[Dev Update] Guild Battles - 25 September 2008

Can we now move it back from 28 minutes plox?

probably just a lie.

I wouldn't doubt ANet wants to turn GvG into a game of "which team can kill the big ghost first!" (to those that know WoW:) just as Blizzard did to Altrec Valley.

Would there be something massively wrong with reverting all the ViM/VoD changes and crap to back before ViM was implemented ?

That sounds really interesting!

You like 4 monk + 4 mesmer games?

How about we have the tied match, end in a tie?

If there is a tiebreaker, people are going to abuse the mechanics of that system. If there is just a tie, maybe for once in two damn years people will stop playing for 'VoD'.

oh well as long as they continue to refine this everything is gonna be allright

What would you do for Single Eliminations?

Without getting any numbers (and not having a chance to observe this change yet in game) I can't really say wheter or not I like this idea.

I guess super defensive teams are degenerative, but at the same time, the way "aggressiveness" is calculated will never be perfectly fair.

Somebody will always develop builds that abuse the mechanics. It is better to make those game mechanics obvious and clear then obtuse so that a lucky few can abuse it (until it gets copied on obs).

Edit: Thanks for the post explaining the numbers. Hmm... -50 per enchantment. Hmm... we'll have to wait and see if this is fair.

* every point of damage done to enemy guild lord = 1 point of aggressiveness.
* every enchantment or weapon spell cast on your guild lord = -50 points of aggressiveness.

Can you got into negatives then?

only enchants and weapon spells huh?

angelic bond looks little better now. the only constant non-enchant/weapon spell i can think of at the moment. although gvg isnt meant to go the full 28 minutes anyway...

It happens once a month. I dare say we can afford to remove the time limit and have long matches if need be during the mAT.

Selected spirits (both ranger and ritualist) could help out a bit too. Guess people might want to put down likes of dust trap around GL too.

Thou that possibly wont make it to serious GvGs.

This is "GuildWars." An OK team can bring 8 monks and force draws versus good teams instead of risking losses with a real build. And you bet people will pull this to improve their swiss points, many good teams will miss elimination from so many swiss draws, etc.

Not to mention said jankers can hold up the single elim for everyone by monking for hour+ endurance matches. Maybe some kind of weakass smite spike hoping they get lucky ever half hour.

And how is this fundamentally different than the current system where 7 monks and a mesmer can get a win?

Also, other than monthiles, does anyone actually care about AT results?

I find this information interesting in light of The Return of EvIl, who seem to favor this sort of strategy. Is it that important if this mechanics only applies as a tiebreaker? Are there that many ties in GvG?

When it's two good teams fighting each other at the top of their game, a lot of matches can go to 28 minutes. The one thing VoD at least got right was that it forced the game to end, it is impossible for the game to NOT end under VoD. it was impossible for a tiebreaker to occur unless both Guild Lords died at the exact same moment.

Its getting too complicated imo..

1. They just changed it so they can't? (in theory)

2. That is actually much harder to pull off than the alternative. You need to split your mesmer into the enemy base, while neutralizing near all damage on your own GL. In the draw scenario, you merely have to camp with 8 players and keep your lord alive, which is vastly easier and doesn't require any special build. You can afford to wipe a monk or two between base rez and it won't even matter.

GW's mechanics are prone to becoming overly defensive. The developers often try to get past this by giving control points to fight over, but mostly it led to Ghostly "holding" matches, Rawr VoD, and the current Hero Battles where people don't even fight. It's a fundamental design flaw that is not easily compensated for, but they might as well try.