From the Mind of Magi: Alliance Battle Impressions

Written by: Magi
Edited and Published by: Magi

Earlier this week I mentioned a strong desire to see the Alliance Battles unfold in the upcoming Preview Event for Factions. Unfortunately I did not experience them as early as I had hoped for; there was just too much to do on Friday the 24th of March. Though when I awoke on the Saturday, seeing that there was not much to do beside push some new screenshots to the website, I elected to spend a few hours experiencing this exciting new PvP feature. It goes without saying that I was extremely impressed at what I saw.

What I intend to do for this article is to give our readers an outline of what to expect out of Alliance Battles, the pros & cons, and what I see as far as room for improvement. While I did mention that I was impressed by what I experienced, there are some glaring problems that need to be addressed should current trends continue (that is, if the experience in the Preview Event is almost identical to release). Though that is for later.

Outline of Alliance Battles

To suggest that these new Alliance Battles have a strong strategic element to them is certainly the understatement of the year. Contrary to team and random arenas where the objective is to simply defeat the other players, Alliance Battles are far more complex. Participants are required not only to defeat their opponents, but hold different points or locations on the map. Interestingly enough, to provide more incentives to do this, each "holding point", so to speak, has definite benefits to it. These include, and are not limited to, ressurection locales, attack bonuses and even enlisting the aid of a Dragon Hatchling!

What probably caught the eyes of most is the Dragon Hatchling, and yes, you can get one to fight on your side. The catch to this, however, is that your team must control one holding point in particular and from my experience thus far, it certainly isn't the easiest task to do. After all, when every member of the other team rushes the Dragon Hatchling holding point, defending it is easier said then done.

I suppose, though, the question that must be on everyone's mind is: how does one control a holding point? It is explained in the game as merely standing around it when you have out numbered your opponent. So for example, if the holding point is neutral (it is not in control of either team) and the blue team has 5 players around it, and the red 3, once a certain amount of time expires the blue team will control it (assuming of course those numbers don't change). What I could not find out, however, is whether you have to be out of combat or not. That said, it doesn't seem to be an important point as skirmishes don't seem to last long, due to the nature of Guild Wars PvP.

The next question that surely must be asked is: how do you win a match? Is it by controlling all of the holding points? No, it is not and I'm very thankful for that. When the Alliance Battle begins each side starts with 0 points and in order to win you must achieve 500 [points]. Points are accumulated by killing other players and controlling holding points. I was not able to verify this, but logic dictates that capturing holding points wields more [points] to your teams score. After all, is not controlling a holding point more difficult then defeating a mere opponent? Keep in mind as well, the Alliance Battles that my team lost, we barely had any holding points. Oh and believe me, we lost very badly.

So in a nutshell the Alliance Battles are as follows: it is a strategy and player heavy battlefield that not only requires the killings of other players, but demands that you control holding points. Not only for the sake of acquiring a Dragon Hatchling to fight by your side, but attack bonuses and more convenient resurrection locales are definitely beneficial.

What I will ask before I head on to the next topic in this article is for you, our readers, input. I have admitted to almost anyone who asks that I don't participate in PvP too often in Guild Wars; I much prefer the PvE system in place. As such, what I can't provide is a definitive perspective on which builds are most successful. Therefore, I must ask that you, our readers, who are experienced in PvP to please post in the comments section of this article (it will be linked at the bottom of this page) to tell us your experiences of what works, and what doesn't [work] in these new Alliance Battles as far as builds are concerned.

Pros & Cons

One of the concerns I had going into the Preview Event was how viable the other forms of PvP - team & random arenas, halls, guild vs guild - would be after the successful launch of Guild Wars: Factions. In my previous article on Alliance Battles I mentioned the enormous potential of being able to impact the world, change it - something I didn't mention in this article so far. Then, when you take into consideration what I am suggesting in regards to the strategy and fun of Alliance Battles so far, it gives credence to the argument that the other forms of PvP may not be enjoyable any more - in comparison. While that could potentially be a con to Alliance Battles it may be one of the few.

I want to start out with the positives, the pros, to Alliance Battles. First and foremost, the sheer number of participants makes this style of PvP very enjoyable. You always have to watch your back, not knowing where an enemy attack will come from and it seems as though there is always an opponent to fight, regardless of how the battle is going; whether your team is dominated or being crushed mercilessly. The obvious counter to this, and subsequent con, is the balancing issue as far as builds are concerned. Though I will leave that to you, our readers, to determine whether it truly is a con or not.

Another very noticeable pro is the length of battles: they were much shorter then I expected. The only game in the competition that can be referenced in terms of length is World of Warcraft. Their concept of arenas or alliance battles are battlegrounds. In fact, the battlegrounds in World of Warcraft are very similar to the Alliance Battles: depending on which one you are talking about, it involves capturing and holding specific objectives and not just mercilessly slaughtering opposing players. The difference is, most of those battles can take up to 45 - 60 minutes and sometimes for hours. What I found today is that the average Alliance Battle lasted maybe 20 or 25 minutes. The counter of course is that if a couple really strong and organized guilds locked horns then the battles would last so much longer. This is true, however, on average the Alliance Battles are significantly shortly which appeals to not only the casual gamers, but permits battles more often.

The strategy involved, which I already have touched upon, is the last pro that I will mention for the time being. As I stated earlier, it is very refreshing to have PvP based around a strategy outside of mass slaughter of enemy combatants. In essence, these Alliance Battles rewards players who have superior strategies and can co-ordinate themselves best. The counter to this, the con, is that an experienced guild may have an enormous advantage over others. While this remains true, the strategy involved is not so complex to the point where an incredibly organized guild will not mass slaughter all opponents in their path (this is, of course, assuming that the non-guild team has a decent strategy in place).

Room for Improvement

What I am about to suggest in terms of improvement is not inherent to Alliance Battles themselves, but certainly is an issue related to it. I touched on this very issue as well in my previous article, the one where I was generally very excited about the advent of these Alliance Battles. That issue, simply put, is Faction imbalance.

When I referenced this problem originally, I made a comparison to Blizzard's World of Warcraft and the problem it provided on some of its servers: 75% of the population on one side. While I can't confirm that the problem is identical so far this weekend, it certainly is becoming an issue. During peak time on a Saturday not only did I have to wait a few minutes to get into an Alliance Battle (which really isn't that long) but I could not get into any competitive missions. This, my friends, could manifest itself into a major stepping stone for ArenaNet.

Put aside Alliance Battles for a minute, as a member of the Luxxon faction, I could not get into the competitive missions at Fort Aspenwood. The problem that is presented here is that ArenaNet has designed content that players under particular conditions could not access at all. If history is any reference at all, this could manifest itself into a major difficulty.

For a moment I want to return to World of Warcraft. On servers that have a very unbalanced population - 75% on one side and 25% on the other - battleground content can sometimes be very rare, if existent at all. So effectively what is presented is that there is viable, enjoyable content - battlegrounds - that cannot be experienced due to the lack of players on one side. Or, if it does exist, you must wait in a queue for hours on end. I don't know if it's just me, but I don't want this to happen in Guild Wars: Factions.

My experiences with Alliance Battles and the preview event weekend so far have been very good. The one feature I expected to be particularly appealing is by every stretch of the imagination. That said, ArenaNet needs to find a way to balance the factions of Luxxon and Kurzick properly. If they don't, and the numbers are very far apart - dare I use the 75 and 25% numbers - then the players are in for a world of hurt: they will not be happy with content that they cannot access. Though I suppose it is beneficial that we are raising this issue today, on March 25th 2006 instead of on April 28th. ArenaNet has almost a month to address this problem and I have complete faith that they will.

In the meantime, stop reading about Alliance Battles and go out and experience them! Despite the faction imbalance, the Alliance Battles are fairly easy to get into, and from my experience, one side does not dominate the other. So whether you are Luxxon or Kurzick, you're going to have a good time. Once you're done that, come on back to our forums and tell us what you think about Alliance Battles. That, or just click the link below and post your comments.

So what did you think of this article? Did you like it? Did you find it useful? Or maybe you didn't like it at all? Be sure to tell us about it on this thread!