Thoughts 2.3 AV

T

TseTse

Veteran X
I dont like it at all, as first impression.

It's interesting and could evolve in nice ways, but i am skeptical.

For those who haven't tried the new AV, give it a whirl on PTR. It's like Battlefield games in that each team starts off with points and they begin to "tick" downwards as you die, lose towers, lose LTs, etc. If you lose your main NPC (van/drek), it's over. You then get bonus honor for holding onto your stuff.

- time from win by kills is way too fuckin long

- it's a zergfest

- it's DIFFERENT


I was in a match that lasted 1:20, got us about 110 bonus honor (250 kills). Horde had SP and Alliance had FW. Neither could break through and even getting to that amount of progression took an hour.

Horde was way ahead on points but alliance broke through and started killing towers.

It came down to a battle of attrition, with scores of 53 vs 67... when alliance suddenly realized they hadn't killed Galv yet. Horde figured this out as they saw alliance rushing in there... tried to stop them but it was too late.

Alliance won 49-0

The most interesting part was that galv twist of fate. There are some strategic elements in this design, but it's still mostly just zerg vs zerg in the middle, with groups running around on defense to counter the ninjas.

I imagine 3 rough scenarios:

1) zerg vs zerg in the middle, with horde usually getting Snowfall. The fight comes down to who can kill towers and get the most kills over an hour and a half. 1.5-2 hours.

2) zerg vs zerg in the middle, with horde usually getting Snowfall. Somewhere after the first 30 minutes, one side's defense starts to fuck up and the ninja squads break up the turtle. Both sides begin to get more people through and it comes down to which side keeps up the better defense while maintaining strong offense (which should favor alliance). 45mins - 2 hours.

3) Early ninja groups of 10 or so break ahead and hold onto AS or RH, skipping all the other GYs. From that point, they muster a camp that can hold onto the flag while systematically taking out towers from the rear while most of the team maintains defense. Eventually their turtle can break and both sides mostly rush to kill Van or Drek. This could take 15-45mins.
 
I'm glad they're trying to put the "epic" feeling back into AV, but nobody's going to want to spend 1+ hours for 110 bonus honor :/
 
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Why wouldn't you just kill Balinda, cap the two towers/aid, and then kill Vandar, the same as it's always been. If killing the main NPC ends the game, there's no change at all, other than possibly changing the amount of honor you get.
 
PessimiStick said:
Why wouldn't you just kill Balinda, cap the two towers/aid, and then kill Vandar, the same as it's always been. If killing the main NPC ends the game, there's no change at all, other than possibly changing the amount of honor you get.
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You lose your own towers and that lowers the bonus honor you get. You HAVE to defend in new AV.
 
TseTse said:
Both sides begin to get more people through and it comes down to which side keeps up the better defense while maintaining strong offense (which should favor alliance).
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Um... I thought that was the entire point of objective-based teamplay games? You know you have groups defending your objective and opposite groups attacking the opponent's objective. Or are you more about the fact people will simply zerg all 40 on defense, force the other side to dive more into offense just to get shit done, only to have a small group of rogues/druids sneaking their way past the "frontline" and killing/capping so close to the home base?

The formula itself sounds like it would be fun in premades, but sucky in pugs. I guess the real question is would the extra honor be worth it in most players' minds to justify doing more premades.
 
Feannag said:
Um... I thought that was the entire point of objective-based teamplay games? You know you have groups defending your objective and opposite groups attacking the opponent's objective. Or are you more about the fact people will simply zerg all 40 on defense, force the other side to dive more into offense just to get shit done, only to have a small group of rogues/druids sneaking their way past the "frontline" and killing/capping so close to the home base?

The formula itself sounds like it would be fun in premades, but sucky in pugs. I guess the real question is would the extra honor be worth it in most players' minds to justify doing more premades.
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I consider 40 vs 40 zergs to be the most retarded thing this game has seen. It's only fun in world pvp contexts, like at halaa on city raids. Inside a BG, it's just fuckin stupid. Those huge turtlefests of the "good ole days" were fuckin stupid and that's why people stopped playing AV.

What ive seen so far is a mix of the full-zerg and then folks spreading out a bit to maintain their towers.

However, folks have to realize that trying to make AV into some amazing strategic gameplay is stupid. It's for honor grinding and silly fun. It will NEVER become some awesome epic gameplay. It never really was, either.

Premades could be interesting. I havent seen enough to know.

I cant tell if the PTR gameplay is even how it will be in live, as people start to care about honor and their time. I think there's room to rush more, esp for alliance. Once people realize how little honor they actually get from these long zergs, they will either try to play it differently or just stop queuing.
 
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Ciceron said:
You lose your own towers and that lowers the bonus honor you get. You HAVE to defend in new AV.
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You don't have to.

There's just an incentive to. In fact, you could rush like usual... kill their towers as best you can and try to win quickly.

The point degradation is a lot slower than i expected. You cant, for example, kill their towers and then just kill players for 5 mins till it's over. Winning by kills takes a fairly long time although some teams might want to really play conservatively and just get kills (done with a premade, this might go fairly fast).
 
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