Improving AB's

I know that there have been many suggestions to improve AB’s when Factions first came out but since Nightfall was released, there has not been much attention paid to it. While I do like the idea behind AB’s, I do think that there is a better way that Anet could change it and make it a more popular PvP format compared to what it is now.

The main idea is to make AB’s a persistent battle that is always on going versus the instanced battle it is now. Here are my suggestions on how to incorporate this and make it work.

1. Merge and enlarge the current AB maps, add more control points. Change the rez point to a forward entry point. If your side does not control a forward entry point, your team first appears within your side’s home base. If your side controls multiple forward entry points, your team first appears at the one farthest away from your home base.
2. Remove the autorez from AB’s. Instead have it when your team completely wipes, you are sent back to the organizing area and the next team in the que takes your place and enters the map at the above mentioned forward entry point or home base.
3. Change the size of the party to 5 persons and number of teams per side to 5.
4. If your team does not engage the other side or attempt to cap a control point within 59 seconds, your team is removed to the organizing area and the next team in the que takes your place. The 59 second timer is reset after engaging a foe or finish capping a control point.
5. When your team first enters, you start with 0 faction of the side you are on, but gain 1 faction every minute per control point your side has at the 1 minute mark for your team. You also gain 1 faction per kill that happens within 1.25 aggro circle of anyone on your team.
6. When your team is removed from the battle, you receive the faction that your team has accumulated and 1 gold piece for every 5 faction.
7. The number of control points that your side has determines where the line is at on the map. IE if one side has three more control points than the other, they gain a town on the map.
8. The number of NPC’s that spawn to guard a control point is determined by how close to your home base that point is. The closer to your home base, the more NPC’s that spawn.
9. NPC’s that spawn are changed to a balanced group instead of all of one profession.


I feel that a change of this sort would greatly improve the gameplay of this format and make this a more popular aspect of this game.

/notsigned

Thesis:
Point 1: Too many points to cap, encouraging players to kill for their faction score instead of capping points
Point 2: That just screams "I LEIK TO MOB!"
Point 3: See point 2.
Point 4: Too much coding and effort just to stop 1 or 2 leechers.
Point 5: That's already happening, other than the 1.25 aggro bubble thing. http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Alliance_Battle Check "Battle Objectives"
Point 6: AB =/= PvE, we don't need gold bringing about farmers in a PvP environment.
Point 7: Town control will be too unstable if this occurs.
Point 8: Already happening. Deep (faction) Territories have a home base of 20 npcs along with the control points while the invaders have access to the control points only.
Point 9: Already happening. In Deep (Faction) Territories the home base gets a spike team while the invading team gets balanced.

After just spending 35min trying to get into an AB game only to have the team disband from boredom, I think we need a replacement for AB, exactly the same 12v 12, same goals, but with Red team vs Blue team so the 12 players are randomly picked from a total pool if complete parties rather than waiting for a balance of Luxons vs Kurzicks teams to develop.

Or course you would need some other reward than faction points for your guild with some sort of ladder.

AB, the game itself, is absolutely perfect the way it is. The lack of death penalty, the win conditions, even the map sizes are absolutely perfect. It was brilliantly designed. I don't think they can improve upon AB by making arbitrary changes like you suggest.

What's hurting AB is an inability to play an organized game with skilled players. Even one good 4 man guild team turns AB into a complete massacre if the other side is filled with the usual PUGs, who are bad even by RA standards. It's good for kicks and easy amber, but eventually the lack of challenge and competition gets boring.

Making it true alliance vs alliance, or at least letting us form 12 man groups of our own, would really make AB show its full potential.

Yep I agree, the format is spot on, the problems are getting into teams and the inability to have an AvA all alliance team. It would be good to keep the party size at 4 but allow the selection of what other 2 parties join yours in the battle.
So PUG can still have a go.

I'm sorry, I just cannot agree with you in any way with these suggestions.
/notsigned