Curse

Ul70r · May 05, 2010, 10:31 AM // 10:31

At first, I thought I would just post in the thread "What should replace TA?" but then my post became too lenghty and sometimes off-topic that I think it worths an own thread. To start of with, I've been playing GW for quite a while, especially TA, HB and HA (sometimes GvG too). I have never been that much interested in PvE though (I have finished the content though, having Legendary Guardian and half-done Vanquisher), so as you may have guessed this post will be about the situation of PvP, pointing out the recent issues and also making sure that everyone understands what is going on right now. I also do hope that the thread won't get closed as "just another another pvp thread".

Why were the changes necessary?
I'm pointing out the obvious for those who weren't around at the time: TA was getting out of hand. We all know that GW is very far from the "perfectly balanced game" and it will never be one, simply because of the party formats, A game cannot be balanced for both 4v4, 8v8 and also a PvP format where holding/capturing points and abusing AI rewards wins. I mean, look around, do you know any? And no, don't tell me that WoW is balanced, because it is not, you know that, I know that, everyone knows that. Also, the PvP formats aren't that different (2v2, 3v3, 5v5) as in GW. Back to history: so the situation in TA was getting out of hand: gimmicks ruined the game as it is, like remember RTL spike? Remember those 4-monk kd smite running-around builds? The problem with these is pretty much about the size of the party and the fact that 4 of the same classes were present in them. You may have said "all right, then let's no allow those teams to play which has more than 1 of the same class". This change would have resulted in a VERY stale metagame, and certain classes and builds would have never been able to play at all in ranked parties. But I'm not ranting about why certain classes fail at PvP, so let's jump to HB. The HB playerbase was corrupt. They were corrupted because of the title. So what happened? Players just rolled and the one who threw the highest won, the other left, thus gaining a point. I ran into players who asked for rolling in the beggining, I said no, and they left. You could say "o well, there are retards in the world", but this wasnt the only problem. The fact that shadow step was so abused rendered pretty much everything inferior which didnt contain a N/A, Mo/A, etc, you get the point. At certain moments it was actually boring because HB had an even more staler meta than TA, if you didn't run the builds that everyone used you had no chance. And there weren't many of them to say the least. So how do you balance a game , in which you buff something for GvG or HA won't get abused to hell in the world of gimmicks? And the constant nerfs began. Everyone was joking around with the nerfbat at the time, but there wasn't too much the designers could do. So at one point, to make sure that GvG and HA survives, HB and TA were removed.

Why is a change necessary?
So we see now that this step was made to ensure the survival of the 8v8 format, and ANet put in the "oh so hated" Codex Arena, which was theoretically a good idea: no gimmicks can be made if the skills change constantly. (I won't talk about RA as meta is almost non-existant there, despite what some may say). What's the problem with it then? Noone likes to play bars that are seriously bad. I mean, how does it prepare you for GvG, how do you practice for HA if the bars are just bad? And now you may see why the removal of TA caused the downfall of HA/GvG: there is no connection between them. Old players leave, but there aren't any new players coming. I mean, where would they come from? RA? Those guys have no idea what pressure is, what linebacking is, how to interrupt properly, and I could go on. I'm not elitist, I'm not a bad person, but I just don't have the time and energy to babysit. Who has? How can they learn those things? Who has the time watch over new players and lose matches because of them? Everyone wants to play this game for fun and it shouldn't turn into a work for
anyone. There was this idea about making RA less random, but I think that the joining as frontline/midline/backline system can be abused. I can't foresee the consequences, but I can imagine warriors and monks joining as midline, just to make the party more powerful and potentially imbalanced (remember, GW is not balanced for 4v4 at this point), which would result in more bitching, despite the fact that practically nothing happened, same random as before.

I must bring up another point: the future. This is about which I'm not sure, as I don't know if ANet is willing to do anything about GW right now, as they are working hard on GW2, to be as good as it possibly can. But are they discarding GW? And here comes a contraidction: they are adding costumes, things that can be bought from in-game stores, etc. To sum up: they are getting as much money out of GW as possible. No, I'm not flaming, this business model works with many games, and I don't blame them at all for doing this. However, remember when GW came out? We were promised PvP. We were promised fun formats in which everyone can play accoring to their skill level. And it worked with Prophecy. So despite the fact it's their interest to make a change, to make people stay, they are seemingly not doing anything that has a pernament effect on the game, yet maybe it just takes one good idea that is not left for GW2 to make Guild Wars stay alive. They are obviously trying to do something with PvE, adding some new contents, but it is just a temporary solution. The anwser to the survival of Guild Wars lies in PvP. I truly believe that Guild Wars can be a still-played classic like StarCraft in a few years, and that can be very profitable and it would certainly make the name ArenaNet even more prestigious.

So there is an urgent need for an in-between format (RA -> ? -> GvG/HA), but I don't blame ANet for not coming up with the miracle yet. It needs to be well thought out to be enjoyable and reward player skill and not player builds. But if you have paid attention, you know by now that at this moment, Guild Wars is balanced for 8v8. So, if a new format is added, then a dramatic skill change would be necessary, and the game would require the same babysitting as before. So, let's sum up what we need:

A format...
-that doesn't require much change to the current skillset
-that doesn't require babysitting
-in which it doesn't take hours or a constant group/guild to play and stand chance at all
-that uses the 4v4 arenas
-in which the meta can't become stale
-which is rewarding, challenging for experienced players as well (so that new pvp players can play against/with old pvp players)

See what I did there? Unintentionally I just have summarized Codex Arena. But we know that right now it's a massive failure, so it needs to be changed. We however cannot change the number of players, the maps don't allow it. I know that there are many ideas around there, but let me just summarise mine: I think that the skill limitation of the Codex is overkill. We can't even make a half-decent build out of it. So a number of skills should be picked out as "core skills", which are always avaliable. These should be the ones most balanced: I mean for example in the warriors case: most of the stances, Bull's Strike, Protector's Strike, and a few more. And like each week/2weeks, etc, a selected weapon skill is allowed, for example swords this week, hammers the next. This was just an example, and only applicable in the case of the Warrior, but you get the point: the anwser lies in the enlargement of the skill pool, by not putting in potentionally gimmick and game breaking skills (they wouldnt even appear in the cycle) and for example there would be like five or six ponetial skill pools for each class, which would be randomly changed each week. This way, the meta would be constantly changing, and there would be no chance to develop gimmicks, as you need to be very lucky to have the specific skill pools for it to work. Also, the rule of one of each class can be applied in this case as the meta can't become boring. Obviously it all comes down the the skills chosen for each skill pool, and there may be a limit needed for a class to take too many skills of the other classes to avoid gimmicks. This may be hard to endure, but I can imagine a primary attribute + 2 attributes of different classes ruin the entire system. I can't go into details about this as I'm not a balance designer, this is just a rough idea of what I think the solution should be without any dramatic change. It however comes down to ANet to do something about it, to come up with another solution if necessary, it's our common goal, common interest after all.

Missing HB · May 05, 2010, 12:29 PM // 12:29

In my opinion , as i said it on an other thread , making codex 1 human + 3 heroes would make more people play it ( maybe also changing the title , but this would need to be discussed ( resigns , etc will come back , quest farm )) , since it would fix the main problem of HB : the teleportings .

You might say : alright , but it wasn't realy fun in HB when trying to 4v4 a mo/a + random heroes . Yes , but since the skills and builds do change every day , some days maybe they will be advantaged , and some other not .
An other point : The hero AL : well , it won't really matter since it will be a " fight " only if we consider they keep same maps .

So , this could be interesting to make that arena have more players that way ( at least those who enjoyed playing HB ) , but looking at the quantity of effort they put in codex arena , there's low chance they do .

Your requirements for a format in order to make RA --> it --> Ha/GvG are good , but in my opinion , it's too much a mix between TA and HB ( looking actual pvp in every place , only a format where you can use full heroes won't make you waste 30mins to form ) . So , that's why i suggested that change for Codex

Shayne Hawke · May 05, 2010, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Missing HB

In my opinion , as i said it on an other thread , making codex 1 human + 3 heroes would make more people play it

Your requirements for a format in order to make RA --> it --> Ha/GvG are good , but in my opinion , it's too much a mix between TA and HB ( looking actual pvp in every place , only a format where you can use full heroes won't make you waste 30mins to form ) . So , that's why i suggested that change for Codex

Heroes aren't in RA, HA, or GvG, so why would we put them into any kind of transitional format between those arenas?

Nerf Me Haha · May 05, 2010, 02:20 PM // 14:20

While I like your idea of allowing Heros in Codex, and making it more like HB , I think there should be a limit as to how many heros you can take. I would say no more then 2 Heros, because we all know that playing 4v4 annhilation with 3 heros on a team is going to booooooring.

Missing HB · May 05, 2010, 03:21 PM // 15:21

I only tried to find a place where there would be all format requirements Ul70r said , quite a balance between Hb and TA ( what codex was supposed to be ...... ) . As i said it , any new arena without hench/heroes allowed will become as codex is actually , and won't fit the " no take hours to form " requirement .

I understand it doesn't fit like a transition because no heroes in Ha/GvG , but then , the only solution left would be to make Codex a 1v1 arena ( which still could work imo )

FoxBat · May 05, 2010, 03:29 PM // 15:29

People do actually play codex on ZQ day (europe at least). All the format needs is some decent rewards. (Title points per win, 3x+ faction.)

jazilla · May 05, 2010, 03:35 PM // 15:35

On a lot of these threads these days, mine included, it makes me sad. Sad because none of what we suggest anymore besides skill changes will make it into the game. We are at a point in this game's lifecycle where there just aren't any people working on the game at this level. It's almost as if these forums should just go dark completely besides Ventari's.

MagmaRed · May 05, 2010, 03:50 PM // 15:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazilla

On a lot of these threads these days, mine included, it makes me sad. Sad because none of what we suggest anymore besides skill changes will make it into the game. We are at a point in this game's lifecycle where there just aren't any people working on the game at this level. It's almost as if these forums should just go dark completely besides Ventari's.

Anything NEW would surprise me. Anything changed would be a small surprise depending on the reason (bugs, balance, etc.). Biggest problem I see with most suggestions is that they are 100% personal opinion based. "Change this skill because I don't like the animation it has", "I don't like using specific armor because it looks bad, add new armor", and the like.

Ideas I know came from here were things like allowing the festival head gear to be used with armor, making Lucky/Unlucky and Treasure Hunter account wide, and a few others I could list, but am too lazy. Those were not new things to the game, they were just adjustments to what was in the game. And the reasons for the suggestions were clear and pertained to making the game 'better' without relying mainly on an opinion.

FlyMoto · May 05, 2010, 05:59 PM // 17:59

The problem with Codex is that it completely alienates casual players. Forming a group there with random people is only going to give you headaches and wasted time. An organized group is going to win when you only have sub-par character builds to work with. HA at least had the potential for random players to abuse gimmicks to get a win (sure, they learn nothing about real play, but it gets them interested).

Not only are casual players alienated, but pvp players get much better rewards through GvG and/or HA. Similarly, these players have to adapt to use weak builds which only make them not want to play.

In short: if you want to get people to play Codex, try to get the casual players by making it random teams (like RA). Otherwise be ready for it to die as the game is not balanced for organized 4v4.

Ul70r · May 05, 2010, 06:26 PM // 18:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Missing HB

In my opinion , as i said it on an other thread , making codex 1 human + 3 heroes would make more people play it ( maybe also changing the title , but this would need to be discussed ( resigns , etc will come back , quest farm )) , since it would fix the main problem of HB : the teleportings .

You might say : alright , but it wasn't realy fun in HB when trying to 4v4 a mo/a + random heroes . Yes , but since the skills and builds do change every day , some days maybe they will be advantaged , and some other not .
An other point : The hero AL : well , it won't really matter since it will be a " fight " only if we consider they keep same maps .

So , this could be interesting to make that arena have more players that way ( at least those who enjoyed playing HB ) , but looking at the quantity of effort they put in codex arena , there's low chance they do .

Your requirements for a format in order to make RA --> it --> Ha/GvG are good , but in my opinion , it's too much a mix between TA and HB ( looking actual pvp in every place , only a format where you can use full heroes won't make you waste 30mins to form ) . So , that's why i suggested that change for Codex

I don't think that remaking HB as a 4v4 arena would help, gimmicks would be discovered soon and the hero AI would be abused to hell. So basically same as HB, but the matches would take less time.

Quote:

People do actually play codex on ZQ day (europe at least). All the format needs is some decent rewards. (Title points per win, 3x+ faction.)

This would most likely work to get people to give codex another chance, but they would be bored/annoyed of it soon if this is the only thing changed.

Quote:

The problem with Codex is that it completely alienates casual players. Forming a group there with random people is only going to give you headaches and wasted time. An organized group is going to win when you only have sub-par character builds to work with. HA at least had the potential for random players to abuse gimmicks to get a win (sure, they learn nothing about real play, but it gets them interested).

Not only are casual players alienated, but pvp players get much better rewards through GvG and/or HA. Similarly, these players have to adapt to use weak builds which only make them not want to play.

In short: if you want to get people to play Codex, try to get the casual players by making it random teams (like RA). Otherwise be ready for it to die as the game is not balanced for organized 4v4.

Probably giving out better rewards would help, like for example for X number of points in CA you can buy PvP gear/weapons or something or whatever. I am sure though that at first less experienced players would be steamrolled, but they would surely adapt after a while and become better, use better builds. And better rotating skillpools would help the sub-optimal bar problem (which is the main issue wtih Codex imo).
I try to explain my theory: I think the skills chosen should be less random. There should be some unchanged "core" skills for each class, and the others would be changing constantly, but not entirely randomly. For example:
week one: mesmers are given "punishing" spells (VoR, Backfire, Empathy, etc)
week two: mesmers are given anti-melee spells (Clumsiness, Ineptitude, Signet of Midnight, etc)
week three: mesmers are given interrupt type spells and spells that help interrupting (Migraine, PB, etc)
week four: mesmers are given general anti-caster spells (Diversion, Shame, etc)
week five: skill pool of week two
week six: skill pool of week one
etc etc etc, you get the point

So there would be set skill pools each week and these ones change randomly, but they don't become different and won't be like skills randomly given. The same goes for every other class, and this way the team composition would be also changing constantly, players could try themselves in different roles and differently made-up parties every week.

doomfodder · May 05, 2010, 10:18 PM // 22:18

how about setting up a 4v4 format (like TA without the class limitation of CA) but each day the skill set changes based on the CAMPAIGN!

Each day will have all core skills + all EOTN skills + all skills from ONLY 1 campaign & NO other campaigns. The campaign cycle repeats every 3 days: Core + proph, then Core + factions, then Core + NF, etc...

I guess that means that Sins/Rits/Par/Derv *could* be handicapped on Proph days, & the Par/Derv *could* also be handicapped on the factions & proph days. But THAT's what 2ndaries are for right?

Call it Campaign Arena... just a thought...

Fillyra · May 05, 2010, 11:31 PM // 23:31

I don't care too much for any flavor of the standard pvp. Personally I think RA is a mess with syncing still happening and then those random bots, and I dislike CA. I'd say remove RA and CA and put back in TA. Then focus on making more structured PvP with goals, like Alliance Battles and JQ/FA, places where it's more than just the standard arena 4v4 or so. More battlefields

Kosar The Cruel · May 06, 2010, 01:09 AM // 01:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fillyra

I don't care too much for any flavor of the standard pvp. Personally I think RA is a mess with syncing still happening and then those random bots, and I dislike CA. I'd say remove RA and CA and put back in TA. Then focus on making more structured PvP with goals, like Alliance Battles and JQ/FA, places where it's more than just the standard arena 4v4 or so. More battlefields

RA is a mess yes. But removing it would only cause another gap. Any team based PvP requires you to have a certain rank already. Removing RA and putting in TA again wouldn't solve anything. It would become like HA were you're only getting a group if you have a certain rank.

Quote:

if you want to get people to play Codex, try to get the casual players by making it random teams (like RA)

~FlyMoto
I like this idea. It's easy even to get a group and it'll probably bring more people out then the current CA does.

Terrible Surgeon · May 06, 2010, 07:42 AM // 07:42

I think you have ok ideas but nothing i would fully agree with. This game is what it is because of the players. If players didn't abuse things then the changes made would be different. Plain and simple, when there is blood in the water sharks frenzy, and they replicate what created the blood. Anet thinks this is called abuse. I think its called good tactics, but face it. We have been nerfed to the point that things in PvP are just plain and simply unbearable and repetitive.
HB and TA being removed created a lot of player resentment and GW has yet to redeem themselves in the eyes of many players for removing those arenas. The replacement was a failure from the start (no lead attacks for assassins etc..). I have no faith in the GW team to change anything for the positive and honestly why should I?

Swahnee · May 06, 2010, 08:14 AM // 08:14

I don't think to be expert enough to speak about skill balance in 4v4 or HA instead of GvG, but i hope that in some way (maybe, as some of you suggested, removing some overpowered skill like it happens in CA, and allowing only one character for each profession) it could be possible to make things better from this point of view.

Instead, I wanted to give my 2 cents about the incentive for new people to join PvP. I think that titles, factions points, zaishen keys or other shiny things like weapons' skins etc, used as rewards, would most likely boost grind (with all the bad things related to it) rather than good play. In my opinion, it could be interesting to add ladders in all organized PvP formats, and drive the attention of players towards playing for getting a better postion in the ladder, instead of grinding some title, like it happens in real sports, where there isn't any title or such, but still a lot of people play and enjoy them.

Even in this case, however, there would be a big problem: rank discrimination. Obviously good teams would try to play only with good (well, ranked doesn't necessarily means good, let's say experienced) players, so PvP newbies would be let alone, like they are now. For this reason, i would like to see many ladders of different categories (i don't know if i'm clear enough with what i mean with "category"). Let's say that it could be a "first category" ladder, where only the better teams play, then a second category, and a third etc., going down with skill level. Newbies would join the competition in the lowest category, playing with teams of their skill level. If a team reaches the highest positions in his category, it will be allowed to pass to the next category etc.

I think that this kind of structure could be a lot more interesting than playing for grinding a title. However, i didn't forget that ANet resources are small etc etc. so i know that all this is only an utopia, but maybe some idea can turn out useful.

Well, i know that this bunch of ideas has probably a lot of flaws, but my little contribution want to be this concept of playing for competitiveness, rather than for titles or other pointless rewards, and of giving less skilled players a place to play competitively at low level, without forcing them to spend countless hours practicing and learning to become super champions (and i'm sure that a lot of people don't even want to become super champions).

Missing HB · May 06, 2010, 08:31 AM // 08:31

This game had 2 kind of AT both very diferents : GvG and HB . Thing is one corresponded to experienced players , who could have many people on ; other was more oriented for every player , no requirements , no rank discrimination , no hours to form . The main problem as you know is that game is dying , thus it's not easy to play HA/GvG w/e your rank is and when you want to .

Making ladders in every place would be hard to implement because : it's hard to make a ladder for a certain party , then member changing , etc... The only thing they could do is , make like in HB , a rank for everyone , and an average rank will be calculated for the team , and then people would win/lose points corresponding to average rank .

Anyway , adding it in HA won't change anything : if you divide ladder , some people won't have anyone to fight ( place is already very dead ) , and if you don't divide it , it will be a ladder farm on dead hours ( quite like what happens these days , as isaid , on GMT morning ). It could be fun in RA , but the sync and bot problems would be pointed out .

So , it's better , regarding the actual updates , to do something not hard at all to implement like adding heroes in codex ( which , for reasons i said , will have much more people ) , or adding back HB and TA with deleting 1 quest .

redaces · May 07, 2010, 02:12 PM // 14:12

I agree that 4 v 4 is pretty unbalanced right now.

And codex makes it worse instead of better. The biggest threat in RA these days in mesmers. Hexes in general are really impossible to deal with when most monks are running holy veil which at 10 energy per hex removed isn't much of a bargain.

So now we have codex and every time I've played it a really sexy bar can be put together for a mesmer without much thought but the other classes pretty well have total garbage.

Roupe · May 12, 2010, 01:20 AM // 01:20

The game has many mechanics, that it isn't using; that would have encourage teaming with players. For example, the levers. In Pre you needed to cooperate with another player in order to get into the northlands. They could have had more of those lever locked gates. . That system is really underused. One room in the deep, on the top of my head. Yes there are other gates locked with levels -but those gates dont close & doesn't need a separate level operator.

Another is the flagging of heroes and checkpoints. The training area for the heroes have that as a "needed" training, yet there are very few places that this lesson can be put to "good" use.

Same for the traps in pre (necromancers 1st quest) and the catapults.

These mechanics could have been better utilized to encourage cooperation between players. Not necessary "force" us into it, But it could have been put into shortcut unlocks. A cooperating party gets to unlock better shortcuts, and save time & effort.

In EoTN dwarfen pve skill allows the detection of shortcuts, in some areas. (Strange that the dwarfs can teach the heroes how to deal with automatic sentry defences, or that the sunspears cant either -aside from Venta cemetery mission)

As it is now, forming a party with players take quite along time -without good discipline. Making full human player groups even less attractive than to HH.