Fort Aspenwood no longer balanced.

How is cutting the time luxons have to win in half not a mechanics change? The fact is before the wins were probably about 50/50 assuming equally skilled teams. Now luxons have far less time to win and the ratio is probably closer to 80/20. 2 half decent monks + a kurzick team that can run amber once or twice a map means you pretty much can't lose. Turtles are just WAY too weak and their ai is WAY too bad for them to break through any decent kurzick team unless the luxons are playing significantly better then the kurzick team.

If Anet wants to keep the playing field relatively balanced between the sides either cut off about 1/4th to 1/3rd of the kurzick NPCs or make the turtle groups much stronger/smarter. The time it takes to win is irrelevant. Of course it has to take luxons less time to win then kurzicks, THATS THE DESIGN OF THE MAP! Letting kurzicks wins faster = luxons aren't going to win at all (in most circumstances)

Look Igmo if you and/or your teammates don't bring enchant removers then it's not the imbalance of the game it's your igmoism for not bringing them. I bring 3 enchant removers every battle on the luxon side and that's why I'm pretty much always on a winning team, provided I have teammates that act like a team and just attack when I call the attack after I've cleared the bonds.

The problem is most people are probably like you they want to bring heavy dps builds and never think of bringing anything to thwart those bonders and thus their dps wiki builds ain't worth the paper they are printed on. Sometimes you have to think outside of the cookie cutter builds and bring something that helps the whole team not just your ego or epeen in the game with your solo dps builds.

Sorry, I said this before I tried this recently, last time I did JQ was a time when it was slightly active.

Still haven't done FA since the update, but prior, luxons won about 80% of the matches I was in (I was forced to run Amber every single match in order to keep the Luxons off of the three NPCs, it was annoying then). Luxons had the advantage prior, now I would think it's a bit more balanced. Maybe, maybe not. I'll get back when I do a match.

I think he meant the idea behind what you do doesn't change.

Over-careful much? 2 should be enough.

And there lies a problem. I see a conflict of interest in there somewhere but can't quite grasp it.

You claim the win rate was about 50/50 before.
Others have claimed Luxons always lost before.
Meanwhile over on the Kurzick camp you've got QQ'ers saying they never won before either.

So now exactly who is right????? Whether it is balanced now or before is interpreted differently by different people based on their experiences. Alot of this is based on the luck of the draw as well. Some people have all the luck in the world. They get good teams with no leechers and always win. And then you have the no so lucky types who always find a way to lose. The end result is a jaded perception of unfair gameplay based on a percieved design flaw. As far as I am concerned there is no win/win situation here unless Anet mirrored the map so each side had the same map design and same npc's or something of that nature.

I've played so many games of FA my eyes bleed and I can tell you right now before the patch it was Luxons favor 80/20 of the time. I know cause I play both sides and if kurzicks didn't have any monks it was easy to plow those gates down and win hell we won one match in less than a minute or nearly one time it was so easy. The kurzicks always had the hard time before because of that dam TIMER. I always said it gave the luxons too much time when the battles did last a long time. They just got too many dam turtles after we killed a wave or two. Now it's much better and I've played both sides again and it's much more balanced than it was before.

Speak for yourself. Before the change as a monk on the kurzick side I won at least 70, maybe 80% of matches (not disputing what I said before though, I also win about the same from luxon side when I play over there). This isn't through any bonder BS that you can just hand wave away with enchant removal, this is normal good monking that keeps your team alive.The turtles can be rendered completely useless unless your team is full of retards. Without turtles its just an 8v8 except the kurzick side has NPC's that actually matter. It was already easy if the kurzicks were half decent before, now its shamefully easy.

I suppose you are doing the same and not passing your experience as fact right? I just want to clarify.

I've done 3 matches so far, and it's ridiculous. Maybe it's just my team, but out of the three matches so far a single monk on the Kurzick side has been able to keep us from winning.

I just want my extra faction cap

Okay, I find luxon side easier than kurzick. to win kurzick you need luck in the form of a monk or two. If you do not luck into a monk or two , the odds of winning are very slim. I'm at aspenwood all the time so I know both sides rather well. If you're on luxon side, to win all you have to do is what's mentioned here...bring enchant removal (and diversion, assuming you're secondary caster)and target ONLY NPC and monks. Everyone else you can ignore. I mention diversion because it'll ruin any gate bonder's day. Everyone else you can ignore. Since the gate guards are anti melee, it's best to go caster or ranged in aspenwood. If you can learn how the npc react and what skills they use you can determine what skills to bring that will kill them off the fastest. Aspenwood is very gimmick once you learn the npcs.

Trying to use a gate bonder on Kurzick side equals failure. Holy Veil ftw.

On average only 2 people per team are not total PvE scrubs when it comes to fort aspenwood, so who cares ?

Even the average RA player is 10X more skilled then the teammates you end up with in FA.

They are better if they happen to work.
Get someone to stand inside the outer Fort (above the passage between the inner and outer gate) and have that guy get the attention of the turtle. Then just heal that guy. The turtle will try to bombard the guy, the warriors won't move.
SUCCESS!

Pretty much. It has always given the Luxons an advantage if they knew what they were doing, and weren't giving you teams of 8 endure pain warriors with no damage. And now it seems like with the new update, Kurzicks are bringing more bonders, so combined with the shorter time it feels unbalanced for the Kurzicks now.

And from what I've observed, even a single monk is an almost guaranteed victory. There needs to be a bigger grey area than that where no monks won't cause you to lose, but a single monk won't give you a freebie.

Yeah, as a few have mentioned, is this really an issue? FA was never balanced in the first place. So there's really no point in saying that it's 'no longer balanced'...

"Know what they're doing":
Kurzicks kill turtles and 3/4 warriors.
Bond gate keepers, gunther.
1-2 run amber.

It has never been hard for defenders to win. Now it's easier.
It took a bloody long time, accorded, but 5 whole minutes? Come on.

i think both the fort and quarry need to be looked at again. i also hear that you can still get lots more faction for kuzick then luxon because Amatz Basin is so easy or so i hear dont quote me on that cuz i am hearing it from some one else.

imo it comes down how good the players on your team are.

I've played 3 matches in Aspenwood on the Luxon side yesterday and won two of them.

Sometimes you loose round after round on the Kurzick/Luxon side but sometimes you've just have winning streaks.

So it's even hard to tell if Aspenwood favors a certain side. I think everyone should give the change a chance and test it for a week or two and then give an evaluation about it.

I'm sure ArenaNet will fix this if the win:loss ratio makes clear, that the change puts the Luxons in a heavy disadvantage (although I fear that this will take them 6 months or so).

I'm more concerned about the synch teams. You know something goes wrong if the green gate falls after 2 minutes and that they roll everything that tries to stop them (that was before the update).

There is only one point that is certain: Since Factions release the design of Fort Aspenwood is still flawed.

I use to play on both sides and to me Kurzichs used to win about 7 out of 10 matches. Now its more 9 out of 10
I agree. Maybe not weak. But their AI is terrible. I had a match where the turtle would just focus on a obstructed target instead of the ones that mattered or in front of it.

Not to mention that the warriors have to be killed too before they respawn. Which means that you can sometimes play a entire match without the turtle respawning.

I'm curious about the average factions gained from FA versus JQ. If JQ proved to yield more factions, I will be moving my arse permanently to there from that gimmicky junk FA is.