Hello everyone,

1. Introduction

Today, I'd like to discuss the Player versus Player experience in Guild Wars and especially focus on the state and problems of the game mode Fort Aspenwood.
I think FA is one of Guild Wars least "tryhard" and elitist pvp game modes but it is in my opinion riddled with balance concerns and some bugs that undermine the experience and fun players have, especially when playing on the Luxon side. I will start by explaining basic game mechanics of FA and the objectives for each sides in the 2nd section. I will then explain the problems and concerns I have in the 3rd section and conclude in the final section.

2) Basic information

Let me introduce a few game mechanics and objectives that are specific to this game mode. If you're already familiar with FA, you can skip to the next section.
In a nutshell, Fort Aspenwood is a pvp game mode introduced in Factions where 2 teams of 8 players fight for victory. The goal for each team is different. The Kurzick defend a fort (hence the name of the mission) and they must keep Gunther, a NPC, alive for about 10 minutes in order to win. The Luxons, as you might have guessed, must kill Gunther before the timer ends to claim victory.

When players are slain, they are resurrected after 6 seconds, making resurrection skills unnecessary. There are various teleporters for both teams, so that they join the battle quicker when they are being killed.

2.a.) Kurzick side

The Kurzicks, as stated above, must keep Master Architect Gunther alive at all costs so that he can create his weapon, Gods' Vengeance. Gunther is located deep in the fort, and he is protected by two monk NPC's, Gatekeeper Poletski and Gatekeeper Radik, who have a few useful healing and protective spells. Players (re)spawn at the Blue Shrine, which is located near Gunther (see map below). This means that the deeper the Luxons push, the faster Kurzick players rejoin the battle.

In order to reach Gunther, who is behind the green door, Luxons must first breach at least 2 doors on the orange or purple side of the fort. Luxons can also breach all 5 doors but only destroying 3 doors is necessary to reach Gunther (for example outer purple door -> inner purple -> green door -> Gunther). Each door is guarded by various Kurzick Npc's with potent builds, especially good at shutting down/hindering martial classes : the Kurzick Npc's must not be underestimated. Outer gates are protected by 2 Npc's, inner gates by 3 and Green Gate is protected by 3 Npc's and a Juggernaut. To destroy a gate, Luxons simply need to kill the Npc's guarding the gates and the gate will crumble. To navigate the fort, Kurzicks may open and close the gates thanks to a lever.

In addition to the Npc's guarding the doors, there are a few other Npc's scattered in the fort.

Legend : Blue star : Gunther/ Orange stars : Radik and Poletski/ Yellow dots : Luxon Amber Mines/ Orange circles : Luxons teleporters/ Blue circles : Kurzick teleporters.

Finally, Kurzick players can capture Luxon Amber Mines by killing the Npc's guarding it. It is interesting to do that because players can pick up Amber and if they bring it to Radik or Poletski, a broken orange or purple gate will be respectively repaired and the Npc's guarding it will respawn. This is the only way to make Npc's reappear and only Npc's guarding gates can be respawned, all the other ones die for the rest of the game if they are slain. If you bring amber to either Radik or Poletski and green is breached, the green gate is instead repaired. Furthermore, giving amber to Gunther will not repair a gate but shorten the timer. Refined amber obtained at the farthest Amber Mine shortens the timer even more. That's basically it for the Kurzick side. Now let's tackle the Luxons.

2.b.) Luxon side

The first thing to know about the Luxon side is that, contrary to the Kurzicks, they do not always respawn at their Red Shrine. When the game starts, Luxon players spawn at the Red Shrine but if they hold the Amber Mines under their control, they instead respawn there (Amber mine closest to the red shrine if the the two ones close to the gates are under Kurzick influence). Capturing mines is then of paramount importance not only to prevent Kurzicks from running amber to repair gates but also to respawn closer to the fight and not lose time walking.

Second, the red flags on the mini map indicate where Siege Turtles spawn, one for each side. Each turtle is accompanied by 4 Luxon Warriors. A Siege Turtle squad respawns ONLY when the turtle and the 4 Luxon Warriors are killed. Turtles do not automatically join the combat, instead they must be ordered to move forward by talking to the commander guarding the respawn point. Siege Turtles have a powerful attack that shoots a giant cannon ball of jade that deals around 250 earth damage to the primary target, some damage to the foes in the area and strips an enchantment to whomever is damaged. Siege Turtles are valuable allies that can easily tip the balance in favour of the Luxons.

https://preview.redd.it/4b332zz6qn8e1.png?width=370&format=png&auto=webp&s=d926a7d3cc4ed545059de4c59d8dd11cec6c5a5e

3) State and problems in Fort Aspenwood

Now that we covered the basics, I'd like to address some problems that I think undermine the fun of this otherwise very entertaining game mode especially when playing as the Luxons.

1. The most important one and I think everyone who plays FA is familiar with it: glitched Luxon warrior Npc's. Siege Turtles squads only respawn at the red flags when the 4 warriors and the turtle are dead BUT very often Kurzicks players kill the turtle and leave the Npc's alive. The Luxon Warriors' Ai then decides to charge in and normally gets killed but sometimes the Npc's glitch and stay still, they don't move or attack. As a consequence, they are ignored by the enemies and the Turtles can't respawn...

-> Solution: Fix the bugs OR make the 1st player in the party able to force the Squad to respawn by talking to the commander.

This would make things more balanced and give responsibility and agency to players instead of praying to Dwayna the luxons warrs don't cosplay traders in Kamadan.

2) Siege Turtle deal earth damage. This means that a simple ranger (armor 30 against elemental damage) with troll unguent can easily tank siege turtle attack indefinitely...

-> Solution: Make the damage armor ignoring.

3) Siege turtles' behavior is... stupid. They attack whoever comes to close and get distracted by anything even 1hp minions. Clever Kurzick players will play ranger or dervish with self heal and running skill and stall turtles by running in circles on the outskirt of their aggro range forcing Luxons players to chase them and lose a lot of time.

-> Solution : When there are Kurzick Npc's in range, the Turtles prioritize them first.

4) Is it easier to win as the Kurzicks for the reasons mentioned above but also because they can have 6 healers in their team and infinitely stall at the green gate. Coordination is less important for Kurzicks because they can just park under green with 6-7-8 healers and afk heal until the timer runs out. This is very frustrating when you play Luxons.

5) To continue on the 4th point, if Luxons have too many healers in the team they almost always automatically lose because they lack damage. Coordination is way more important as Luxons and it is very difficult to be a coordinated team with random players (which is okay and normal but it's annoying that kurzicks can just afk heal and win 95% of their games like that while you have to deal with bugged Npc's, stallers).

6) Restauration/defensive spirits are too strong on the Kurzick side. When everybody is fighting at green, a ritualist with Life or Recuperation bring so much to the table it's almost unfair. It's very difficult to reach those protective spirits because they are nested deep in the fort and you get killed before you can kill the spirits. Additionally, Recuperation and Life ALSO heals Npc's making those skills very powerful (with the right skills and runes you can get a 4 pip of health thanks to recuperation on EVERYONE at green).

Luxons also have a secret weapon in the form of a spirit : Edge of Extinction. Considering the sheer number of Npc's in FA and the fact that everyone is of the same species, this leads to huge EoE explosions that can kill Gunther in the blink of an eye.

4) Conclusion

I hope this was interesting to read and that I was not (too) salty in the 3rd section. I love FA and I doubt Arenanet would change and balance it although it is very much needed. It is too easy to win as Kurzicks imo. I just wrote this because I wanted and to debate. You might have different opinions or additional things to mention and I am curious to debate them in the comments below. If I said inaccurate or wrong things, please feel free to correct me.