Curse

tomcruisejr · Jan 09, 2007, 12:17 AM // 00:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by leguma

As for HA being taken seriously, unfortunately that is something that lies in the hands of A.net themselves. By tying it to favor, by giving it the rank emotes, by linking to it so heavily in the chapter 1 PvE, they endowed it with importance and seriousness. They decided that ABs will be a joke, they decided that Snowball fights and all other event games will be a joke, but HA they made serious. If you think it should not be, then mayhap the problem resides with you.

to be able to win in HA, you must do all things seriously - play seriously etc. with the rewards and stuffs, HA should be taken seriously. i get what you're saying (but HA gets too old). but what i was saying is that the people who are taking HA seriously are usually people who are asking for nerfs to favor their own builds. these people don't want to lose against nobodies. these people don't want to lose against people who are unheard of. and if they do, they blame the build that these nobodies/unheard of are running. that's basically it. maybe they fail to realize that these rookies are better than them (i.e. aNc vs QQ anyone) or they're not really good and just relying on their rank.

leguma · Jan 09, 2007, 12:39 AM // 00:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

to be able to win in HA, you must do all things seriously - play seriously etc. with the rewards and stuffs, HA should be taken seriously. i get what you're saying (but HA gets too old).

Sure, HA get old, as does everything else after long enough... hell some people even get bored of living. However, I believe that if people are bored of HA, they should play something else in GW, instead of going into HA to take the piss. Also there is the matter of the nature of competition, and how people construe the concept. Some will thrive on competition regardless of wether they win or loose, while for others it boils down to whether they win or loose.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

but what i was saying is that the people who are taking HA seriously are usually people who are asking for nerfs to favor their own builds. these people don't want to lose against nobodies. these people don't want to lose against people who are unheard of. and if they do, they blame the build that these nobodies/unheard of are running. that's basically it. maybe they fail to realize that these rookies are better than them (i.e. aNc vs QQ anyone) or they're not really good and just relying on their rank.

I remember you saying that you played the Snowball fights and enjoyed them, so I will answer based on that. Have you ever lost a game there, versus a good team while also being in a good team simply because they were Dwayna and you were Grenth? Have you ever faced incredibly incompetent teams that still managed to hinder you and get a few presents capped by the time you won, because they were Dwayna and you were Grenth?
There are skills and combinations of skills that are overpowered, and many of the of FOTMS work off of these, it is what gives them the ability to be efficient despite the experience deficit.

pigdestroyer · Jan 09, 2007, 12:40 AM // 00:40

if there are sooooo many EXCELENT players without rank, why dont you form your own groups?... instead of complaining why you cant get into ranked groups.

NoHomework · Jan 09, 2007, 12:56 AM // 00:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Mendes

@ lyra_song:

Of course rank is a direct measure of experience in HA. A rank 0 person will likely not know about different tactics during relics runs, the current metagame and effective counters to it, how to play altar maps in a way that suits your build, bodyblocking relics and ghostlies, when to kill a ghostly or push for a priest, how to split a team on relic runs, when it is safe to let a ghostly die and go for a recap, etc...
All these examples listed above are acquired through extensive play in HA, and the closest indication of the amount of play in HA is rank. Granted some people might pick most these things up very fast, but they are usually the ones that move up the ranks very fast.

couldn't you learn HOW to do all of that in obs mode at r0 and then not be able to get in PUGs or meet cool people to HA with?

*psst* the answer is yes. I don't enjoy tooting my own horn but I started infusing for r3+ groups and guild groups of mixed ranks when i was r0 and managed to get a lot of compliments. I practiced a little in RA trying to catch people as late as I could with infuse before they died and got a feel for how high infuse can raise different health bars, but MAINLY I was decent because I watched infusers better than me play HA. Don't think it can be done? I'm probably just better at learning than you :P

REGARDING RANK DISCRIMINATION AND PUG FORMATION(im gonna split this long post into blocks you can skip if you want):
But ya... building a friends list is hard. Most of the pugs I got into sucked and the guild groups obviously had a stable of players they trusted with their time and if they were ever again 7/8 looking for an infuser they'd gladly take any old r3+ infuser over me ( and regret it :P ). But honestly, the problem is in the players. I think instead of trying to revamp or do away with the ranking system the players need new party making tools. (come on the party search BLOWS all you have done is made a new way to display LFG). This is what I imagined and anticipated when I heard party search was being implemented. When you use the party search button you can either use the tool as a party leader or party member. Party leaders use a groovy GUI that I know you guys love to make in order to request 1-7 members. He should be able to specify what primary and secondary profession, require that certain skills be brought, or even require an entire bar of skills be brought, or he can be totally general and not care, just 7 warm bodies. When somebody that wants to be a party member uses party search, he can specify what classes he can/wants to play, what skills he wants to use, or again be entirely general, leave every field blank meaning he can play anything. The 'party search' tool should then automatically put the players into parties based on the skills they have unlocked/want to use and the professions they have unlocked/want to use. The party leader can then talk to them in the party chat. If the guy the party search tool selected doesn't fit the profile, the party leader can remove him from the party, even select that he never be accepted into this specific party again, and then party search will look AGAIN for somebody to fill the same slot. I hope that makes sense. ANET can give me a salary if they want details on my vastly superior pug making interface :P

REGARDING 8v8:
Changing HA to 6v6 is NOT the correct way to fix IWAY. In fact, many good balanced players before 6v6 claimed IWAY wasn't even a problem, and I am inclined to agree. What can IWAY really do against a team with wards that kills trappers first and has anti-melee hexes? Then there's the blood spike, which I, the newbly r0 could only laugh at with its 2 second cast time. Half the time I didn't even have to infuse vs bloodspike because the guilds that let me on had developed superhuman reflexes allowing them to interrupt and shut down casters with 2 second cast times. Add to that the soul reaping nerf and I think bloodspike is a fun build to fight with and against. Ranger spike, is a different story really. A spike with a duration of roughly half a second between the first and last packet of damage, with 3 packets of damage per ranger ( meaning it can't be helped with prot spirit ) it was hard as hell to beat. BUT, there is a new nightfall skill called shield of absorption that seems tailor made to crap all over ranger spikes if you manage to catch it right before the arrows hit. But still, who cares if those tried and true builds carry on some glimmer of hope for a newb to get into a r3 build? Balanced builds were still possible. Cutting out 8v8 for the sake of fixing stuff like IWAY destroys every other 8 man build. Remember that when you are sitting in ANETs lap telling them what you want for the next patch. (I WANT 8v8 AND RIDEABLE PONIES!)

Lastly, I would like the developers of future expansion packs to take a REALLY hard look at core and prophecies guild wars and try and make the skills FIT into that balance. If I told somebody during prophecies that warriors were getting a skill that gave them +200 HP and made them immune to conditions for an entire minute every other minuteand could not be removed, I would have been laughed off the game. But wait! If we make a new profession and give them an AOE attack and huge criticals along WITH their hugely overpowered avatars of grenth and melandru, that doesn't have much ARMOR--- it'll be balanced! Enough sarcasm. Immunity to conditions guys... for a f*king minute... okay? Removal of enchantments every time you use an attack skill... okay? OKAY?! I saved the ranting for the end I hope you appreciated it.

Lord Toast · Jan 09, 2007, 12:56 AM // 00:56

I understand people who dislike being discriminated against because of their rank, but think of it from the other point of view. Getting to a high rank, such as 9+, takes hours upon hours of playing. The people who get up that high have the choice of whether or not to take ranked people into HA. I think that if A-Net somehow forced them to take low ranked or unranked people in the group that Heroes' Ascent will promptly die.

Nobody wants to be with a bad monk or a warrior who over extends, and rank is the way of determining that. Just because somebody says "I'm not an idiot" doesn't make it true. I have heard all too many times "I'm not ranked but I know what I'm doing..." and then they come in our group and end up wasting our time. Everybody was low ranked at one point or another, and they worked their way through it. I personally worked my way up prior to heroway. I would estimate that the time it took me to get to r3 was approximately that which it took me to get then on to r6, even though the fame needed from 0-3 is 4 times as small as 3-6.

There are definitely people who could easily keep up with the higher ranked groups, even if they aren't ranked. But the percentage of people like this is drastically smaller than the percentage that really have no idea what they are doing, and who need some time to learn how HA works with unranked PUG's.

Many groups will take lower ranked players with them if they have some other way to prove PvP worth, such as a Gladiator or Champion title. I know that I will take a rank 1 gladiator over an unranked person any day of the week, simply because they have put enough time into the PvP aspect of the game to understand how it works.

Another solution is to do HA with higher ranked guildies or alliance mates, as they can get you into a supposed "r6+" group, when you might not actually be that high ranked. That is basically the way i went from rank 3 to 6. I went with guildies who were already higher than rank 6, and therefore could form r6+ groups. I just dropped my title and put in my Hapless title instead.

Basically what I am trying to say is that there is no real way to end rank discrimination without pissing off all of the players who have worked hard to get to the higher ranks. If A-net forces worse players upon them, they will lose their interest in the game and Guild Wars will lose most of its high ranked players.

Sarevok Thordin · Jan 09, 2007, 01:04 AM // 01:04

Well, either way, HA is dying and it's NOT 6v6 that's killing it, rather the lack of NEW people coming IN.

Someone buying the game today has no chance of getting 1 point of fame in 3 months :/

Gimme Money Plzkthx · Jan 09, 2007, 01:11 AM // 01:11

^Entirely not true. Someone buying this game that spends time QQing and not attempting to be competitive at HA and spending lots of time with it has no chance of getting 1 point of fame in 3 months.

Kyle The Piemaster · Jan 09, 2007, 01:25 AM // 01:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

One note on HA: In order to focus on the changes to mechanics, and in order to avoid shifting too many elements at once (which would make it difficult to assess the success of the individual changes)

Great Idea! That would be just terrible if you made a change and you thought it was good because more people played HA during that time, but it was because of some other reason like double fame. If something like that happened you would probably get lots of complaint threads and about 1/5th as many people playing HA. Thanks in advance for avoiding this tragedy!

tacitus · Jan 09, 2007, 01:29 AM // 01:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarevok Thordin

Well, either way, HA is dying and it's NOT 6v6 that's killing it, rather the lack of NEW people coming IN.

Not true in a game like this you need a constant source of new players that equals the drop rate of players leaving the game to keep the numbers the same.

Before 6v6 there was not a huge problem of players in HA soon after 6v6 the numbers playing HA dropped dramatically. The main reason HA is so deserted these days is because people lost the game type they enjoyed. Retention as well as recruitment is needed, right now retention is lacking and many players have left after the 6v6 was introduced. It was this loss not a lack of new players which made HA so deserted.

The coming test of HA will be interesting but will prob confirm the fact there needs to be more new players in HA just to counter the ones leaving.

P.S. Most of people wanting 8v8 are not blood spike, IWAY types. Those builds were gimmicks and all you see these days are gimmicks every single map. Currently running 2 necro monks and no spirits or minions could be done since almost ¾ of the opposition will provide the soul reaping for you.

Balanced builds suffered the most out of 6v6 not gimmicks that should be clear to anyone who actually plays.

leguma · Jan 09, 2007, 01:33 AM // 01:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarevok Thordin

Incase you ain't noticed, this is a thread talking about changes to HA.

And you proposed change is what? Reset Fame? Force at least 1 unranked player per group? Make separate rank based districts?

You make it sound like fame is responsable for the decline of HA, if that is the case, mayhap you would like to enlighten us on why that is, using arguements. Ridiculous exagerations such as "Someone buying the game today has no chance of getting 1 point of fame in 3 months :/" don't count as arguements BTW.

People getting into HA now have it EASY now, compared to how it was over a year ago when I started playing HA.

Shendaar · Jan 09, 2007, 01:35 AM // 01:35

I don't even want the r9s team to take me or whatever. All I want is to actually be able to play without having to spam "lfg" for 30 minutes. There are very few unranked teams and from what I have seen, most of them are SF teams, which I refuse to play.

I don't care if I lose 3/4 of my battles and it takes me months to get anywhere rank wise. I'd be happy so long as I could get to play under a reasonable amount of time and get to have some fun in the process. But right now, I either get stuck at the part at which I get to play, or I don't and I get thrown into some arena where I get to experience some of the most boring battles you could imagine.

There are two things keeping me from getting fame. The first thing would be the lack of available group I can get in at any given time(this problem is likely to be caused by the boringness that is HA atm) and the second thing would be my personal refusal to get into any kind of build that has FotM attached to it. So with next to no group to get in and half of that next to nothing to rule out, it doesn't look like I am getting anywhere soon.

Sarevok Thordin · Jan 09, 2007, 01:36 AM // 01:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by tacitus

Not true in a game like this you need a constant source of new players that equals the drop rate of players leaving the game to keep the numbers the same.

Before 6v6 there was not a huge problem of players in HA soon after 6v6 the numbers playing HA dropped dramatically. The main reason HA is so deserted these days is because people lost the game type they enjoyed. Retention as well as recruitment is needed, right now retention is lacking and many players have left after the 6v6 was introduced. It was this loss not a lack of new players which made HA so deserted.

The coming test of HA will be interesting but will prob confirm the fact there needs to be more new players in HA just to counter the ones leaving.

P.S. Most of people wanting 8v8 are not blood spike, IWAY types. Those builds were gimmicks and all you see these days are gimmicks every single map. Currently running 2 necro monks and no spirits or minions could be done since almost ¾ of the opposition will provide the soul reaping for you.

Balanced builds suffered the most out of 6v6 not gimmicks that should be clear to anyone who actually plays.

Yeah I can understand the 8v8 want, after all, 10 professions and people just HAVE to have 2 monks in there.

Not alot of choice eh?

Still, the numbers were record during the double fame weekend, showing the POTENTIAL for HA....(Which btw, should NEVER happen again..........)

NeHoMaR · Jan 09, 2007, 01:39 AM // 01:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dodo The Extinct

Stop rank discrimination?

Maybe we should take away the Emotes? I think that having special emotes for a title kinda makes it seem important. Maybe taking them away would make Rank seem more like a title than a requirement. Its just an idea, I`m no HA pro.

Hey, I have one cool idea!! TEMPORALLY remove the possibility of wear rank titles, and remove emotes or make all emotes a deer this HA test weekend. Cool things will happen for sure!

leguma · Jan 09, 2007, 01:54 AM // 01:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarevok Thordin

How about this, if you think it is "SO EASY" to get an unranked person into HA.

I'll pose randomly in the next few days as a newbie in HA asking politely for someone to show me the ropes (WITHOUT a SF team and the like)

I'll see if my arguements are exagerated or not.

Nobody should need to show you the ropes. There are cutscenes before ever map that explain the overall positioning and objectvives of the map as well as your goal. If you've played the PvE, you should have gone through a relic run mission, an altar cap mission and a kill the priest before the 2 minute mark mission. If you skipped PvE entirely, you most likely have very little idea, if any, about how this game works and what all the skills do, bu should still have gone through Isle of the Nameless and know how to work an obelisk, a relic and whatnot.
If all of the above have been skipped, then the person has NO place in HA. there is an old chinese saying, full of wisdom, and it goes: READ THE -ING MANUAL.

As for your paranthesis of no SF or the like, I fail to see what the problem with that is. Is it not a build like any other? Do the people who play it not have 8 skills on their bar? Is their party not limited at 6 players? Can they get more than 12 in any attribute without runes?
This is competitive play we're talking about... COMPETITIVE.

Liberations · Jan 09, 2007, 01:59 AM // 01:59

Things that need to be gotten done:
-Disable the displaying of Hero, Gladiator, and Champion Titles while in HA,TA.
-Disable rank emotes in HA,TA.
-Make TA differ than RA in more ways; present more rewards and different methods of play.
-Make PvP more rewarding.
-Arenanet should personally in-game and out of game urge the community to take part in PvP.
-Arenanet should design well thought out builds and put them on the website.
-Introduce an in-game build creator.(With more detailed options than what we have)
This is an extensive list of general changes, but it gets to the point.
These could be added in a major core update.

Sarevok Thordin · Jan 09, 2007, 02:00 AM // 02:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by leguma

Nobody should need to show you the ropes. There are cutscenes before ever map that explain the overall positioning and objectvives of the map as well as your goal. If you've played the PvE, you should have gone through a relic run mission, an altar cap mission and a kill the priest before the 2 minute mark mission. If you skipped PvE entirely, you most likely have very little idea, if any, about how this game works and what all the skills do, bu should still have gone through Isle of the Nameless and know how to work an obelisk, a relic and whatnot.
If all of the above have been skipped, then the person has NO place in HA. there is an old chinese saying, full of wisdom, and it goes: READ THE -ING MANUAL.

As for your paranthesis of no SF or the like, I fail to see what the problem with that is. Is it not a build like any other? Do the people who play it not have 8 skills on their bar? Is their party not limited at 6 players? Can they get more than 12 in any attribute without runes?
This is competitive play we're talking about... COMPETITIVE.

I'm talking about showing the ropes on PLAYER skills, like body blocking, relic running, cover hexes/chants, things you DON'T Learn from a manual.

You WON'T learn much playing SF, which is basically going in and spamming a few skills. I'm talking things that make a GOOD player.

Because as we all know, things like SFs, get "balanced"......

Shendaar · Jan 09, 2007, 02:07 AM // 02:07

This is one of the reason why I refuse to run any of the FotM. A lot of them have "nerf" written all over them and I see no reasons for me to play any build if it has a strong chance of getting toned down in the next patch. Most of them also tend to be stupidly boring, both because of the sheer amount of people running them and because of their brainless simplicity.

I have nothing to learn from any of these build and I guess there is that thing I don't like about being just like everyone else.

leguma · Jan 09, 2007, 02:18 AM // 02:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarevok Thordin

I'm talking about showing the ropes on PLAYER skills, like body blocking, relic running, cover hexes/chants, things you DON'T Learn from a manual.

You WON'T learn much playing SF, which is basically going in and spamming a few skills. I'm talking things that make a GOOD player.

Because as we all know, things like SFs, get "balanced"......

Hate to break it to you, but if you actually go to the Isle of the Nameless, you will find the Master of Blocking, which, apropriately enough, teaches you how to body block. As for hexes, there is NOTHING to teach. There are hex skills and hex removal skills, hex removal skills remove the most recently applied hexes. If you do not know/understand this, then you have no comprehension of how the very basics of the game works and have no place in TA, let alone in HA. As for relic runing, there is nothing to teach, if you undestand the concept of body blocking, you automatically undestand the concept of avoiding it. Or are you suggesting that there is some special way of holding the relic?

There is no player skill or ability that is needed to be able to start playing HA that the game does not teach you previously. If you decide to skip the training it i nobody's fault and the system should not be changed to accomodate incompetency.

Advanced tactics such as impromptu 4 man body blocks, counting how much energy a monk is gaining from regen while you are draining them, looking at their hands to see when they focus swap, looking at the rate of degen to determing if the conjure cover for migrane has been removed or not are all ADVANCED tactics that are not neccessary to start playing in HA. Everything people need is already there in terms of information, but it is up to them to make use of it and convert it into play.

Sarevok Thordin · Jan 09, 2007, 02:22 AM // 02:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by leguma

Hate to break it to you, but if you actually go to the Isle of the Nameless, you will find the Master of Blocking, which, apropriately enough, teaches you how to body block. As for hexes, there is NOTHING to teach. There are hex skills and hex removal skills, hex removal skills remove the most recently applied hexes. If you do not know/understand this, then you have no comprehension of how the very basics of the game works and have no place in TA, let alone in HA. As for relic runing, there is nothing to teach, if you undestand the concept of body blocking, you automatically undestand the concept of avoiding it. Or are you suggesting that there is some special way of holding the relic?

There is no player skill or ability that is needed to be able to start playing HA that the game does not teach you previously. If you decide to skip the training it i nobody's fault and the system should not be changed to accomodate incompetency.

Advanced tactics such as impromptu 4 man body blocks, counting how much energy a monk is gaining from regen while you are draining them, looking at their hands to see when they focus swap, looking at the rate of degen to determing if the conjure cover for migrane has been removed or not are all ADVANCED tactics that are not neccessary to start playing in HA. Everything people need is already there in terms of information, but it is up to them to make use of it and convert it into play.

They actually HAVE a master of blocking? o_o

(I started back before the isle was even there, so don't get too loud)

But the fact is, even WITH that info in mind, most people just won't take you into a team.

I'll confirm that over the next few days with the previously mentioned task, if I'm proven wrong...well....I'll Change my Avatar to "IDIOT" in big green letters for a month >_>

tacitus · Jan 09, 2007, 02:24 AM // 02:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liberations

Things that need to be gotten done:
-Disable the displaying of Hero, Gladiator, and Champion Titles while in HA,TA.
-Disable rank emotes in HA,TA.
-Make TA differ than RA in more ways; present more rewards and different methods of play.
-Make PvP more rewarding.
-Arenanet should personally in-game and out of game urge the community to take part in PvP.
-Arenanet should design well thought out builds and put them on the website.
-Introduce an in-game build creator.(With more detailed options than what we have)
This is an extensive list of general changes, but it gets to the point.
These could be added in a major core update.

Ok first of all removing titles and emotes form pvp areas.
This will just make it harder for people to make teams. Most high end teams are made on vent or by looking at guild rosters and vent lists spamming in the district just doesn't happen. For those without extensive contacts its more difficult. Without basic ranks open people will return to the way of constant quizzing people over vent/ts to make sure there not wasting there time with some guy with healing breeze and mending hoping to keep the party alive against spike teams. (Oh yes iv seen people try when I used to pug, iv also heard people argue that pin down>rez sig).

Anet should encourage us to take part in PvP.
That is a players choice nothing is stopping players from taking part. Why should Anet encourage us to play PvP instead of DoA? Oh and they have tournaments for the best players to take part in which is going to be more common with the ATs. Oh I have another idea lets include titles and perhaps emotes as a way of encouraging people to play HA or other types of PvP. Oh wait they already do that and you want them to remove them which is it?

Anet should make builds and post them on forums.
How lazy are you? You want Anet to make the builds for you? For a start most common builds are on public forums anyway, obs mode lets you see them in use being played by good players as an example. What are you wanting next? Anet to come in your house and play the game for you.