Curse

moriz · Sep 11, 2007, 03:02 AM // 03:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by b-M-d

Hmmm thats funny, if AB is a "noob" arena then why do I often see high ranked HA/TA players get their @$$es whupped in AB?

I'm sorry, you don't really seem too credible Mr. "they both noob"

sorry to burst your bubble, but GW is not CS. a single great player cannot fight off 4, not even if they are utter nubs. if that single great player is sitting on a shrine, then maybe. otherwise, the old zerg rush can get you kills any time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by b-M-d

a) you need decent communication between 3 groups (as opposed to 1 group in TA, HA, GvG)
b) you have to consider the shrines as well as the 12 opponents, and NPC's

other than the "4-4-4" at the start of the battle and the "cap you RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing nubs", there's no other communication needed.

to any player with half a brain, shrines and npcs are easy as pie. unfortunately, most ABers are too dumb to kill and cap npc shrines properly, due to the fact that the elite elementalist can destroy 99.9% of ABers in a 1v1 situation.

Perfected Shadow · Sep 11, 2007, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by b-M-d

Hmmm thats funny, if AB is a "noob" arena then why do I often see high ranked HA/TA players get their @$$es whupped in AB?

Because some of those players think they're gods walking into a lowly arena, PD mesmers, etc and don't do much except swell their egos and rank corpses. Then they lose in their home field because they played an AB map like a HA/TA map.

Snow Bunny · Sep 11, 2007, 03:53 PM // 15:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by b-M-d

Hmmm thats funny, if AB is a "noob" arena then why do I often see high ranked HA/TA players get their @$$es whupped in AB?

I'm sorry, you don't really seem too credible Mr. "they both noob"

Yes I see how that works, titles would be a waste of time on the kurzick side, because mobbing is your primary tactic. On the Luxon side people (with titles) tend to band together because the higher tier titles are insurance that the person knows his/her stuff. You can't leech your way to Steward or higher, if anyone has leeched to steward, they must have started doing so the day Factions was released.

As for my luxon title, I bear it with pride because its the product of hundreds of wins, none of which were by mobbing.

See how that works?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Luxons don't mob, some of the more tactically challenged Luxons do mob. But its usually because they think they'll accomplish something by attacking the Kurzick mob. I'm usually one of the first people to say "spread out, don't mob and keep capping and moving"...

Sometimes when us Luxons have all the shrines, we press the advantage by trying to lock the opponents in their base by covering the 2 teleporters and the main gate. Almost every time we do this the kurzicks whine and spam local out of desperation "You luxon mobbing noobs!!!". At that point, its not really mobbing, its the proverbial "last nail on the coffin".

The reason why AB is "the noob arena" is because some people obviously use it as a place to test builds, when in fact, AB is potentially more of a challenge because:

a) you need decent communication between 3 groups (as opposed to 1 group in TA, HA, GvG)
b) you have to consider the shrines as well as the 12 opponents, and NPC's

You're an idiot. I'll just put that out there.
There's no communication.
And Luxons and Kurzicks mob the same amount. I have the screenies to prove it.
Get your fanboyism out of this.

AB is a noob arena. I should show you the builds found in it.

Amadei · Sep 11, 2007, 05:43 PM // 17:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by b-M-d

Yes I see how that works, titles would be a waste of time on the kurzick side, because mobbing is your primary tactic. On the Luxon side people (with titles) tend to band together because the higher tier titles are insurance that the person knows his/her stuff.

Thanks for the laugh; best one I've had all week!

Quote:

As for my luxon title, I bear it with pride because its the product of hundreds of wins, none of which were by mobbing.

See how that works?

Yeah, I see how it works o_O. Not a single point of my Kurzick faction was earned with mobbing or FFFing, as I don't do either of them. Mobbing because it's counter-productive in almost all cases (except when we're grinding the Luxons in the dust anyway; then it's just fun to steamroll 'em as they hesitantly come edging out of the base. Nearly as fun as the time I managed to lure three Luxons in a row into the Kurzick base defense. We were winning by a mile and I was bored (also on a monk, which makes people chase you all over the map regardless of objectives). CLICK CLACK BOOM. Dead.) and FFFing because it's boring as hell.

Quote:

I'm usually one of the first people to say "spread out, don't mob and keep capping and moving"...

Yes, yes, you're a regular AB genius, you. You're also the Only Person In The Whole Game(tm) who tells people to stop mobbing and start capping already *pet*. Anyway, as the rest of your post proves, you're kind of an idiot, but an amusing one, so thanks again!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

AB is a noob arena. I should show you the builds found in it.

I keep a whole gallery of screenies with idiotic stuff I've seen people run in ABs

. I browse it when I'm bored; it's my own personal TTN file.

b-M-d · Sep 15, 2007, 08:19 PM // 20:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by b-M-d

The reason why AB is "the noob arena" is because some people obviously use it as a place to test builds, when in fact, AB is potentially more of a challenge because:

a) you need decent communication between 3 groups (as opposed to 1 group in TA, HA, GvG)
b) you have to consider the shrines as well as the 12 opponents, and NPC's

~~~

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

You're an idiot. I'll just put that out there.
There's no communication.
And Luxons and Kurzicks mob the same amount. I have the screenies to prove it.
Get your fanboyism out of this.

AB is a noob arena. I should show you the builds found in it.

Ummm... first of all, I never said "there was/is decent communication"...I said "you need decent communication".

MOST OF THE TIME, it sucks, but there are a fair number of ABer's that know how to coordinate and regroup quickly and effectively.

Read my post again, then tell me again who's the idiot?

You didn't even read my post right. So quick to insult, learn to read whats being said properly my friend. Do you even know what "potentially" means? it means "IT COULD BE" not "IT IS"

~~~

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amadei

Yeah, I see how it works o_O. Not a single point of my Kurzick faction was earned with mobbing or FFFing, as I don't do either of them. Mobbing because it's counter-productive in almost all cases

Yes, yes, you're a regular AB genius, you. You're also the Only Person In The Whole Game(tm) who tells people to stop mobbing and start capping already *pet*.

Wow how very snide of you.

I do find myself wondering where you got the idea that I'm the only (or that I think I'm) the only person who tries to get people to "spread out and cap".

I never said I was nor have I ever claimed to be "the Only Person In The Whole Game(tm) who tells people to stop mobbing and start capping already"

Neither of you seem like you AB much. Must have taken you ages to get a decent amount of faction. It took me 3 1/2 months (2-3 hrs a day on average, day job and other real life obligations aside) I've been in a sh*tload of battles, and I'm just speaking my mind. You're lack of respect and hastiness to be insulting just shows me, and everyone who reads these posts that you and Snow Bunny are EXACTLY what you both say I am.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

Ok.

AB is still a noob arena.

And your high rank luxon people will get trounced again and again. If only because being skilled at AB is being skilled at Pve.

LMAO!!!!! Did you just say that AB is comparable to PVE? hahahaha well, I guess it is fitting, especially because a lot of kurzick players aren't even as good as their NPC counterparts. At least monsters in Hard Mode run out of MS and Firestorm, not into it. xD

Snow Bunny · Sep 15, 2007, 08:45 PM // 20:45

Ok.

AB is still a noob arena.

And your high rank luxon people will get trounced again and again. If only because being skilled at AB is being skilled at Pve.

/done

Dark Paladin X · Sep 16, 2007, 12:00 AM // 00:00

I've played AB arena with my snare ninja (the main character I have) and I seen my team (luxon) mob ALOT. Especially when the lux are in the deep kurzick territory. I often tell the entire team and other teams not to mob and just cap, but they are just noobs. That's why I often attempt to cap shrines sololy because not many people are capping what they are suppose to do (and I seen kurz mob alot as well).

How I prioritize: CAP>MOB.

Drinky · Sep 16, 2007, 12:25 AM // 00:25

If they made AB a 12 person TEAM, and not 3 random teams, you could acctully organize and split correctly, using voice communication, and AB would be about a teams skill. Now, it is not (imagen a 12 player Invoke spike, awesome

not that it would win you the game at all, but seeing it in action, wow

).

I think that AB isnt at all about mobbing, mob at forgotten shires for example, and its game over, you acctully need a tactic to win in the capping maps in HA, in AB however, the other teams will not listen to you, they will not let you know which shires are about to get capped, they will simply shout "CAP CAP CAP!!!" in team chat, whats utterly worthless and not effective at all.

Make AB a 12 man team, and we could talk again.

Nadia Roark · Sep 16, 2007, 01:05 AM // 01:05

This b-M-d guys i cracking me up. He asks:

Quote:

why do I often see high ranked HA/TA players get their @$$es whupped in AB?

Let's try a little exercise shall we?

First, ask yourself how many people are on one side of an AB team. I'll give you a few minutes.

...

...

Ready? The answer is 12.

Okay, now on to step two. How many "High-ranked HA/TA players" are usually on any given team? One? Two? Maybe three? I tend to doubt that an "all-star" AB team composed only of r9+ HA or r5+ glad players has ever existed in any iteration (look it up) on either the Kurzick or Luxon side. Ever. This means that the wide majority of players on any given team are not high-ranked HA/TA players; in fact only a very small minority of them are. Most of us play HA or TA when we want to pvp

. Surprise Surprise.

Now, if the wide majority of ABers are not high-ranked HA/TAers, this means that the wide majority of players either are

Not familiar with pvp in general, or
Don't regularly play HA/TA.

Seems pretty obvious doesn't it? My point here is that if the wide majority of players are not these people, how can you honestly point to their occasional failing (since AB is so team oriented, one or two people who know what they're doing usually cannot save a team) as "defense" of AB as a dynamic and challenging arena? Now, I'm not saying that AB players are innately bad (any moreso than players from other arenas--there's plenty of trash to be found in HA and GvG), but you can't expect to be taken seriously when you say "LOLOLOLOL high ranked HA/TA players get owned in AB." It probably happens about as often as anything else in this game--and if there are one or two high ranked HA/TAers on one team, it's usually a fairly safe assumption that there's one or two of them on the other team as well. To suggest that HAers/TAers fail regularly at AB because it's SOOO HARD or SOOO DIFFERENT is a laughable oversimplification, and it may lead one to believe that you yourself have never examined these arenas.

AB is not rocket science. I don't care if you're like r9+ Luxon or whatever; you really should stop pretending that it is. About 6 weeks ago I walked back into AB with absolutely zero knowledge of the maps or common builds (since I hadn't played AB since the release of Factions) and I've done just fine for myself.

And quit whining about mobbing, both sides mob roughly the same amount. The Idiot Ratio is universal to the internet and usually isn't restricted to any one demographic. Kurzicks think that the Luxons mob more, and the Luxons think that the Kurzicks mob more. The numerous proclamations to this effect from both sides here and elsewhere proves my hypothesis.

b-M-d · Sep 16, 2007, 04:38 AM // 04:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

This b-M-d guys i cracking me up. He asks:

Let's try a little exercise shall we?

First, ask yourself how many people are on one side of an AB team. I'll give you a few minutes.

Ready? The answer is 12.

Wow you can count

*applause*

Sure I did say "HA/TA players get their @$$es whupped in AB", but only because thats what I see. Personally, I have a distaste for HA because many people there are such arrogant pricks that are so inflexible you could iron pants on their back. They come to AB talking big and talking sh*t but get put down like sick dogs. That's why I said it.

b-M-d · Sep 16, 2007, 04:58 AM // 04:58

Mods, kindly close this thread already. Thank you

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. That was until some of us decided to misread some text and be insulting at the same time.

iridescentfyre · Sep 16, 2007, 06:54 AM // 06:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

And quit whining about mobbing, both sides mob roughly the same amount. The Idiot Ratio is universal to the internet and usually isn't restricted to any one demographic. Kurzicks think that the Luxons mob more, and the Luxons think that the Kurzicks mob more. The numerous proclamations to this effect from both sides here and elsewhere proves my hypothesis.

Nadia wins the thread. Everyone read this paragraph at least 5 times.

Sun Fired Blank · Sep 16, 2007, 07:47 AM // 07:47

I figured that I'd pop in since over several months, various folks have pushed this back up. I have a couple of quick things to interject.

Firstly, I'd be open to conduct empirical research. The information that we've gathered here is purely anecdotal; unfortunately, that doesn't help to validate points for any debate. If anyone cares to help me construct a research proposal, then we could recruit folks from the Luxon and Kurzick sides to investigate thoroughly the mechanisms and factors by which either side fails or triumphs.

Secondly, Tantra3: I don't consider it very biased. Although it isn't entirely the right use of the term, you (and Nadia Roark) might find that "regression to the mean" is the best explanation. The Kurzicks have a very large amount of players compared to Luxon. Let us pretend that every member of both populations can be given a skill rating from 0 to 10. The average skill rating for each population is 5, and each population has a normal distribution. However, the Luxon population is much smaller. The long and short of it (for laypersons; a statistician might consider violence for this generalization) is that if I take a convenience sample (pseudo-random) of twelve people from each population, it's more probable that I'll get an average skill rating of 5 for the Kurzick sample than the Luxon sample. And that is my general observation, although I lack empirical data for it.

Thirdly, players of other higher PvP formats aren't, by grace of their experience, spectacular AB players. The short answer is that AB has another dimension that isn't a factor for HA or TA. For any format, you have to ask for yourself and your opponents; what can or can't I do alone, what can I do if another person helps me (and the situations that might I require help), and what can (or is) my team do(ing) as a greater whole? Many HA and TA players are spectacular at #1 and #2. #3? Er...

HA and TA players are profoundly capable of resolving single altercations in a quick and timely fashion. They quickly and properly respond in a lethal fashion to a very large number of situations. The problem is that for either format, #3 is very seldom a concern. Those formats lock players in a sphere of misery that rapidly and violently shrinks and expands. You don't ask what your team is doing; they're a huge adjacent glob of death and pain, and they're probably screaming to you about it over vent. You don't ask what their team is doing; they're in your face doing the same thing. And you very seldom have any reason or space to do anything else.

GvG players often do #3 in a very explicit and spectacular fashion. The map gives you a chance to do many things that you simply can't do in HA or TA. In the very simplest form of doing #3, they might execute a split or hold the flagstand. In a more complex form, they might save a tenuous situation through many clever manoeuvres; and many of those are in response to the other guild.

In stark contrast, AB requires that you are superbly aware of #3 on a map that has a truly breathtaking amount of geometry and seven points of interest, doesn't always give you a quick means of joining your group if you die and lacks a useful means of interacting with other groups. The great AB players consequently develop #3 as intuition. The problem is that #3 as intuition is not useful for Heroes or Gladiators or Champions or Vanquishers or Guardians. It's only useful for AB.

My experience is that great players only begin to develop that sense around 1,000,000 faction earned through AB. If you donated every point of that faction to your alliance (post-update, grumble), you'd be a defender of your faction (r7) and 25% of the way to r8. The problem is that AB isn't very competitive. You can develop #3 as intuition and outright fail to develop #1 or #2.

That said, I have several more basic points:

The first is that faction rank isn't often very useful. You can get a high rank in faction and never understand anything, even if you spend every moment of your time in AB. The only point faction rank is a consideration is if you're speaking of a decently high rank: r6-r7 is my personal breakpoint given the update devaluing of AB titles. Before that, rank doesn't improve your chances that a player is any good. But you should probably treat hero ranks (r3, at least) and gladiator ranks (r1, at least) in much the same respect given the nonsense that can inflate either rank.

The second is that saying AB is PvE / isn't PvP is wrong. That's a statement many folks make that properly reflects a lack of decent competition and the means to encourage it, yet denies the complexity that is present and should be more of a factor (if the format had more competition...). They're comparable to anyone that screams "4-4-4" and "cap, cap, cap!" It means they sort of get it, but not really. That's a bit akin to screaming "kill the monk!" in arenas.

The third is that our the debate over if a specific faction is more prone to mobs does not help the original debate: is it viable? And that question, to me, indicates that AB is very broken (and to be honest, has always been broken). You shouldn't ask "does mobbing work?" We know they work. You should ask "why do mobs start?" and "why do mobs work?" You should also seriously ask "why is it so derided by most PvP enthusiasts?"

I would consider starting a new thread to help address those questions under my third point. You're right; this thread is useless, but not all of the content is unsalvagable.

Nadia Roark · Sep 16, 2007, 08:33 AM // 08:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by b-M-d

Wow you can count

*applause*

I see you didn't bother with the rest of the post. Well done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by b-M-d

Sure I did say "HA/TA players get their @$$es whupped in AB", but only because thats what I see. Personally, I have a distaste for HA because many people there are such arrogant pricks that are so inflexible you could iron pants on their back. They come to AB talking big and talking sh*t but get put down like sick dogs. That's why I said it.

I'm rank 9 HA, and I'll be the first to admit that it's happened to me. I've been beaten badly on friggin Ancestral Lands (for all I know, by you) as Kurzick, and it sucks. I'll also be the first to admit that we can be total pricks and irredemably inflexible.

But look at the bigger picture here. If you're going to sit here and tell me that you have a distate for HA for x reason, then why get bent out of shape when people who frequent other arenas have a distaste for your chosen pastime? AB is hardly my favorite mode of PvP, but it has its place and I'm happy to play it. People usually "talk big and talk sh*t" wherever they go-- it's hardly a phenomenon restricted to HA or AB; or to MMO's in general or even the internet. It's just the nature of human pride and you're going to have to learn how to put up with it.

Also, Sun Fired Blank's post should be reread again by anyone that's interested in this, as some very good points are made. To be honest, I've absolutely no idea what the population trends are for either side, but if there really are more Kurzicks, that probably means there really are more idiots on our side, but probably not per capita. I can see how this would lead b-M-d to the conclusion that Kurzicks are stupider, or that they tend to mob more, but that may after all be a function of our size (who knows?).

moko · Sep 16, 2007, 11:07 AM // 11:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by b-M-d

Mods, kindly close this thread already. Thank you

WUT IZZ GOING IN IN DIS TREDS????!