For my first few matches of Highguard, it's clear that no one has a clue what's going on. My teammates and I reinforce the five closest walls to be done with our defensive commitment and then start impatiently bashing our mounts' heads into the shield dome, waiting for it to open so that we can get into the real action – unfortunately, not before we've plundered some loot chests and whacked Vesper crystals with an axe though.
Splitting off from my team, I'm inundated with shiny new guns, armor vests, and all sorts of doodads with tooltip descriptions that I don't have time to read properly because battle is suddenly upon us. As both teams clash over the dome-destroying Shieldbreaker sword, bullets, grenades, lightning spears, and scanning birds fly everywhere. The action only escalates once one team initiates a raid on the other's base, shifting the whole match from a game of looting and shooting on equal footing to an asymmetrical brawl of base defense and bomb defusing. One thing's for sure, Highguard really tries to do it all.
