Fort Aspenwood...Unbalanced survey?

I know for a long time, Fort Aspenwood has been long unbalanced.

Before the Luxon Paradigm (where everyone decides to farm Luxon Faction over Kurzick Faction), Fort Aspenwood was favored in the Kurizcks, due to how easily the seige turtle can be interrupted.

Being a Kurzick follower, I didn't mind it too much, though Fort Aspenwood was easy to win thanks to this. A ranger could just sit on top off of the highest point on the fort and interrupt below.

Now, with post-kurzick paradigm, it is seemingly unbalanced to the luxon side. The seige turtle takes more than 3 interrupts to stop (which can't be done from one class except mesmers). Due to this, the Luxon's have an advantage because the kurzick gates get destroyed with ease...or at least in my opinion.

My question is, do you think Fort Aspenwood will always be unbalanced? or do you think it is/was balanced now/in the past?

My opinion: always unbalanced, when it favored the kurzicks and now favors the luxons.

If I were Luxon I'd go /N for gaze on every build and always win.

But I'm Kurzick so I spend most of my time blanking people's bars with divert in the hopes the Luxons don't have more than 3 monks, which they usually do.

It would be more balanced if the luxons had to carry jade to their base too. Just mirror the map, this is just weird. I never get to play offense unless I change guilds :/ (for dumping faction)

Agreed. The luxons have a refined amber mine, and both raw amber mines at the start. It order to resurrect their downed turtle, they need to run amber to the corresponding commander. the amber can be of any kind. Of course, there can still only be one turtle per commander active at once.

Another balance idea I had was more juggernauts. Rather than just one at the green gate. Have at least 3 total, or 5. one at every gate in order to help stop the turtle's movements. I see 3, one green and 2 (1 inner purple and 1 inner orange) would be even.

Luxons don't have to run amber to commanders. Don't know where you got that idea. They only have to speak to commander after turtle and warriors have died to get new set.

I maxed both titles doing FA exclusively. It was always easier to defend than it was to offend, lol. Although the wins on the luxon side were much sweeter and wait times were much smaller.

In my experience playing both sides Kurz have a huge advantage, what with turtles that constantly get stuck and refuse to push in if there are people in agro range. Playing from kurz side was so easy as to be boring.

^agrees. FA is basically Luxons versus The Clock. Depending on when you play greatly affects the teammates you'll get on either side. I still think it favors the Kurzs. With two decent healers the Kurzs can wait out the clock. Late evening (American Timezones) there seems to be more kurzs healers meaning more kurzs wins. During the day i've been seeing less kurz healers and been winning on the lux side. Maybe thats a coincidence.
imo.... Want a Kurz victory? roll a pvp monk and prot. roll a rit and resto. Or my favorite N/Rt w/Well of Blood,Well of Power and the rest some resto.

There are so many bugs with the AI this map can never be balanced. Overall the map still favors the Kurzick side, but they focus more on killing Luxon players then winning.

Imho, there is no "absolute advantage" towards any team in FA. If kurz has more healers, kurz win. If luxon has some healers + a well of profane +damage or some anti heal(a more balance setup imo) , luxon win. It all depends on the team set up.
However, I think kurz simply have more healers from my experience. Luxon side often has some idiots running defy pain or chasing defy pain.

Anyway, the "map" is balanced. Same for JQ, absolutely balanced map, but imba "players"

I do agreee that the map isn't unbalanced but the players are. I've played both sides. As a luxon my kill count is bout 4-7/game and as a kurzick it is bout 7-10/game (and as a kurzick I always start by running amber till the luxons are at the inner gate, while as a Luxon I start killing almost directly. The kurzick players are on average harder to kill and I see luxon teams (again on average) being less organised.

Some examples:
Very often Luxon teams split to the left and the right while most of the times kurzicks always go first to the left amber mine.

When playing as a luxon after I kill someone who picked a fight with me, he/she only tries it once or twice more and then decides to leave me alone and pick a different target. When playing as a kurzick some players are (trying) to kill me and go on for sometimes 8 times (being defeated 8 times in a row). And when they eventually manage to get me killed (e.g. by ambussing me without energy) they even go bragging bout it in all chat.

I've seen a team of kurzicks with no monks win from a team of luxon's with 3 monks cause of a lack of tactics and monks not doing what they supposed to do (keeping the turtles and the team alive and at the last gate in the fort)
So if there is an unbalance it is imo cause luxon side has a higher amount of inexperienced players then kurzick side.

So in short imo if there is an unbalance it is cause luxon side has more inexperienced players then kurzicks. (though there are some very good luxon players too off course).

-edit- I mean off course the luxon's playing in Fort Aspenwood

I don't know about that, Luxons always win in AB because they have better players, they don't blob and all in all have better tactics.

In FA, the odds favor the luxons on paper. They have mass-damage, enchant-stripping turtles, 4 awesome warriors pr turtle and durable rangers who move out of AoE damage at the mines. The kurzicks have stationary spirits and squishy rits who are just asking for a Searing Heat or Spiritual Pain.. Luxons also start with all three mines.
The Kurzicks are supposed to defend a wanding warrior, who along with his two sidekicks don't move out of AoE. They do however sometimes run out of the green gate to chase down someone, straight into the luxons. However, the Kurzicks still know what they're facing, and they only have two objectives; run amber and stall the luxons.

A single Kurzick warrior can stall both turtles if he knows what he's doing, as can a Soul Twisting Rit who know where to place the spirits. I'd say the odds favor the kurzicks.

I keep hearing about turtles "getting stuck" but so rarely see it happen.
I was on a Kurzick team that lost in 90 seconds, because two organized sins followed the amber caravan in and out, took out Gunther in a New York Minute.

It's always easier to defend in GW, given the plethora of defensive buffs and heals available to almost every class.
However the turtles have enchant removal, massive damage, and hard to interrupt. A single luxon monk can keep a turtle alive indefinitely.
The gameplay allows for many luxon gimmick builds like EoE bombing. This is advantage to the luxons because outside of the lame gate guards, Kurzick NPCs dont' respawn automatically every 2 minutes.

In the end it boils down to teamwork. I rarely see Luxon rits healing or protting anyone but themselves (guy with Xinrae's this weekend, only used it on himself while the turtles died).

It's that and luck of the draw. I don't care how good you are individually and how well you work together. You get 4 paras on a team, you are lost.

Kurzicks have a huge advantage in FA. Due to the defensive nature of the Kurzick's objective having players with defensive traits (Non-RoJ Monks, ST rits) is a significant advantage. In games where Kurzicks have 3+ monks Luxons are screwed from the beginning or 1 monk when the Luxons have none.

Kurzick players should run these builds:
Necro - MM or contagion bomber to quickly cap mines
Monk - WoH
Ele - MoI, or invoke
Rit - Resto
Mesmer - Illusion

On the Kurzick side just stall the turtle and you win as long as you can keep the juggernaut alive. Don't worry about self heals, it is a waste of time.

Luxon players should only run these builds:
Monk - healing burst or RoJ
Ele - invoke or mind blast
Necro - contagion bomber or pain of disenchantment
Ranger - incendiary arrows
Mesmer - Illusion or E-surge

Always bring enchant removal or a way to bypass prot. Healing burst is obviously better off going /p.

I think kurzicks are favored heavily. I had a 7 hour win streak (short wait times too) while monking on the Kurz side. It just seems to easy especially given how often the turtles glitch. It is very easy, if desired, to stall either if the turtles by standing behind the wall and possible to stall both turtles but I never do that stuff cause it gets boring but these turtle glitches need to be fixed if fort aspenwood is going to be balanced.

I agree they overbuffed the turtles (they were too weak before though) but places like FA and JQ will always be unbalanced until leechers and bots are removed. And even then, it depends on the players. You basically get a good game one in every three or four.

Have not played for awhile since Crysis 2 came out ~ questions

1. Can you still get turtles stuck? (advantage Kurzick)
2. Can you still npc heal from behind gates out of range (advantage Kurzick)
3. Can you still snipe from out of range (minor advantage Kurzick)
4. Do people still think a hammer is the only way to put a nail in a piece of wood ? (Focus on objectives win this map not optimal builds)

1 - Yes
2 - Yes
3 - Yes
4 - Depends on player

From my years of playing FA, I would be hard pressed to definitively say whether it is unbalanced or by how much. As several players here have stated, it really depends on the luck of the draw and what type of players are playing at any particular time. I've never really tracked my wins/losses, but I would have to say that my overall w/l is equal for each side.

There have been days where I went Kurzick and couldn't buy a win, and vice versa for Luxon. When I'm in FA, I'll play a few matches to try and get a feel for which side seems to be the more dominate on that particular night, and just switch sides. It helps that I am still working on both title tracks, so I don't really loose anything by doing so, but the only time I felt one side had an advantage over the other all depended on the players in those matches on that particular night.

I've seen it a few times. It is quite a pain when it does occur, but I don't consider it an advantage as this is a glitch that needs to be fixed and not by design in the mission. Overall, I probably see it at least once or twice when I am putting in 3-4 hour sessions in the mission.

Hanok

Despite the minor flaws on both sides, the imbalance is mainly cause by the players on your team and the fact that one side is defending and the other is attacking.

However, one flaw on the Luxon side that needs serious attention is the turtle getting stuck. I don't feel it's fair for them when their turtle gets stuck in 2 out of 3 matches.

That's in part the reason. But the main problem is , for almost every arena the same , that there weren't so OP skills at factions begins time. Thus , although it was still a little advantage to be kurzic , luxons had a chance to kill faster and not get roflstomped by dervish following you everywhere you do, by some sin combo or get stucked at one carrier entrance......

Most problems come from Eye of the north skills and some updates right after , which kinda completly ruined the point of JQ/FA and RA. Skills change, builds change , players behaviour change , but arenas remain unchanged for 5-6 years.... here's clearly the problem...