Patch Notes 12/02/2026

[georgehabadasher]

To recap, the best solution is to restore/make a guard/guard-like system near the spawns.
Holding on to the barrier system makes no sense (to me at least). You have already done incredible work here with this patch. Why not remove THE biggest critism people have had besides matchmaking?

Regardless, thank you for the patch and your efforts on the scenario system so far. It was a long time coming.

So what are guards gonna do for scenarios that have highground spawns? Which is a lot of scenarios and they just stood there doing nothing in the past. For all these barrier discussions, it feels like Serpent's passage is the only scenario that exists in their mind, nothing else and all they remember was farming kills/being farmed during the ring events where only thing mattered was getting kills as fast as possible and well serpents passage was very good for doing that. Plus the objective sucks so it'll never end, unlike say nordenwatch which will end on stomp quite quickly, so what you should be complaining is the objective of that scenario, not the barriers.

If ppl want their lucky 1 kill punt back for serpent's passage, sure you can have it, but don't act like guards are gonna solve much, when it won't do anything for the vast majority of scenarios and all the barrier is doing is just making highground for scenarios that didn't have it. Plus they added cast through barriers, finally, which imo is enough.

Having guards serves several purposes.

1) It gives the losing team a safe place to regroup and skirmish. This allows the losers to rebuild their morale (both for characters and players). The barriers force losing teams to coordinate and push out together, which usually isn't possible for pugs.
2) It gives some rewards to the losing side when the winning side over-extends. Or at least it did when guard kills gave renown and crest drops--and should again.
3) It creates a comeback mechanic (albeit a weak one). If the scenario is relatively close, then a DPS getting punted into guards and getting himself and his tank killed can create a rez chain allowing the losing side to come back, or just score a few kills.

I don't think any of those are controversial and would benefit scenarios.

[Keula]

Having guards serves several purposes.

1) It gives the losing team a safe place to regroup and skirmish. This allows the losers to rebuild their morale (both for characters and players). The barriers force losing teams to coordinate and push out together, which usually isn't possible for pugs.

Again, imagine for a second the scenario ISN'T Serpent's Passage, I know it's hard but try. What do the guards do in gromril crossing, whatever the thunder mountain scenario is called, ekrund, isha, doomfist crater, mourkain temple, etc. So for those the barriers change nothing, well at least after this patch they don't as you can heal through them now. Unless you also want to make the guards have hyper aggro range, which they didn't use to have back in days, like you could've been trying to walk up the hill of the enemy spawn of mourkain temple and the guards didn't do anything like 90%+ of the time.
And yea nordenwatch/battle for praag+few others aren't highground, but the objectives end those pretty fast.

3) It creates a comeback mechanic (albeit a weak one). If the scenario is relatively close, then a DPS getting punted into guards and getting himself and his tank killed can create a rez chain allowing the losing side to come back, or just score a few kills.

I don't think any of those are controversial and would benefit scenarios.

If the Scenario is "close" it guards don't do anything cause the fight is elsewhere, maybe in pure pug v pug in serpent's passage some overpushing could happen and I'm all for punishing stupid ppl, but there is difference of ungabunga too much and let's build a kite comp and kite back to get free kills, instead of fighting fairly, but again outside of serpent's passage, not really a problem.

So TL:DR is: rework Serpent's Passage.

[Endari]

Again, imagine for a second the scenario ISN'T Serpent's Passage, I know it's hard but try. What do the guards do in gromril crossing, whatever the thunder mountain scenario is called, ekrund, isha, doomfist crater, mourkain temple, etc. So for those the barriers change nothing, well at least after this patch they don't as you can heal through them now. Unless you also want to make the guards have hyper aggro range, which they didn't use to have back in days, like you could've been trying to walk up the hill of the enemy spawn of mourkain temple and the guards didn't do anything like 90%+ of the time.
And yea nordenwatch/battle for praag+few others aren't highground, but the objectives end those pretty fast.

Every SC listed here was great with working guards as your tanks could go down, get heals, punt over-extenders up to the guards and maybe you can make a nice push but at least you get a few kills. Been many a good Mourkain Temple pushes after the part carrier and some tanks got punted up to the guards.

[georgehabadasher]

Having guards serves several purposes.

1) It gives the losing team a safe place to regroup and skirmish. This allows the losers to rebuild their morale (both for characters and players). The barriers force losing teams to coordinate and push out together, which usually isn't possible for pugs.

Again, imagine for a second the scenario ISN'T Serpent's Passage, I know it's hard but try. What do the guards do in gromril crossing, whatever the thunder mountain scenario is called, ekrund, isha, doomfist crater, mourkain temple, etc. So for those the barriers change nothing, well at least after this patch they don't as you can heal through them now. Unless you also want to make the guards have hyper aggro range, which they didn't use to have back in days, like you could've been trying to walk up the hill of the enemy spawn of mourkain temple and the guards didn't do anything like 90%+ of the time.
And yea nordenwatch/battle for praag+few others aren't highground, but the objectives end those pretty fast.

3) It creates a comeback mechanic (albeit a weak one). If the scenario is relatively close, then a DPS getting punted into guards and getting himself and his tank killed can create a rez chain allowing the losing side to come back, or just score a few kills.

I don't think any of those are controversial and would benefit scenarios.

If the Scenario is "close" it guards don't do anything cause the fight is elsewhere, maybe in pure pug v pug in serpent's passage some overpushing could happen and I'm all for punishing stupid ppl, but there is difference of ungabunga too much and let's build a kite comp and kite back to get free kills, instead of fighting fairly, but again outside of serpent's passage, not really a problem.

So TL:DR is: rework Serpent's Passage.

I don't know why you're being so aggressive in tone, but I'll address your points anyway.
On the maps you mentioned, there are terrain barriers which effectively do the same thing as barriers in the other maps. Further, in many of those scenarios the guards have been intentionally moved back, limiting their effectiveness. However, as mentioned by Endari above, these scenarios still are still superior to scenarios with barriers.

As for the second point, people consistently get pushed back into spawn in close fights. That's what happens almost every time there isn't a complete wipe because teams naturally give ground slowly and kite while trying to recover.

[Alubert]

The barrier/quitter combo is actually very good at achieving the thing they were designed for - punish you for not leaving the spawn room.

But why do you don't want to not leave the spawn room?

Because your team is losing (usually it's stomped).

Because you think your teams are not really balanced (for example, you have def engie instead of dps and fresh mayhem-level tank with no talis slotted while the enemy team is at least decent).

Because you see that it's the same premade that farms ppl for some time already, and your team is still a bunch of punchbags and neversurrenders.

Because you don't want to leave the spawn if you think that it's a waste of time, and by waste of time i mean "lost match". And not just lost but lost with a point that even if you do everything you can the only thing you can achieve (at best) is a kill or two (while feeding the enemy team to the brim) or even win sc by points (because the enemy team didn't give a damn about BO and just killed you again and again).

Those alternatives aren't really fun i guess.

Summary, barriers/quitter aren't here to punish the team who's busy spawncamping (even though they can do that sometimes). They are here to punish you for being weak/bad/unlucky player. They are here to punish you for not willing to fight - even if the fight is already lost. They are here to punish you for losing.

IMHO, obviously.

P.S. I absolutely HATE the barrier system.

Well explained.
I agree with those words.

[lumpi33]

Having guards serves several purposes.

1) It gives the losing team a safe place to regroup and skirmish. This allows the losers to rebuild their morale (both for characters and players). The barriers force losing teams to coordinate and push out together, which usually isn't possible for pugs.
2) It gives some rewards to the losing side when the winning side over-extends. Or at least it did when guard kills gave renown and crest drops--and should again.
3) It creates a comeback mechanic (albeit a weak one). If the scenario is relatively close, then a DPS getting punted into guards and getting himself and his tank killed can create a rez chain allowing the losing side to come back, or just score a few kills.

I don't think any of those are controversial and would benefit scenarios.

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[Alubert]

Having guards serves several purposes.

1) It gives the losing team a safe place to regroup and skirmish. This allows the losers to rebuild their morale (both for characters and players). The barriers force losing teams to coordinate and push out together, which usually isn't possible for pugs.

Again, imagine for a second the scenario ISN'T Serpent's Passage, I know it's hard but try. What do the guards do in gromril crossing, whatever the thunder mountain scenario is called, ekrund, isha, doomfist crater, mourkain temple, etc. So for those the barriers change nothing, well at least after this patch they don't as you can heal through them now. Unless you also want to make the guards have hyper aggro range, which they didn't use to have back in days, like you could've been trying to walk up the hill of the enemy spawn of mourkain temple and the guards didn't do anything like 90%+ of the time.
And yea nordenwatch/battle for praag+few others aren't highground, but the objectives end those pretty fast.

3) It creates a comeback mechanic (albeit a weak one). If the scenario is relatively close, then a DPS getting punted into guards and getting himself and his tank killed can create a rez chain allowing the losing side to come back, or just score a few kills.

I don't think any of those are controversial and would benefit scenarios.

If the Scenario is "close" it guards don't do anything cause the fight is elsewhere, maybe in pure pug v pug in serpent's passage some overpushing could happen and I'm all for punishing stupid ppl, but there is difference of ungabunga too much and let's build a kite comp and kite back to get free kills, instead of fighting fairly, but again outside of serpent's passage, not really a problem.

So TL:DR is: rework Serpent's Passage.

I don't know why you're being so aggressive in tone, but I'll address your points anyway.
On the maps you mentioned, there are terrain barriers which effectively do the same thing as barriers in the other maps. Further, in many of those scenarios the guards have been intentionally moved back, limiting their effectiveness. However, as mentioned by Endari above, these scenarios still are still superior to scenarios with barriers.

As for the second point, people consistently get pushed back into spawn in close fights. That's what happens almost every time there isn't a complete wipe because teams naturally give ground slowly and kite while trying to recover.

If you manage to remove the barriers in SC, in scenarios where it is impossible to return to the war camp due to the terrain, you can do two things:
1. Move the guards below the hill.
2. Create an entrance to the hill (I don't know if this is technically possible).