Fort Aspenwood update?

What do you think will be in store for our favorite controversial competitive mission in the upcoming PvP update? Since FA existed, pretty much every update has been targeted at buffing Luxons and nerfing Kurzicks. Here they are (from looking up Wiki updates):

-Removed Death Nova on Kurzick Necromancers. This one is understandable because the stupid AI will chase a dying player into the fort to cast it, making the gate unbreakable.
-Increased the range of the turtle's siege attacks. Pretty self explanatory buff.
-Gatekeepers and Gunther no longer run outside green/leave their posts.. But as we all know that was either a lie or a very terrible fix.
-Changed the 4 warriors' AI so that they won't get stuck/run back and forth outside the fort/etc. Occasionally the warriors still get stuck, but not nearly as much now as before. Still, if they could fix this, why couldn't they fix the juggernaut getting stuck?
-Green gate no longer closes when the Juggernaut is inside. Okay, so one mistake by the Kurz opening green pretty much means game over? I thought FA was a casual arena that is forgiving of mistakes. It even says so on their website!
-Stopped minion griefing by giving Gunther his gaze. Nice fix, except that the griefing started in Febuary (2009) but had pretty much stopped by end of March since Kurzicks learned to counter them by bringing Verata's. The update to this was done in May, way too late of a fix. Also shows how Kurzicks can adapt so quickly while Luxons STILL won't bring Enchant removal after all these years.
-Reduced the timer by 5 minutes for Kurzicks to win. This was pretty much the only buff that the kurzicks got, although IMO it was more of a "balance" since now Kurzicks don't have to hold out for ~20 minutes while the Lux can win in 5. Both sides can now earn faction at almost the same rate.
-All those changes to make the uber turtles godlike. Self explanatory, understandable. But were they really necessary?
-Several skill changes that saw "Watch Yourself" smiter's boon'd (Gunther and the Kurz warriors use this), Healing signet buffed, Ward Against Melee nerfed, and Sundering Attack buffed (Lux rangers). Self explanatory, although indirect they still affected the npc performance of their respective sides.

Yet despite all these changes, the Lux still can't win... so going by Anet logic I can see them going the extra mile and giving Luxons:
1) A permanent speed boost to turtles.
2) Allowing turtles to march automatically when they respawn.
3) Adjust turtle AI to fire only at npc's.

What will Kurzicks get? I can't see many things happening because Kurzicks already win so much. And yes, I realize that I am being biased against the Luxons, but seeing as how there have been so many Luxon players b****ing on the forums lately, I thought I'd balance the perspective a little bit (I play both sides). Also Luxon player skill comes into play in determining why they lose so much, but that's another story.

TD;LR version: What changes do you foresee or hope will change in the update?

Wrong forum much?

Also, FA is only as good as the players playing it.

Out of everything, this makes me Q_Q the most. >.>

I really hope they take another look at FA when the "PvP Love" update rolls around, but I'm really not holding my breath. When compared to other formats, Fort Aspenwood isn't exactly choice pickin's in the PvP world.

could be out of the loop but i thought codex + henchman/hero changes was the pvp update.

FA was the only PvP I played regularly. Until last April

Thank you.

Last comminication made it sound like there were simply "AI/code issues" and that they'd "want the test krewe" to test them.

Turtles only targeting NPCs would be just enough I think. Seems like 80% of my luxon losses happen once the green gate is down cause turtles too busy nuking people running out instead of gunther and co. There will still be imbalanced cheap losses on both sides, but I think the win ratio will even out. Maybe even nerf the turtles slightly (like, only remove NPC enchants).

Of course I wouldn't mind if they just delete FA and JQ, and reimplement random pairing in AB. The heavy NPC focus of CMs leads to such degenerate builds.

FA and JQ are in the lore, sooo I don't think they'll be deleting those formats anytime soon. I'm confused about your suggestion though; when was AB random party?

The truth, for real.

I just stick to JQ... Kurzicks, imo, always win FA. Out of 10 matches for example, I only won 2 times. :\

Everyone that feels that the map is balanced is running monks on the Kurzick side, right?

[/QUOTE]
-Reduced the timer by 5 minutes for Kurzicks to win. This was pretty much the only buff that the kurzicks got, although IMO it was more of a "balance" since now Kurzicks don't have to hold out for ~20 minutes while the Lux can win in 5. Both sides can now earn faction at almost the same rate.
[/QUOTE]

A Kurzick win takes 10 minutes without running any amber.
When did a game ever last 20 minutes .... if they reduced it by five a game should last 15 minutes now, learn to calculate...

I hope they just scrap the arena altogether. Trying to balance an arena with an asymmetric map between sides is a joke.

Me myself would be happy with spells not being able to target an ally through a closed gate. Change that and you can weaken the turtles all you want

sync fa! and get a teammate to bring AoD mes it's super good

Yep. If you aren't running a monk on the Kurzick side and complain about losing, you are basically the equivalent of a Luxon complaining about losing because no one had the foresight to bring mass enchantment removal.

Those two aspects, in and of themselves, make FA a balanced arena. Honestly, I can count on one hand how many FA matches I've participated in where the Kurzicks lost if they had 3+ decent monks/ritualists.

Wow, entire post was ridden of imbalance in the luxon's favor.
Luxons can win, and they do, relatively often. I like JQ/FA even better than AB for the balancing factor. The matches seem quicker, and you get more faction. AB can feel like forever, only to waste your time and lose.

So let me run down these laughable suggestions.
(I've omitted a couple, as I had nothing to say about them)

-Increased the range of the turtle's siege attacks. Pretty self explanatory buff.
Why? The siege turtles can already bomb me from half a country away, in my base. Through walls. And still do massive damage.

-Gatekeepers and Gunther no longer run outside green/leave their posts.. But as we all know that was either a lie or a very terrible fix.
NPC's move. Fascinating concept.

-Changed the 4 warriors' AI so that they won't get stuck/run back and forth outside the fort/etc.
Okay this one I can kind of agree with. Turtle guards are a bit retarded.

-Reduced the timer by 5 minutes for Kurzicks to win. This was pretty much the only buff that the kurzicks got, although IMO it was more of a "balance" since now Kurzicks don't have to hold out for ~20 minutes while the Lux can win in 5. Both sides can now earn faction at almost the same rate.
So, why are you even complaining so much?

-All those changes to make the uber turtles godlike. Self explanatory, understandable. But were they really necessary?
They're killable. Very killable. Rangers. Unless a monk is in the area, which is a possibility. A small fact you need to accept.

-Several skill changes that saw "Watch Yourself" smiter's boon'd (Gunther and the Kurz warriors use this), Healing signet buffed, Ward Against Melee nerfed, and Sundering Attack buffed (Lux rangers). Self explanatory, although indirect they still affected the npc performance of their respective sides.
So?

In the longrun, the CM's are mid-skill to me, and some of the most balanced. It's forgiving, but requires intelligence.

The stuff you just commented on were changes already made by Anet. They're not his suggestions.

I'm laughing too much to write anything witty about cagedinsanity, so I'll just quote cuz' this made my day ;>

They're going to update FA? That's news to me. I though they were just letting it fall apart like with what they've done with the rest of the pvp areas.

Update 12/21/2012
Fort Aspenwood has been removed from the game.

I can definately see it happening.

Way back around factions release, you could hit enter in AB with less than a party of four. It would pair you up with other people who entered with less than a full party. Team Arenas also had this feature (before being deleted...)

AB also had a full list of 12 party members for the window, i remember seeing this in a youtube video of beta Factions. Some of the things that anet changes are pretty silly.

12-man aegis and heal party was dumb I'll admit... then again aegis was nuked so that isn't necessarily as bad an issue now, and most abusive para stuff is earshot. Regardless the "enter freely" thing should be doable whether we have 4-man or 12-man teams.

Playing monk is only as easy as the opposition you face.

There's 2 viable ways to keep the gate guards up.
1) Push red bars - easily overcome with a little concentrated dps
2) Bonding - Screwed over by enchant removal (and useless for the rest of the game)
I dont really count hybrid prot/heal as that viable since turtles strip single enchants easily.

I think Assassin, Derv, Necro, Mesmer and Rit all have some form of enchant strip available to them, and 4 of them are quite capable of dps as well.

Some kurzicks bring skills that are suited to the environment. When luxons finally grow enough brain power to do the same then maybe we can assess the balance of the actual game format.

The OP is totally bias with a kurzick slant and condescending towards the luxons who win FA with regularity. I suspect the OP is not looking for balance but perhaps has a more mischievous motive?

Appearently the team in the screenshot had enough brain power, since we kept the mines red all the time and carried both turtles outside the green gate; but we lost anyway. That's because kurzicks had 5 monks spamming heals on Gunther and a gatekeeper: they don't even heal themselvels, because they will be ressed a few seconds later;

Before i maxed the kurzick title i tough FA was fine, because the turtle attack hit you hard and strip enchantments. Then i started playing on luxon side, and i noticed how imbalanced it is. Luxon, in order to win have to: keep the mines capped, snare and kill amber runners, keep the turtles alive and deal with the shitload of healers kurzick will have. That's pretty hard for a random team, considering that the average player won't leave the outpost without his shit defy pain build.

Possible solutions for balancing imo:
- increasing the time before kurzicks are resurrected, since they will be in the middle of the fight faster.
- Let the turtles shoot at the mines if they are controlled by kurzicks.
-Introducing some form of punishment for passive teams (8 monks), like stopping the progress of the weapon.

Yeah some of those changes are quite laughable aren't they? And yet that's EXACTLY what Anet did.

Actually, the old timer required about 17 minutes without amber. Hence why I used the ~ to indicate an approximation.

Well, I did say that the bias was intended since I wanted to "balance the perspective a little bit" as the forums lately are full of complaints from the Luxons on FA...

first of all, luxons DONT always lose... this is just stupid "propaganda" made by idiots so that people when looking for a guild go kurzick. Its stupid and has no proof behind it.
Secondly, whenever i monk and theres another monk on the other side(total of two)... I always win. Dont matter what builds. I run a simple WoH with other cheap heals and two anti-melee stances.
Third and most important misconception, WHEN the kurzick team has 3 or more monks... its near impossible to kill kunther if you dont have people also targeting at least 2 of the 3 or more monks.

Its defense(kurz) vs offense (lux)... lux carry more variant builds then kurz... who usually bring to the table rangers with longbows, some type of turtle killing build or heavy defense build.

Dont talk about lowering time because your bored of staying behind a gate... want a challange? go to the lux side.

My point with running monks and seeing how "balanced" the map is rather was that had the Kurzick ran monks, instead of the shit they normally run, they'd see how imbalanced the map is.
Most Kurzick players will think that the map is balanced because of the shit they run which in turn gives the Luxon a fighting chance.
Seriously, run monks and you'll see there is NOTHING the Luxon can do.




Or, if you have some understanding of the game mechanics you should see, even without playing, why the Kurzick have it easier.

id rather see most then anything a buff for luxon players. Sorta lke an effect for charging tht kurzick base. Id suggest a 2% speed, casting time, and attack speed inscrease for each level of the base you go through.

Most would be i think 8% but still is something to combat the monk parties of the kurzick side.

played alot of fa when farming faction way back.. it was easier to play as a kurzick- used to bond one of the gates and the luxons never brought enchant removal.. so one gate ended up choking that chicken

not sure what kind of buffs and stuff they have today.. but you could win on luxon, just bring enchant strips and damage.. didn't even need the turtles

Yesterday was FA day on the Zcombat post, and I actually had a pretty decent win streak on the luxon side. There were several really depressing losses, but more victories then I'm used to(even VS 3+ monk teams). Part of it is the players here, for the most part, they genuinely suck. I mean they're terrible, they do dumb things with bad builds, and don't pay attention to whats going on around them, or what the goal of the mission is. This is why they should let players form their own parties 8 man, then enter the battle. Before the "lol 8 munks on kurz dur" crowd slams the idea, they would need to rebalance how the rest of the map works.

They need to diversify the parties that spawn with the turtles and at the mines, instead of 4 wammo noobs, give them a mesmer(shatter enchant, cry of frustration, diversion, and interrupts, p-leech or p-distract, and if we really want to be jerks, soothing images and ignorance), a necro(chillibeans, well of the profane, defile flesh and spoil victor or soul bind, and suffering) and maybe an ele that can hit behind the gates. Instead of 2 crappy rangers without elite skills or self heals that can be taken out from the parapets, give the mines a healer(like the one at the green mine) and a ranger or caster that can fight back, maybe an assassin or warrior to run out and harrass stuff. If they buff the defense at these key points, healer classes won't be able to cap and run amber. Nerfinate the turtles, but buff the party that comes with them.

They need to change the AI behavior a lot too. Fix the bugs that get them stuck on stuff, and most of all, they need to advance, and be more agressive. I have no problem with them stopping to shoot something in their range but once they fire, they should keep moving(they need a limit to how long they attack something, before moving on, like what you had in saul's bonus pack mission, the shout skill that made your AI buddies form up). The only thing that should halt their advance is if a gate is up, and their support party should be actively agro'd and fighting the gate NPCs or whatever is in the turtles path. Their argo range should be like the kournan spotters, they move ahead of the turtle, while it nukes from the rear.

Now for the kurz side. They need to add the buff from the eternal grove to the fort, it's basically a speed buff. They also need to make the gate NPCs juggernauts that will actively move out and engage foes, instead of camping a gate while being healed from behind. 2 at the outer, 3 at the inner, 4 at the green gates with kurz NPCs scattered around like they are now. With the speed buff they'd be able to move fast enough to engage effectively, and maybe add a juggernaut only skill ranged attack if they still cant.

The Kurzick NPCs between the gates, and at the keep, should spawn as well if the kurz turn in amber(like, they turn in amber to a keeper, and it spawns a few random kurz npcs to that gate. They spawn at the shrine, run out the teleporter and to their respective gates).

Basically even though it's a defensive map for the kurz they need to get punished for being exclusively, passively defensive(they should have to attack to repell the assault), while the luxon are already screwed if they're not offensive enough.

Pretty bad example you chose.
Its hardly normal for kurzicks to have 5 monks. Certainly at the times I play between 0-3 is normal.
And there is no wonder you couldn't kill. Luxons are severely lacking damage. Looking at your party list you have 3 maybe 4 healers.
I also see a LOT of shambling horrors, if it were me, i'd trade every single one of them for 2 wells of profane.

So yeah, you've illustrated exaclty my point perfectly. Thanks

So what you are saying is that it's hardly normal for the Kurzick to NOT suck?

And that's the issue.
You roll a monk on the Luxon side. You hope that you get a party that complements your choice.
You roll a monk on the Kurzick side. And you have single-handedly fulfilled all the required roles.
As long as there is no required active objective on the Kurzick side, the Kurzick are not punished for choosing the best option.

Edit:
@Hugh
I think the best way should be to reduce the meaning of NPCs. No environmental effects either.
Make it as clean as possible, since that is going to be the easiest way to balance.

Monks have ROJ and Ritualists seems to like running crappy channeling builds. The problem arn't Luxon lacking damage, are Kurzick being able to keep alive Gunther for five minutes when 2 turtles are bombarding and the whole team is attacking him.
And btw i have seen those days a lot of Necros triying to heal or Elementalist with Woh and heal party.

If they can't balance it, they should at last revamp the rewards: 500 factions per broken gate and 1000 if you kill the architect will do the job.

You can flip that over as well though.
You roll a E/N nuker on the Kurzick side. You hope that you get a party that complements your choice.
You roll a E/N nuker on the Luxon side. And you have single-handedly fulfilled all the required roles.

The screenshot says otherwise.
The players bar is a healing bar at heart (1 healer)
Recuperation is up suggesting the other Rt is a healer (2)
The player has healing breeze on them obviously a 3rd healer or they'd be using attack skills in that situation (3)

I'll take your word for it the other is a smite monk, but discounting RoJ, the dps from the smiting line is pathetic, so i'll stick to my argument that luxons lack sufficient dps.

And like I said, 5 monks is not a normal party composition. Had you had 5 savannah heat ele's to counter it and the death necro hadn't taken a worthless bar my bet is on turtles+nukers over any number of red bar pushers

So you are saying that all that the Luxon need is ench removal and damage?
That is all?
Bringing anything else is sub-par to that?

So 8 E/N are the pretty much the optimal Luxon party?
No mesmers to shut down the monks that hide behind the gates?
No monks to heal the Luxon party or the AI?

Yes?

If luxon would have a team of 8 E/N the situation would be like this: At first all goes smoothly and inner gates are down. But at the same time one kurzick kills both turtles because nobody can heal them. After that kurzick can just concentrate to luxon players and they camp in front of green gate. All eles who try to rush in get killed in few secs and even if one gets through one monk can simply use one WoH and all damage the ele can do is healed.

Your view of optimal for kurzicks is 8 monks.
In such a scenario luxons wouldn't need healing beyond what Aura of Restoration can provide, and given 8 E/N's with nothing in the world to worry about except nuking then yeah, i'd say its fairly close to optimal.

However we all know that neither 8 healers nor 8 E/N's is actually optimal. A team with no damage output will always struggle to match the un-mitigated offence of the other team. A team with nothing but damage output will always struggle due to lack of flexibility.

BUT, given than I regularly see 2 monks on the kurzick side because they are a strong build choice, i'd expect to see 2 E/N's on the other side because they are also a strong choice.