So to explain : we never blown our own gates so we wanted to try it out : it didn't worked so instead we have all fallen back to B here is the result : This game ended with us rushing A point as melee archetypes because losing with that much tickets was impossible @jbregg the problem is not only the gates , it's the entire fortress mechanic that is lacking , everyone can turtle at B and wait for the ennemy to cap the points for max tickets Even Attacking as defenders we were still at 150 tickets at 15 sec of the end Please , disable fortress maps
Because fighting at B is generally uninteresting, not logical, if not down right frustrating for most people due to the level design. It is indeed harder, but I think that's not necessarily a big deal, it's meant to be difficult. I think that specifically the issue is that there are some really annoying features for every B point fortresses. People don't like fighting there because it's just run in, kill one or two people at best, die from.some obscure angle you can't even hit, res, do it again. I feel.as though if you changed the level design a bit, you'll have people actually being ok with the gates coming down, they'll WANT to assault the inner sanctum. First: Do not allow the balcony to shoot down at the entrances and limit what it can hit if the attackers take it. MYST utterly destroyed a guild on a Twitch while Brent and Noah played as attackers on Harkus. The sole reason why was because we put Dark Reapers on the balconies. We've done this on Agnathio as well, and that literally flips the match from that point on. Since then I've seen this over and over as the only viable tactic that wins regardless of faction and it's mind numbing. The paradigm goes from getting slaughtered at the doors, to spawn camping. This is literally the meta to taking a fortress without having it be a guild v pug blitzkrieg. It's just not fun. Second: Harkus has an interesting concept at the wings, raised platforms that block line of sight especially from above and creates somewhat limited firing lanes. Old Black bolt had some absolutely amazing fighting in tight corridors. Current Blackbolt on C, the trenches, as well as the open side of B (the east side where defenders must run through) and even ruins all serve as fantastic inspiration to breaking up these clear lines of sight in believable 40k ways. 3rd: Ranged totally dominates this area, it is extremely difficult for melee to make a serious difference when it's monolithically heavy weapons and their tactical supports that win this for both sides. There's little variation for what either the defender attacker needs to do. Have more winding passages doors and area's melee could actually attempt to hold and/or push through, hell there's literally nothing stopping you from putting trenches INSIDE these sanctums, I in fact encourage you to do so, for: Fourth: there's little direction within these places with a lot of stuff to deal with at once with a lot of exposure. As an attacker, you have about 2-3 directions you can get hit from at once, pretty much no matter where you try to enter the sanctum from, and then are highly exposed to get to where you need to be in order to actually have a fight. When you get there, unless you're on the holy balcony, it's in a vastly inferior spot to who you're fighting, and they're already set up, and getting reinforcements. For the most part, even when you get there, nothing much changes, you're still exposed, and still fighting a piss poor fire fight from multiple angles. Five: This is understanderably supposed to be an intense fight. Partially why it's so boring for attackers is that they spend a lot of time walking and not fighting. Their spawn (A) is far away. Their spawn vehicles are also far away on maps like Aganthio and Harkus. Ronan, they're quite close and there's interesting places to fight even before getting to B, drawing players out and on Ronan, it's a viable and fun strategy to fight in the Gondor-like city right in front of Ronan B, it's super fun even fighting from.the towers to balconies. It's much less enjoyable fighting indoors. Make the attackers have to walk less in order to get back into the fight. Six: Why do defenders need more quad cannons at point B? And why do they need to respawn? Seven: Shield walls and/or mass melee on fortresses .never happen yet this is the number one potential where it could happen, you have the potential for narrow winding spaces, perfect for intense firefighting, or massive battleline of melee, yet we went overwhelmingly with heavy weapons. Melee should shine as much as ranged though, this is supposed to be the showcase moment where territories flip. 50/50 ranged and melee should be the goal.
On the whole not much direction/exposure thing, here's a great example: The wings of Harkus, meant to be tools for flanking. They can fight their way to the point, to the balcony, or to the second floor. But, in any of those choices, once they go for it, they are incredibly exposed. Going to the point = all direction exposure. Going to the balcony exposes them to both the balcony, the back wall and most if not all.of the second floor as well as any guards on the point itself. The same is true for attacking the second floor. It is also true for Aganthio and Ronan. This I know is partially the reason why Blackbolt C got a railcar entrance, the bridges are too exposed, particularally the smaller ones, and the big bridge, even though it's probably the best fucking firefight with the absolute minimum cover, empties really awkward and exposed zone, the other being the distance people had to run to get there. More angles just makes it more difficult for defenders unless those angles bend back onto themselves like they do on fortesses, I haven't been able to play on the new Blackbolt C, but honestly if firefights are no longer a thing on the big bridge, color me disappointed.
Increase respawn time for defenders when gates are down and again when A has been taken. As simple/stupid as this sounds, it could actually work.
Another good example of a good firefight zone is the entire section between A and B on Pegasus. Roof of A. Windows of A. Ground floor of A, vs 2nd floor B, 1st floor B, Ground floor of B. Forget the bridge. Forget the flanking areas. As far as ranged fighting goes, this is the second best major engagement in terms of face to face fighting. In fact, I think it's perfectly possible that a fortress could have an awesome fight like this, even if there's a total abyss between this three floor firing exchange, this is what ranged combat should be in a fortress. Close, brutal, full of cover on both sides. Please use this as a great example. Lastly, ruins and trenches inside your fortesses. So let's look at Harkus for a sec. We're going to totally gut it, it doesn't even have a balcony, just an empty building. Instead, put the capture point in a mecca like shrine box with 4 Pegasus Alpha facades, one more along the back wall, and two in each of the wings facing both directions, then put three lines of trenches from the main entrance, back towards the point. If the attackers gain a hold of one of the wings, they can shoot at defenders on their Mecca box initaiating a massively interesting fire fight while also giving proper support to players in the trenches. Players in the trenches enjoy melee and brutal fighting within, without being massively exposed as they fight their way through. With multiple trench lines, fighting flows both ways and isn't exclusively about setting up gunlines, it introduces a new element people have been dying to have, and attackers get a solid foothold inside, making it an actual fight. The groundwork of Zedek serves as great example as well. It's convoluted and urban. I think Harkus tries doing this a bit, but it's just too exposed on so many levels and many of the cubbies unfortunately aren't that important. Whereas Zedek on the ground encapsulates the ability to have multi leveled combat (the ground rises, falls, has concrete and boxes that prevent it from.being flat), without huge levels of exposure. It's a tactical playground. A masterwork by comparison, and I think a combination of all of this where melee, ranged, and heavy weapons all have their place is what the fortress needs. Heavy weapons should be excellent for fighting attackers as they run towards the main entrance. Then melee and tactical weapons fight in the tighter spaces after the attackers get through the main doors, and then, over the point itself, both sides bring everything they have to bear on an absolutely brutal and tiny space that should define the game itself. That sounds like fun to me, solo or with my guild, on any faction. This is meant to be what EC showcases, convincing the world that this game has potential other than a laggy grindfest for the vast majority of the players.
I don't think increasing the respawn timer will work. As a matter of fact I can see this becoming a problem for defenders. I envision a scenario where the number of people defending dwindling to a point where they cannot keep up with the attackers, thus causing an imbalance on the battlefield. The core mechanic to these maps is the management of time (for attackers) and tickets (for defenders). Destroying half of the wall tickets per section of gate in NO WAY balances the battle. It actually accomplishes the opposite effect. Gates are easily destroyed if focused upon and getting rid of half the the remaining tickets will impose too much of a disadvantage to the defenders. Don't believe me? Then I challenge the devs to implement this mechanic and compare the win/loss ratio for attackers vs defenders. The gates are meant to be a minor objective for attackers that should give them a slight advantage (a gap to pour troops and tanks through). Attackers should benefit from gates being destroyed, NOT DEFENDERS. On that note the attackers should not gain a major advantage, but a slight increase in time (the resource most important to attackers). This in turn will encourage defenders to try and maintain the remaining gate when one goes down. This, to me, feels more like a tug-of-war scenario. A system that rewards defenders for destroying their own defensive structures just doesn't make sense to me. Am I missing something?
A) I agree that increasing spawn timers is a bad workaround at best, mostly since everything that keeps people from playing the game is bad. B) However, you just took the reason why it might work and tried to make it sound bad. That is exactly the great advantage of increased spawn timers: Defenders might no longer be able to sit out an assault until all lives are drained and attackers have a realistic chance to push inside and assault the actual point on B, rather than just bleeding tickets. What I see as problematic here is that there are two kinds of people on a defense: -The ones who take risks and die occasionally, and the ones who dont. In other words: most of the lives lost are lost by the same small group of players dying again and again. Increasing their respawn time would only lessen the loss of tickets. C) The gates make a major difference right now. If there were no tickets on them, we should take them down by all means. Gaining foothold inside the fortress is essentially the most important part. You can see this if the Defender plays a lot of AV, utilizes their Tanks and the attacker doesnt counter it, in particular on Ronan and Harkus: The Defender can blow their gate up in the first minute, if they play out their options the attacker will still barely drain half the tickets on A before the game is over. And this is not over-exaggeration, that happened a couple of times now. And unless you have an organized team deploying with massive amounts of Meltabombs, Gates are fairly well defensible. A few Lascannons take care of every Siege-Tank approaching them. D) You might find that you will have a hard time if you want to get people to agree with you that Fortress-Defenders need an advantage. Take a look at the global achievement stats if you want to know, what I am talking about.
Imperial shekels??? What is this? 1st Edition??? The Imperium is using Thrones! Or Crowns... And some planets have their own currency... And some companies are issuing their own currency to their workers... And mutants and criminals are using metal-nuggets as coins...
Wait what?! So you are saying that increasing the spawn timers on defenders (which will result in an unbalanced number of players on the field, favoring the attackers) should correct this issue, and then you go on to say that defenders need an advantage. Either you just contradicted yourself or I missed something. The bottom line is this. People are complaining that the fortress sieges are not properly balanced. Mostly because attackers can sabotage their own gates to give them an advantage. That mechanic is what this whole thread is about. So let's approach this situation logically. What can we do to change the mechanics of destroyed gates to balance out this cheap way for defenders to get the upper hand? OH I KNOW!!! Increase the timer by 5 mins for every gate destroyed. The reason I made that workaround sound bad is, well, because it is. Defenders won't have a chance if their spawn timer is increased. The number of attackers and defenders has to be within reason of each other at all times, else we lose equilibrium. You are also not taking into consideration that downed allies spawn as a group and not individually. TL;DR If you want to counteract defenders destroying their own gates for an advantage in fortress maps all the devs have to do is increase the timer by 5 mins per gate destroyed.
