We talked to ArenaNet about Heart of Thorns and the demo build coming to PAX East this weekend.

We sat down with John Corpening to talk about the new PvP game mode Stronghold and its first map, The Battle of Champion’s Dusk. While this is a new game mode, it is going to fit into the current PvP systems. Like Conquest, Stronghold is currently being planned to be 5v5 as the default play with a match length pretty similar to that of a normal conquest match.

With HoT, there will only be the one Stronghold map. Corpening said this is to focus on making it the best experience possible for this map before they started creating more. This map was something different for the team according to Corpening, as they took influence and inspiration from many different areas to make this game mode that he thinks is right for Guild Wars 2.

Stronghold features two lanes with summoned NPCs running down them. We asked how they went about making these NPCs and Corpening said that they went through a lot of iterations before they ended up with what you see now. There was a phase where the NPCs did a little more of everything, instead of the single-minded purpose they now have. The team was very careful to keep this as a PvP mode and not let the NPCs make the map feel too much like a mix of PvP and PvE. Giving the NPCs very specific purposes and making them need players to survive and fulfill their roles helped focus it on being more PvP orientated while still having those other elements.

When we got in and played Stronghold for the first time, we were surprised by how separate the two lanes were. It almost feels like you have to commit to a choice as there are not many places to be jumping from lane to lane. Corpening said that they did indeed set the map up with areas where they wanted players to commit to while some other areas had more choice. He commented that they had tried a very porous layout, but you didn’t have the concentrated fights in areas as people moved back and forth at will. This non-porous layout also gives some more choices. By having the smaller doorways going into and out of the supply, skills like Wall of Warding can be very effective to keep people in or out of the area.

Build diversity is a big part of the choice going into this map. Supply is a major part of the map, something that Corpening likened to flag running as players run in to grab supply and run it back to their barracks to spawn NPCs. While the journey to the barracks and back might seem like a long one, some builds can really excel at grabbing supply and running back quickly. Something they have seen work really well is a Mesmer portal to instantly get back to the barracks once supply was picked up.

While some builds are helpful for getting the supply, some are good for preventing supply from being taken or used. Players must channel to pick up supply, a channel that can be interrupted with any crowd-control (CC) skill. Even if an enemy picks up supply and gets out of the supply depot, they must channel again at the barracks which likewise can also be interrupted by CC. Corpening said this was his favorite playstyle he found during testing, as he would use a Power Ranger build to knock players away from the supply with his longbow or fear them with his wolf. If they did manage to get away, he could CC them again at the barracks. A lot of times, he said, he had whittled them down so that he just killed them before they could spawn an NPC and would take their supply without having to go through the channel to get it himself.

Corpening said that they are really looking forward to players getting in and playing Stronghold, and hearing all of the impressions and feedback that players have. This not only applies to the map and everything it entails, but also on what ArenaNet does next. We asked if Stronghold meant that new maps in the future would only be Stronghold and not any new conquest or Courtyard style maps; he responded that it depends on what the players say they want. That said, Corpening was confident that Stronghold is the foundation for the future.

Matt Adams aka the Mattsta

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