing it with a normal, random group of people.

The Kurzick's main job is to stop, or slow the luxon process of infiltrating the base, but it's quite the unadvantage when they have weak NPC's to work with and little ability to restore the gates. The Luxons barely have to do anything while trying to get into the base, hell, they can sit back and watch because unless the kurzicks have two bonders (which I've never seen), the NPC's will clear the path for them and the players can just stand watch at the mines for the time being.

Here's my MAIN point-

Luxon's usually finish within less than half to half the time it takes for them to complete the ritual. (Well usually when I'm on the Kurzick side it takes them more, but when I'm on Luxon side it takes them less) In other words that should tell you that the Luxons have a greater chance to get into the base than the Kurzicks do defending it. If the Luxons completed it at 75% or more, then it wouldn't be as big of a deal. 50% or less is just too quick. One other down side to being Kurzick is you have to wait the entire time to get your reward, while Luxons can continuosly do it, over and over and get it done faster than Kurzicks can. Meaning, they can get the entire thing over quicker and earn faction a lot faster.

hated · Aug 19, 2006, 04:29 AM // 04:29

@paperfly

Fine the playing field isn't supposed to be level, stupid statement but let's go with that for a second.

Okay there's a timer, great, whoopdie freakin do doesn't help the fact that orange squad and purple squad make a game or 8 vs 8 into a game of 8 vs 16 and two cannons.

Again so the field is uneven, great, I don't know the last time I found where one team could get an unending supply of reinforcements for free. While the other team can be put to a dead stop in terms of reinforcements and be left totally defenseless.

You know what I want to see? I want to see some damn caltapults put into the freaking fort, power it by amber if you need to I don't care, but there needs to be some arty support in there asap.

Lord Oranos · Aug 19, 2006, 11:23 AM // 11:23

Why are you making it out so that its 8vs16? Do you not see the 20 npcs available to you? Granted, they cant move, but the fact that most are replaceable must count for something. And btw, a turtle without a healer, imo, is a dead turtle. I usualy make it my mission to take down the turtles asap. And I usualy do before they can make it inside. And dont forget, the eles have ward against melee, slowing down the luxon warriors. And the necromancers with reckless haste, and death nova. That usualy kills the warriors before they make it inside.Dont give me this bs that the turtle is unfair, with prot spirit, or a half decent rit lord it takes forever to down a gate with a turtle.

Its the players, not the map, that determines the difficulty of winning harder or easier.

Actually, I miscounted. Its 22 npcs on the Kurzick side, not counting the gatekeepers and gunther, to slow down the luxon advance.

There are 10 luxon offensive npcs. So thats 18vs 30(counting luxon and kurzick pcs). I do realize that the Kurzick npcs have a disadvantage, thats where the pcs come in, a rit lord and a normal healing monk can put a turtle offensive to a standstill. I wouldnt mind a second juggernaut, but they will still be killed outright, luxon players know they are a threat to the turtles, thats why we pick them off before we tackle the green gate. Players can even tank the turtle, the luxon warriors, and most of the luxon team(Simon W. is very good at doing just that, he lasts a very long time). Thats my take on it, the players make the difference here, not the npcs.

Riotgear · Aug 19, 2006, 03:02 PM // 15:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Oranos

Simon W. is very good at doing just that, he lasts a very long time).

Simon Ward is good because no one brings enchant removal, even though practically everyone on Luxons SHOULD be bringing at least one simply for the amount of survival abilities they wreck.

If someone hit Simon with, oh, Gaze of Contempt, he'd hit the dirt in no time. Know who brings Gaze of Contempt? Nobody. Well of the Profane would work equally well, but that's another underused skill, despite the absolutely retarded amount of MMs there. Every time I run in to him, I just throw shatter enchantment on Healing Hands and he dies. Every time. If I wasn't there, I he'd solo the entire squad.

Just more proof that the best way to win Aspenwood on Kurzick is to play on the stupidity of other players.

Ghorta · Aug 19, 2006, 03:57 PM // 15:57

Stupidity may be an advantage/disadvantage so it just means you CAN'T rely on what teammates you get. When I'm on the Luxon side, there is usually plenty of monks to keep the turtles up, and there's always a mes or necro with a skill to remove enchants for the bonders. However you less bonders/necros-mes with the same things to protect the gate and kill turtles for the Kurzicks. Sure you can probably have a chance at getting ONE bonder, then they can only protect one gate, the luxons then go around to the other.

If you were to have the perfect people on each side, the Luxons would still win because when they break down those walls and managed to kill off the NPC's in the base, it's over for the Kurzicks. You can bond all you want but the game has skills to remove enchants.

I agree with what hated said. Catapaults aimed at the entrances of the gates would even out the turtle problem. Make it where the luxons can take out the ammo in it and the Kurzick's have to go get more amber for it to work again or something.

hated · Aug 19, 2006, 06:05 PM // 18:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Oranos

Why are you making it out so that its 8vs16? Do you not see the 20 npcs available to you? Granted, they cant move, but the fact that most are replaceable must count for something. And btw, a turtle without a healer, imo, is a dead turtle. I usualy make it my mission to take down the turtles asap. And I usualy do before they can make it inside. And dont forget, the eles have ward against melee, slowing down the luxon warriors. And the necromancers with reckless haste, and death nova. That usualy kills the warriors before they make it inside.Dont give me this bs that the turtle is unfair, with prot spirit, or a half decent rit lord it takes forever to down a gate with a turtle.

Its the players, not the map, that determines the difficulty of winning harder or easier.

Actually, I miscounted. Its 22 npcs on the Kurzick side, not counting the gatekeepers and gunther, to slow down the luxon advance.

There are 10 luxon offensive npcs. So thats 18vs 30(counting luxon and kurzick pcs). I do realize that the Kurzick npcs have a disadvantage, thats where the pcs come in, a rit lord and a normal healing monk can put a turtle offensive to a standstill. I wouldnt mind a second juggernaut, but they will still be killed outright, luxon players know they are a threat to the turtles, thats why we pick them off before we tackle the green gate. Players can even tank the turtle, the luxon warriors, and most of the luxon team(Simon W. is very good at doing just that, he lasts a very long time). Thats my take on it, the players make the difference here, not the npcs.

Nice post, I can see how it would sound that 18 vs 30 is a good idea on paper, HOWEVER, kurzicks only get maybe half these guys back if they can run amber while luxons get the godlike advantage of unlimited resources.

So really you're doing a fight of 30 vs infinity if that's what you're really going for.

Also you said that players are the biggest threat in FA, Ima let that go in the hopes that it was a typo. Any vet of FA is going to tell you the biggest and most immedate threat is the npcs, ask anyone.

Bottom line is, the reason FA is played so much is because it's a poorly designed map.

Doesn't really show much appreciation for hard work now does it?

Bio-Flame · Aug 20, 2006, 01:30 AM // 01:30

Paperfly: just because you made up some numbers about FA that doesn't make them necessarily correct. Please back them up with facts...not just numbers made up on the fly on a whim.

Fort Aspenwood: ahhhh. Where to begin? First off, I don't play Kurzicks nor Luxon. I play GuildWars. I play to have fun - in every way I can. Thus I am not biased to neither side.
So I've played both sides of FA and it's clearly unbalanced.
I think people have to be intellectually dishonest in order to say that FA is "balanced". There's no other way to put it.

The question in FA is not about Luxons having the advantage. The question is about Luxons having a TREMENDOUSLY UNFAIR advantage.
Simply put it: Luxons have infinite resources and Kurzick do not.
Also, Luxons resources are free while Kurzicks need to get amber. To make matters worse, Luxons' resources are way better than Kurzicks': Turtles and warriors own every single Kurzick NPC. Turtles and warriors even own a lot of human PCs. Kurzick's defenders are static and other than the Gate dudes, they will not come back once they're dead (unlike the turtle squads). Even then, Kurzicks need Amber which forces them out of the base and actually going against the rezzes of the Luxons. Oh, and don't forget that if there's a Luxon near the GateKeepers they won't accept Amber and thus making the repairs impossible.

So in the end we have one side which has better resources (Turtles+warriors own), has those resources for free (just click the COmmander) and they are Infinite.

Everyone here and their mother has already said it but I'll say it again: 2 bad teams: Luxons win. Two medium teams: Luxons win. Two excelent teams? Luxons win. Whenever there's two teams of about the same skill-level, Luxons should have the upper hand.
Hell, if the Luxons just sent the turtles in, the Kurzicks would be hard pressed to defend their base.

This doesn't mean that Luxons can't loose and Kurzicks can't win. My point is that Kurzicks have to fight very very hard to keep things on an even level.

Let me say again: I couldn't care less for the "Kurzicks better/worse than Luxons" argument. I talking about balance. There's no balance in FA.

hated · Aug 20, 2006, 01:38 AM // 01:38

*hands Bio-flame a +10 energy staff of insight*

Welcome to the enlightened friend, take this and spread the word.

the sly edge · Aug 20, 2006, 03:14 AM // 03:14

i dont know why u guys think its such a big deal wich ever team is better wins
i have donated 125k worth of luxon faction and have only lost to kurzicks 4 times

Riotgear · Aug 20, 2006, 03:55 AM // 03:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bio-Flame

Turtles and warriors own every single Kurzick NPC.

Actually, if you pay attention, the warriors can't do jack against the outer gate elementalists. In fact, generally if 4 warriors go against them without help, they'll come out as a pack of 2. Their skill combo is tailor-made for killing the warrior packs, and should provide an interesting point of reference for human players willing to try taking them out.

Quote:

wich ever team is better wins

No. If both teams are completely asleep at the wheel, which isn't uncommon, the Luxons will win. Easily.