Legacy of the Foefire Potential Changes

[padreadamo.3986]

> @Vagrant.7206 said:

> I still think you should implement dynamic cap points. The longer people are fighting on a point, the smaller the cap point should become. And then when the fight's over, the cap point starts to expand again.

>

> This would introduce all sorts of counterplay while reducing the aforementioned balance issues associated with high AoE classes.

 

This is actually a pretty awesome idea! Thumbs-up mate.

[Ario.8964]

I know this has been said but I'm saying it again to emphasize: The size of foefire mid point is the size every mid point (If not all points in the game) should be. Currently the aoe dominance in specs allows for too much point presence with the smaller nodes which as a byproduct slows down the game as nobody can get onto a node to contest it without being instakilled by perma spammed aoe. The reason foefire seems so snowball-esque as far as mid point goes is because those builds are no longer dominant on the point as they can't cover it in their aoe so there's room for glassier builds to get on the point to contest it from the other team until their team arrives to push the snowball forward more. Because players can no longer be artificially tanky through standing on aoe's the nobody wants to go into (they also can't hold the point like that anymore, it's why DH used to be super good on side nodes for legacy but not mid, their traps covered side nodes so their presence was immense but on mid you could kite out and cut off some of their damage with smart positioning) they die faster from team focus. This is good.

 

As per the runtime. I'm mixed on this. On one hand I think all runtimes should be long to emphasize the importance of mobility and make it so speccing into mobility for rotations is an important aspect of building. It also allows for rotations to have a bigger meaning as far as outrotating supports and big healers for a team. On the other hand, it allows heavily mobile classes to completely take over the meta as they can move between the points faster for +1s and such. I think the home point runtime on foefire is good by itself (adds some variability to starting splits) but changes to other map runtimes aren't really needed either.

[Cal Cohen.3527]

I probably should have mentioned that when looking at score differentials I made sure to normalize winning scores to 500 to avoid any additional disparity created by secondary mechanics, sorry for any confusion this caused!

[Allarius.5670]

> @sephiroth.4217 said:

> It's the best node to counter-play mindless AoE spammers which comes off as the more passive playstyle to me... sort of like aiming this O ontop of this o, even if you miss you'll still cover the whole cap point.

 

I agree with you, mindless spamming of aoe on point feels passive too. I guess that is the work they have cut out for them, finding that sweet point in balancing map and profession mechanics such that point assault can apply enough pressure to force enemies off to survive, get the point neutral, and force the fight, while making sure point defense has enough capacity to keep it from getting full capped because of the aoe spam.

[Spurnshadow.3678]

I don't know what that means. Does that mean that you looked at every match where the lord was killed and deducted the 150 points so it wasn't a factor?

 

BTW, I think the other culprit here is the match making system. A lot of folks are complaining that they're getting set up against teams with people a few medals higher than they are. There's apparently a large skill gap going on. This is apparently in favor of faster match making and class equality across teams. So, there's gonna be a lot of one team dominating in higher PvP matches. The larger cap circle can be more easily exploited by a good team. Yes, the better team will win on any other map, but they may not be able to dominate as much.

 

I personally have been in many a match where there was nothing we could do, even taking the sides, because my team kept running into mid one at a time, couldn't kill anyone 1v1 on the sides, whatever. A more evenly skilled team won't have this issue. Foefire is just a clearer mirror on this issue.

[Cal Cohen.3527]

> @Spurnshadow.3678 said:

> I don't know what that means. Does that mean that you looked at every match where the lord was killed and deducted the 150 points so it wasn't a factor?

>

> BTW, I think the other culprit here is the match making system. A lot of folks are complaining that they're getting set up against teams with people a few medals higher than they are. There's apparently a large skill gap going on. This is apparently in favor of faster match making and class equality across teams. So, there's gonna be a lot of one team dominating in higher PvP matches. The larger cap circle can be more easily exploited by a good team. Yes, the better team will win on any other map, but they may not be able to dominate as much.

>

> I personally have been in many a match where there was nothing we could do, even taking the sides, because my team kept running into mid one at a time, couldn't kill anyone 1v1 on the sides, whatever. A more evenly skilled team won't have this issue. Foefire is just a clearer mirror on this issue.

 

Basically if the match ended with a score of 649-499 due to a last-second lord kill, this was counted as a 500-499 score for the purposes of score differential.

 

Matchmaking definitely has an impact on score differential, but it's also constant across all maps. Over a large sample any differences will be due to the maps themselves.

[Paul.2054]

I just wonder why now after so long do you make the change considering its been in the game since launch and basically been an integral part of that map.

 

To me the general problem with the map is the extremely flat layout that allows for quick rotations for all classes which makes snowballing so much more effective on that map on top of the middle point. The visibility and space between mid and side points allows for a lot of easy decision making for rotations and the speed of rotation to back up the other points allows for stalling to be more effective than generally just the point size(which is true of ALL points on that map not just mid). It is by far the most accessible node layout in the game and snowballing and stalling is only so good on that map because of just that. I'm sure if you even took the average rotation time of most classes using just their basic mobility skills you will find it is significantly faster than any other map on average between each point. Even the fact that most other maps conceal the target on the points until you are very close allows foefire to have faster rotations for classes like revenant, DH, sword thief, etc who would only gain that type of mobility with coordination of targeting and importantly you can't do that kind of thing off respawn because of how the point layout only conceals side points from inside your own base.

 

Also foefire has waterfall and quarry which are two of the best side points in the game for kiting. The entire map is built to just snowball huge leads and in casual play you very rarely see the games momentum swing back and forth enough to see the team who initially lost take advantage of the map.

 

Deal with the entire layout of the map if you want to see real change.

[otto.5684]

Why do we need to change Foe Fire? It is the most liked map for a reason. This is a complete waste of time.

[MasterD.4790]

> @"Cal Cohen.3527" said:

> > @Spurnshadow.3678 said:

> > I don't know what that means. Does that mean that you looked at every match where the lord was killed and deducted the 150 points so it wasn't a factor?

> >

> > BTW, I think the other culprit here is the match making system. A lot of folks are complaining that they're getting set up against teams with people a few medals higher than they are. There's apparently a large skill gap going on. This is apparently in favor of faster match making and class equality across teams. So, there's gonna be a lot of one team dominating in higher PvP matches. The larger cap circle can be more easily exploited by a good team. Yes, the better team will win on any other map, but they may not be able to dominate as much.

> >

> > I personally have been in many a match where there was nothing we could do, even taking the sides, because my team kept running into mid one at a time, couldn't kill anyone 1v1 on the sides, whatever. A more evenly skilled team won't have this issue. Foefire is just a clearer mirror on this issue.

>

> Basically if the match ended with a score of 649-499 due to a last-second lord kill, this was counted as a 500-499 score for the purposes of score differential.

>

> Matchmaking definitely has an impact on score differential, but it's also constant across all maps. Over a large sample any differences will be due to the maps themselves.

 

If that's the only thing you did to "normalize" the data then its not enough. A lot of the times in a snowballed game you could own all 3 points and just kill the lord well before 350 points are scored. This would definitely skew the stats.

[HeadCrowned.6834]

I like the idea of reducing the distance between bases and close nodes. But I would leave the middle node as it is, its one of the things that make the map unique. Besides, it is better possible to keep that node with different builds than standard bunker builds.

[Assic.2746]

I think the size of middle point should not be changed. It's true it's really easy to kite there, but on the other hand this point is open from every dirrection and you cannot easily hide there thant's the downsite.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

Reducing point sizes is 100% the opposite of what is needed in this game right now.

[Burnfall.9573]

> @Spurnshadow.3678 said:

> I don't exactly know how to respond to your OP or this follow up without being banned, as I have a habit of doing that, but I'll try. Don't take things personally like some other devs that have paper thin skin.

>

> You are so out of touch with PvP and WvW.

>

> For years, we've been asking for larger points. It

>

> > @"Cal Cohen.3527" said:

> > Hey everyone,

> >

> > I'm going to try to clarify a few things to address some of the concerns in this thread.

> >

> > There are a lot of comments about Scourge here so I'll start with a reminder that the pvp team and balance team are separate teams. We can't speak for them so we usually won't comment on things that are directly related to skill balance. With that said, both the pvp and the balance teams do actively read the forums and we see all of the great feedback that you guys have given. We also chat with the balance team regularly, and although we can't communicate back to all of you here, your concerns are definitely being heard. Ideally we would like to see the balance discussions in their own threads, and keep threads like these more on-topic. Of course there will always be balance considerations when discussing map changes, but it should be more in the realm of 'this change is potentially concerning because of x build' and less of 'why even talk about this when there's balance to discuss'.

> >

>

> This blows me away. It's impossible to discuss game design, map design, without considering what the classes do and that involves balance. Are classes going to change or not? Are skills going to have smaller radius or not? What classes do affects how we play as well as our environment. They go hand in hand. That is why we're bringing it up. I mean, this might seem obvious, but if map design people are not working hand in hand with balance, then what's the point?

>

> > Moving back to the topic at hand, why even talk about Foefire changes right now? As Ben said in the original post, this is very much a 'thinking out loud' exercise. We talk about a bunch of different topics day to day, and this one in particular is pretty straightforward so we felt comfortable bringing it up here . Recently I was looking into the average score differentials on a per-map basis, and unsurprisingly Foefire has the biggest gap. As one of the most popular maps over the last 5 years, we've all had those games where the first teamfight at mid is lost and the subsequent 2-cap is never pressured. Personal anecdotes aren't a good reason to make changes, but the data certainly supports the idea that Foefire is the map that snowballs the hardest. Because Foefire is one of the most popular maps, we don't want to make any large sweeping changes that would significantly impact how the map plays, but we will certainly look at small tweaks that can mitigate some of the problems that the map has. For example, last year we adjusted the Waterfall to prevent players from being able to contest the point while LoSing at the same time. This is the type of change that has a positive impact without affecting the playstyle of the map.

> >

>

> Instead of thinking out loud, why don't you ask someone who's been playing PvP for 5 years on your team. Do they exist? Or read the threads. This is why there are so many of us saying your post is a troll post and you're out of touch. This sounds like someone who just got in the job a week ago.

>

> Regarding the score differential, have you thought that it might be the lord mechanic and not the larger cap circle? Usually, if a team can afford it, when they are about to approach 350, they rush the lord and hopefully end the game. So if a match is close, you're left with a 150 point gap. But that usually isn't done if the match is close. Also, if a team is trying hard to hold mid, then they usually will loose both sides. It's a trade off and why having a large cap circle in mid is a better design. Since you rattled off analytics, it sounds like you're just looking at the numbers and don't play.

>

> > I'll also clarify that there's no timetable on these (or any) changes that would be done to the map. Is it something that should wait given the amount of pressure that can currently be applied on a point? Probably, but we're more interested in what you think about the changes at a high level. Foefire definitely snowballs more, and this is something we would like to improve if possible. These are just a couple of ideas we've thrown around. The goal of this thread is to discuss any ideas that are out there. Feel free to chime in with whatever thoughts or other ideas you may have.

> >

>

> Again, lord mechanic. And is that really the goal of this thread, or to make it seem like there are people working on PvP and this is been just thrown out there as a panacea.

>

> > One last thought on the topic of point pressure: winning the fight is generally more important than keeping the point contested throughout the fight. This obviously isn't true 100% of the time (e.g.in a fight full of tanks that will drag on a long time, conceding a full cap is essentially the same as losing the fight entirely), but if you can concede a decap to avoid a ton of damage and follow up by winning the fight, this is an immensely better outcome than holding the fullcap a few more ticks and eventually losing the fight.

> >

>

> Um, what? If you can hold a point for more than 5 seconds, and you loose the fight, then it's a wash, especially if you know you have a team mate about to come and recap it back. If you can contest a point, that is generally more valuable. Matches are won by holding points, as 2 good teams fighting each other aren't going to die a lot. Holding and contesting is everything. Again, shows you don't play.

>

> > Apologies for the blob of text, and as always thanks for the great discussions.

>

> Thanks for participating, I guess? But, honestly, your post is more discouraging for me.

>

>

 

 

[Ithilwen.1529]

Reducing the size of mid is a disastrous idea. This trend of trying to force toons into close combat is bad generally. It heavily favors Rangers and DE by making a tigher group of targets and other classes are being stripped of ranged counters. It also boosts SB, DH and Scourge.

 

**No, make changes that improve life for all classes, not just favored ones.**

 

I don't think anyone really wants to return to the "zerker" meta when "skill" consisted of getting your burst off first.