Disclaimer: This has been on my mind for quite a while now. I have been playing breach since the TTS before the release of Marching Fire. It quickly became my all time favorite mode and trivialized dominion for me as a mode. It had it all: Team Fights, real incentives for team coordination, lots tools to work with and hence variable means of strategy and of course the intensity no other game mode would offer. However: Ever since the last great update on breach feels terrible and strategically limited to me and I find myself less and less enjoying it to the point I rather play dominion or any other game mode now.
Where you had multiple objectives to work and strategize with there is now only one single viable option to go for and that is pushing rempart with your team. There is frankly no other option. Once one team dominates the other team and thus the remparts there are no means to turn things around unlike before.
Here are some points to factor in what made strategies actually possible:
First of all, there was the death ticket system. Yes, of course that would fundamentally be regarded as a disadvantage for the attackers in general but on the other hand it also added a strategical componend to the game, an objective basically for the defending team and one to carefully look out for for the attacking team. I personally think that it made people more considerate on what they would do if they potentially lose a ticket. It could also easily be used to one's advantage as many defenders oftentimes would just lose themself in the objective headhunting while negleting to defend others such as mid-lane or rempart. So by diverting or stalling those other attackers could in the mean time push the objectives.
Secondly, the ram-lane. Pushing the ram was a pretty viable strategy especially as an alternative if the defending team was focused on headhunting in combination of defending the rempart effectively. One dedicated mid-lane player could help his team out tremendously by pushing it early on towards the gate. I for myself helped countless teams over the edge who threw the match right at the beginning of the second phase but ended up rekindling their fighting spirit once we breached through to the commander's hall. However nowadays the ram gets too much damage on the way and is quickly finished off if the defending team held off the progression on the remparts before and switches to using the cauldron once the ram docks. Which means following this strategy nowadays equals throwing the game. If you have one team mate who does not know that and dedicates himself to mid lane while the others get dominated on rempart it is game over. And as there are no means to communicate with anybody that does not want to communicate you find yourself oftentimes forced to wittness a very painful and frustrating progress of the ram falling apart in which your following contributions won't be enough to overcome the situation.
On the other hand with the former system in tact an attacker team which solely focused on pushing the rempart could also be punished by not pushing the ram in time and hence falling victim to a dedicated mid-defender who stopped the ram in its tracks, cleared the way for his/her minions and maybe even used damaging feats or the balista to deal damage on the ram.
Speaking of which, I seldomly see the balista used anymore outside the third stage against the commander. It became a very gimmicky object to use as it does not damage the ram enough anymore nor helps that much in other fields of the game. But perhaps that is just me. However the way I see it is that the moment sth like the balista is not being used anymore there is no spread among the teams and therefore sticking together encouraged at all times.
Overall I believe the game mode became just too narrow-minded, one-sided and out of balance when it comes to the mid-lane objective. Beforehand the action of a single player could help out a great deal but now the mode seems just dumped down and concentrated on the effectiveniss of holding/taking over the rempart.
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What do you guys think? What is the game mode lacking from your perspective and what would actually provide more depth to it again?
Both the current ram system and the last ram/ticket system were flawed. With the current system the defenders really only have one objective which is to damage the ram. Defenders really can't "Defend" archer points because those are not only reached by attackers first always but can't be recapped. This lets attackers play very recklessly and agressively without really any sort of punishment.
Old ticket system was flawed because ram health essentially didn't matter after phase 2. You'd usually have enough lives just from it breaking into phase 3 to close out phase 3. So in reality it seemed the best way to actually win as a defender was to hard focus slaying and preventing revives. Since that was the only way you'd cut down on their lives enough to maybe stop a phase 3 win. or really prevent them from even getting to phase 3.
Phase 3 in general is horribly flawed since you just have to abuse poor AI to win. The defenders don't have anything to stop you from doing so. It's just a matter of having enough lives. There are other issues with Breach as well. the fact that it's by design meant to always hit phase 3. There's no tie breaker mechanic. Map design. Lack of objectives for defenders. And the whole issue of lives and ram health.
In my opinion there are a few things that should be done:
-Hybrid system between current health/ram system and tickets.
-Phase 3 needs a secondary objective after the AI is killed.
-Archer points need to be recapturable by defenders.
-Make the point above the gate have more meaning.
For the first point we can still keep the ram not healing past the opening of the gate and it determining how many lives will exist for phase 3. And just reintroduce the tickets system. And regardless of ram health after the outer gate is broken the attackers get back 4-6 lives. (not sure on the number. But it shouldn't be much. and should be a fixed amount.)
Phase 3 after a commander is killed we can create a point where the commander died. The attackers have to capture this point to win. The defenders bleed the rest of the lives of the attackers. Capture point itself is a progress bar rather than a traditional capture point. This progress doesn't drain if they get pushed off the point but they won't make progress if it's being contended.
For the point above the gate I thought about potentially letting the cauldron's recharge time be effected by who owns the point. If the defenders do it's the standard time. But if the attackers own it then it's slower. I also think the cauldron's recharge timer should be able to come back faster if a defender is currently sitting on the point while defenders own it. I think this makes sense considering attackers can keep ram clear and sit by said ram in order to make it move faster and attack faster. It gives both sides an extra objective to consider instead of just hunting to kill others whenever possible.
I unfortunately can't imagine some sort of tie breaking mechanic. And i'd love it if we could introduce more ways to close out the game quicker but I believe the devs do not want to have quicker games. As mentioned I think the devs want to always have phase 3 reached. But, if they weren't opposed to adding a mechanic that does that i'd probably suggest a penalty if you have most of the team dead and/or all of your team dead at the same time. As an example say half or more of your team is dead as an attacker. You lose 2 extra tickets. Or maybe if you get executed you take an extra ticket to respawn instead of lengthening respawn time.
And on the defenders side if they manage to wipe your team the next respawn for all of your team is increased by a few seconds (which stacks with being executed.)
EDIT: For the point that spawns to be capture after the commander dies if people are worried about not having enough lives or it being too slow to cap we can include the guardian in this. Meaning if the guardian was killed by the attackers we could either give them some extra lives when phase 3 starts (in addition to ram health giving some,) or we could let attackers cap it faster. (also forgot to mention that multiple attackers on the point will cap it faster by default.)
As for the point above the cauldron if the defenders owning it making it recharge slower would be considered too punishing we could just remove that but keep the faster recharge for a defender sitting on the point. This would still give value to the attackers going and capping that point early.