Some arena suggestions

Hello all, I have a few ideas on improvements and new ideas for the PvP arenas.


1. Larger scale arena battles.
When I first played GW, there were a few maps in the tombs (now HA) where you had 6 teams going at it. There were large chaotic battles and that was great (even if I didn't do all that well on my few runs in there). Anyways, if possible, bring it back. In fact make it its own arena type. You can either go into HA and have mostly one on one with a few larger battles or you could go into a larger arena set up.

You could break this down further into 3 ideas. 6 way free for all (of various types) is one idea. Basically 6 teams enter, one team leaves. Then you could have a 3 way cooperative map or two. Three teams each made up of a pair of groups. Then you could have a grand melee. Two sides of 3 groups (this would be great for factions), or a supersized version of the faction battles.

This could possible give prizes for any team that wins 4-7 rounds like the HoH.

2. More options for team arena and random arenas.
Include some 3 team, 4 team, and 6 team maps as well. Mix it up a little.

3. The pit.
This one is simple. Put a pair of teams in a small arena with few features. A small circular room would do. Let them start off in each other's face with little place to go.

4. GvGvG[vG(vGvG)]
Ask yourself a simple question, why does Guild versus Guild have to be limited to two teams at once? If you've got some 8team arena maps, you can put them to perfectly good use as neutral ground for multiple guilds going at it at once. At times when it is harder to find an even pairing for two, you can make it more than just one on one. It might even provide more of a challenge for the upper-tier teams if they suddenly have to deal with more than one team at a time. Plus who wouldn't mind seeing more than two of the best teams beating the snot out of each other at a time.

5. More hostile arenas.
Okay, we've got arenas with icy areas and areas that set you on fire. How about more?

A maelstrom arena where random areas periodically get hit by a skill level 0 or one maelstrom is a possibility. A chaos storm arena would be a nice variation on that. Like air? A gale arena could work: everyone has a 50% chance of being knocked down every now and then. Maybe a thunderstorm arena with falling rain and the players (and adjacent) have a slight chance of being hit by lightning. Some arenas could force you to fight with half energy/ade regen or there could be an arena with no healing at all.

6. Helpful arenas.
The arenas don't just have to provide a drawback for each team. Maybe one could give everyone in it a speed boost. Or mending/healing breeze (or something like that). Some arenas could come with nature spirits. Maybe there is a dwyana's arena where all healing is doubled and necro spells are at half skill level.

7. Treasure hunt.
This would be like capture the flag/artifact, but you wouldn't know what it is exactly you are looking for in the beginning. There could be several items in the arena to collect and bring back but your team only needs to find one (and it could be different from the other team). Most like objects found win.

8. Scattered teams.
Why do teams always have to start together? Why not let everyone start in an individual cell and make them work to meet up with the rest of the team.

Of all the suggestions offered I like these three.

It seems that some kind of larger scale battles are coming with Factions (12 versus 12).

In my view, 2 sided battles, or 4 sided battles, ... any even number of sides is better for Guild Wars; because, there is only one kind of faction, and, then, for example, 4 teams may cooperate 2 versus 2.

And 3 sided battles, ...(5), or any odd number, would be better there were 3 factions very different like in Starcraft, ... (5); because, it is less likely that these factions will cooperate.

I have noticed that you do not suggest a 1v1 arena, were 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ... players fight each one to survive over any other. And yo have not suggested teams of 2 people, 3 people, ... these might be also suggested?

Well, this is my opinion.

I think we need some Factions based arenas:

The Elder Garden
This map is based loosely around the Eternal Grove mission. Two four-person teams are placed on opposite ends of a forest. On each end is a large tree, about 2x the size of the other trees. The goal is to destroy the enemy team's tree before your own is destroyed. The trees cannot be healed or enchanted, and are not affected by wards. The trees have around 1000 health and 80 armor. After 10 minutes, the win goes to the team with the healthiest tree. Also, to keep things balanced, all armor-ignoring spells do only 50% damage. (to prevent abuse by OF spike builds) Because of the amount of strategy and communication required, this arena is TA only.

Kuunavang's Nest
This map is a very large circular arena, made of pure jade. In the center is a large dragon. The two four-person teams must eliminate each other, while trying to survive the ongoing attack of the dragon. The dragon is a level 24 elementalist, just like the one in the 12v12 battle. Unlike in the 12v12 map, this dragon will attack any player it comes across. The dragon can be killed, but in attempting to do so, you may be left open to attack from the enemy team. If there is one person left on either team, and the dragon kills a player, the win will go to the team with the surviving player. This map is available in both the random and team arenas.

I don't know why, but I like your concept of scattered teams. It instantly reminded me of the FPS Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory for some reason and how much fun I had playing that game.

/sign

Hope to see those in Chapter 3 the most

Christmas gift ANet??

Here's something else I thought of: how about semi-random teams?

Basically what you do is you pick a template you want to play in and the template is filled up by other people who are also trying to join. If there aren't enough players of a type available, then it'll be greyed out or put on a waiting list (if there's a waiting list you should be able to see how long the line is). There wouldn't be an official leader and to go in, everyone would have to hit enter mission when they are ready. You'd also have a chance to drop out if you change your mind or you don't want to deal with one of the other players.

That's a start on the idea anyways. Maybe partly filled groups could also go into it to get their last slots filled up.


Another idea for this is a "general manager" mode. You as the leader get to draft all the players available, but you have to take turns with all the other leaders. This way there could also be a way for the game to prevent new parties from forming if there aren't enough people in the around to fill a group.

Kind of reminds me of Defense of the Ancients on Warcraft III. Though wouldn't it be very similar to a guild battle, where the point is to take down the opposing guild's leader? Perhaps adding waves of NPC allies might be interesting.

I'm not sure how that reminds you of Enemy Territory... but it's a great game. =) (In all the maps I've played, I've pretty much always spawned with all my teammates...)

What does remind me of ET though are, for example, the Factions competitive missions that we saw in the Preview Event. In other words, one team has an objective, and the other team is trying to prevent that team from completing their objective. Perhaps if there were multiple stages of an operation with objectives and such...

By template, do you mean primary/secondary? That I could see... If you want a template that calls for a healing monk, trapper, or such... that might be a BIT more difficult to implement.

I like the idea... it's kind of like what people try to do for PvE already though, forming teams with certain people on it. I suppose it would have to be an addition to random arenas, seeing as how if you wanted a specific team in team arenas, you'd just ask for it.

Yeah, or by primary alone depending on the build. For example if you wanted to join a spike team, having X elementalists is all that's really important. If you are a necro spike team then you'd want all necros. However if something IWAY was an option, then you'd want 4W/Rs and a N/Mo. You wouldn't have an infinate number of builds to choose from, but a fair selection so that every class would have say 3-4 options.

For example you could have a balanced-type group with one of every primary and an extra monk and warrior. You could also have six builds that only have a single class allowed (one for every class).

I think they should rotate snowball arena into RA and TA. It'd be funny and give arena players a small taste of relic running. Of course, the storyline and background may have to be changed, but I think it's hard for Anet to put all the work into snowball arena and just forget about it.

going back into this....somewhat older thread....an arena that has hero annihilation matches instead of having to focus on capturing points whould be nice

/signed to all these ideas, specifically the Large Scale Arena Battles, and more maps that have bonuses and drawbacks (that Dwayna map sounds cool! )

It's not like anything bad will happen from new things like these. More things to do is always good!

how about a 10 player ffa, last-man-standing arena with a few variants
1) a for fun only area where you only play for Balth faction
2) a winner take all, ante-in bout
3) a variation where you can take a support player in that can only cast pre-assigned support skills
4) a variation that has a meter showing "crowd" support and the "crowd" reacts to your performance based on taunts used (/commands), skills used (i.e. deductions for repetitive moves), use of armor (more bonus for less armor worn) and other such stuff all leading to the gain of points for two new titles, one for being crowd hero and the other for being the match villian

That first suggestion sounds very cool.
The small arena may not be as fun because that's assassin domination. Or toucher....
For the helpful arenas, putting on Battle Cry or Chimera of Intensity would be cool.
For the Hostile arenas, it'd be cool to have some bad guys just running around to add chaos instead of just the elements around you.
For the GvGvGvGvG thingy, I think it'd be better if it was 2 guilds from an alliance vs. another 2 guilds from another alliance. Because the guild maps only have two bases if you get my drift, so 6 guilds can't really fit in there with their own bases.
Scattered arena, yes....
That treasure thingy reminds me of Mario Party.
3 team, and 6 team sound good in RA.
overall
/signed