Curse

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 09, 2006, 02:42 AM // 02:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by s w o r d y

I think "the build" is a great feature of GW, it has a contribution to winning along with build execution (developing a build is in itself a skill).

I don't honestly know why so many people think of build development as a crucial skill in Guild Wars. While it certainly has its place, developing a strong or innovative build really won't help you win beyond the very short term. People will start stealing your build off Obs Mode and building to counter it. You can get a workable build that suits the meta and wins by Notepadding a random build off Obs, so there's really not much benefit to being able to develop builds.

Build choice and execution are important skills. Choosing a strong build will give you a net gain in rating on the ladder and allow you to climb to a higher ranking. However, while the build-based wins and losses will balance out in your favor on a 'good' build, there's still going to be losses. Sometimes the other team will have every counter and you'll lose, even if your play once the match starts is 3 times better than them.

It's like saying that an FPS would 'balance out' if every player in every match started with a random health total, between 1 and 100. While the dice would technically favor or disfavor every player equally, the individual matches would be ridiculous. One side would completely dominate the other based on a random roll.

When you have build always giving an advantage to one side or the other, how can you really know where you stand? Are you 'better' than the team you just beat, or did your build just counter theirs? Could you have done something different in that match vs Ranger Spike, or was it just a rock-paper-scissors loss that you couldn't really have prevented. In my opinion, each individual match should be meaningful and skill-based, which runs counter to the whole 'build' concept.

Neo-LD · Oct 09, 2006, 06:03 AM // 06:03

I think its close to impossible to remove the concept of counters from any strategic game. Every game will have strategies and tactics. In order to be balanced, every strategy and tactic must have a counter, or be bad to the point of uselessness. There will be situations in every game where sometimes the counters arent available for some reason. Maybe you researched the wrong tech tree in an RTS. Maybe you picked the wrong character in a fighting game. Maybe you picked the wrong gun in CS. And then, of course, you could bring the wrong skills to a Guild Wars match.

The difference, which you pointed out, (I had not thought of it this way up till this point), is that in most those cases the list of potential strategies are limited to a few, very specific, meticulously balanced options. There are only 3 races in Starcraft. There are only, say, 20 characters in your average fighting game. With Guild Wars, however, there is an absolutely huge number of build options.

In addition, there is no way to adapt to your opponent after you identify what he is running. Sure, there might be an infinite number of possible strategies in Starcraft, but you can at least scout your opponent to see what his plan is and start working on your counter. With Guild Wars current setup, it more resembles a Starcraft game where two players are denied contact for an hour, build up to 200/200 population, and then meet in the middle to see who got lucky picking his units.

Thus, looking at it this way, I can agree that the current system is in need of improvements to some of its fundamental elements. However, I cannot agree that it is a good idea to eliminate strategy outright from any game. My idea of a perfect game would be exactly 50% strategy and 50% tactics (execution of the strategy). I dont see how its possible to defend the notion that every strategy in a competitive game be equally viable. Thats like saying that mashing 'A' in a fighting game should give me an equally good chance of winning a fighting game as any other strategy. Thats like saying that throwing deep on every play during a football game should give me an equally good chance as carefully mixing up my play selection to confuse my opponent. Thats like saying rushing with my 4 starting SCVs in Starcraft should give me an equally good chance to win as actually building up a base and building actual units. And, like I said earlier, thats like saying that bringing mending paladins ought to be just as good as bringing shock axes.

Strategy is an integral part of almost every good game. Removing it kills most of the competitive elements of the game, reducing it from a complicated mental battle of prediction, anticipation, deception, cleverness, and trickery down to just an athletic yardstick. If you removed all the strategy from football, what would you be left with? 50 yard dashes, discus throws, and long jump contests? NO TY.

The problem with Guild Wars atm is that the current design of the ladder does not allow for proper strategic thinking to take place. All decisions must be made pregame. There is no room for adaption and reactive counter (the key element of any strategy game) because your build is set in stone. In Starcraft you can scout your opponent and reactively adapt to his strategy once you see what it is. In a fighting game you can feel out your opponent and adapt based on his character and style. But with GW... you can run around in circles until VoD? With an infinite number of threats that need to be prepared for, and no ability to adapt on the fly, it is inevitable that some games will just turn out to be auto-losses. THAT is what needs to be fixed.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 09, 2006, 08:39 AM // 08:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

In addition, there is no way to adapt to your opponent after you identify what he is running. Sure, there might be an infinite number of possible strategies in Starcraft, but you can at least scout your opponent to see what his plan is and start working on your counter. With Guild Wars current setup, it more resembles a Starcraft game where two players are denied contact for an hour, build up to 200/200 population, and then meet in the middle to see who got lucky picking his units.

Yeah, this is pretty much what I'm saying. In most strategy games your strategies take place in-game, and can be modified in-game based on information you get from your opponent. All of the action takes place in-game and your streatgies can change dynamically based on the action. The only strategy game I can think of that works like Guild Wars is Magic, Magic isn't structured in such a way that you're playing from a random pool of hundreds of opponents.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Thus, looking at it this way, I can agree that the current system is in need of improvements to some of its fundamental elements. However, I cannot agree that it is a good idea to eliminate strategy outright from any game. My idea of a perfect game would be exactly 50% strategy and 50% tactics (execution of the strategy). I dont see how its possible to defend the notion that every strategy in a competitive game be equally viable. Thats like saying that mashing 'A' in a fighting game should give me an equally good chance of winning a fighting game as any other strategy. Thats like saying that throwing deep on every play during a football game should give me an equally good chance as carefully mixing up my play selection to confuse my opponent. Thats like saying rushing with my 4 starting SCVs in Starcraft should give me an equally good chance to win as actually building up a base and building actual units. And, like I said earlier, thats like saying that bringing mending paladins ought to be just as good as bringing shock axes.

Strategy is an integral part of almost every good game. Removing it kills most of the competitive elements of the game, reducing it from a complicated mental battle of prediction, anticipation, deception, cleverness, and trickery down to just an athletic yardstick. If you removed all the strategy from football, what would you be left with? 50 yard dashes, discus throws, and long jump contests? NO TY.

To be honest I think that GvG has more than enough strategy to keep the game interesting, even if you put both teams on a mirror build.

For simplicities sake, let's consider the 2 War/2 Ele/2 Mes/2 Monk template. Do you sit the mesmers on their monks and try for a quick win, or do you play more defensively and shut down their offensive casters? Do you try to get kills through pressure or spike? Do you split and send people into their base? Should you have a mesmer run the flag and try to snare their runner with the eles to force a boost, or use the mesmer's surge to apply more pressure? How do you handle the catapult? How do you handle VoD? There are a lot of strategic options and counters that could develop from that kind of play.

Then there's the tactics, which has more to do with individual player skill. Do you manage to burn the monk while he's in his positive set? Who do you pressure as a warrior? How and when do you use your interrupts? How well do you predict their spikes? All the little decisions that each player makes every second of the match falls into this category.

And it's not even like the 2 War/2 Ele/2 Mes/2 Monk template is particularly unique, as balanced builds go. It's not fairly versatile, but some builds are probably even more versatile.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

The problem with Guild Wars atm is that the current design of the ladder does not allow for proper strategic thinking to take place. All decisions must be made pregame. There is no room for adaption and reactive counter (the key element of any strategy game) because your build is set in stone. In Starcraft you can scout your opponent and reactively adapt to his strategy once you see what it is. In a fighting game you can feel out your opponent and adapt based on his character and style. But with GW... you can run around in circles until VoD? With an infinite number of threats that need to be prepared for, and no ability to adapt on the fly, it is inevitable that some games will just turn out to be auto-losses. THAT is what needs to be fixed.

The only real fix I can see for this is some kind of league system. Rather than an open ladder (or perhaps in addition to one), each guild that enters the league is matched against another guild. The first matchup is random, and following that you are only matched against teams with an equivilant number of wins/losses. You would play maybe 2-3 matches a week, in a 'best 2 out of 3' game at a scheduled time. You would know who your opponent was in advance, and you would be able to observe all of their past matches that season. As a result, you'd be able to metagame against your opponent and play the tournament mind game, trying to guess what they'll bring to the fight. That would make the win in each individual match a question of anticipation and cleverness, rather than whether or not your random ladder-farm build countered their random ladder-farm build.

Patrograd · Oct 09, 2006, 09:13 AM // 09:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

The only real fix I can see for this is some kind of league system. Rather than an open ladder (or perhaps in addition to one), each guild that enters the league is matched against another guild. The first matchup is random, and following that you are only matched against teams with an equivilant number of wins/losses. You would play maybe 2-3 matches a week, in a 'best 2 out of 3' game at a scheduled time. .

Well, I could see how this would work in a system where there were only 20 or so teams. but in a system comtaining up to 5,000 teams? I dont think its viable

I believe that the answer to farming builds is to extend the season significantly to 3 months or more, as this will create a proper ladder stratification that will ultimately punish teams that take alot of losses (as farming builds tend to) and reward teams that hardly ever lose. You can also introduce a system that takes points away from teams ladder camping? (ie, dont play for seven days then you lose 100 points). Perhaps there can also be an adjustment made to the K value for matches between top two 100 sides (doubling to 60?) so that any farm build that cant consistently beat top 100 sides will fall down the ladder very quickly.

Thom Bangalter · Oct 09, 2006, 09:50 AM // 09:50

Unfortunately, my guild decided today to run obs flame/pp shatter. It made me kinda sad to be honest, because all our players are effectively just 3-2-1 robots that know how to kite. I'm the flagger and I'll get champ points without it actually affecting me, but I wish we would run a "Real" build. I think it just depends on people's objectives when it comes to what is success in the game.

Personally, I don't think there's any greater success than being a good balanced player, which is better than having silver spike guild capes.

Dragannia · Oct 09, 2006, 10:37 AM // 10:37

I saw Obby Flame-Phantom Pain/Shatter Delusions spike for the first time today. I must say, short of a Monk using Dark Escape, it's absolutely devastating. With Glyph of Energy recharging every 15 seconds, a spike every 10 or so seconds, which is pretty much impossible to stop, and because of Glyph of Energy, isn't pumping out exhaustion too badly, it's steamrolls unprepared teams. I wonder how Anet will try to fix this one. Probably a slightly longer recharge for Obsidian Flame and a longer cast time, or something.

Lord Dark Genie · Oct 09, 2006, 11:40 AM // 11:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dragannia

I saw Obby Flame-Phantom Pain/Shatter Delusions spike for the first time today. I must say, short of a Monk using Dark Escape, it's absolutely devastating. With Glyph of Energy recharging every 15 seconds, a spike every 10 or so seconds, which is pretty much impossible to stop, and because of Glyph of Energy, isn't pumping out exhaustion too badly, it's steamrolls unprepared teams. I wonder how Anet will try to fix this one. Probably a slightly longer recharge for Obsidian Flame and a longer cast time, or something.

Obs Flame spike has been popular almost a year ago, and it eventually died out...
The only new skill (afaik) that makes them stronger is Ward of Stability. Dunno if that's enough to make it overpowered.

Xin night walker · Oct 09, 2006, 12:46 PM // 12:46

Hmmzz should i run a build that every1 runs? Aka A REAL BUILD??(the metabuild)
Or lol should i run something diffrent like bspike

?? A build that takes no skills and easely counters all, like spliting up, gank teams, presure, migraine etc. Couse bspike is overpowerd and rules all!!

Bspike is realy populair these day's

Patrograd · Oct 09, 2006, 12:53 PM // 12:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Dark Genie

...
The only new skill (afaik) that makes them stronger is Ward of Stability. Dunno if that's enough to make it overpowered.

The reason ob flame spike died out before christmas is that everyone started to run gale warriors, and blackout had a shorter recharge, and hammer warriors were a viable spike counter. This meant that against a resonably co-ordinated team the spike would just get galed and blacked out, every single one. This killed off most forms of spike, purged it from the meta. Ranger spike made a comeback after the much later nerfs to gale and blackout, but it was rarely dominant on the ladder. Then factions gives us Ward Stability.....

Gale is no longer a counter, because of ward stability, and shock (which warriors now bring instead of gale) is also not a counter. You basically need 2 blackout mesmers. Even then, due to the recharge on blackout now being 12 seconds, there is no way to totally 100% blackout the spike. There is a small window, even with 100% play from your mesmers, where they can get a spike off. A slight error in timing from even one of them will see people get killed.

To bring 2 mesmers sufficiently specced into domination to pull this off is kind of restrictive for build choice imo. Oh look, I have to run 2 dom mesmers, or lose every time I come up against this build. Or run a faster spike. nice.

how do you fix it? No point in nerfing stability as they bring 2 copies. You could nerf glyph energy by increasing recharge or energy or making it cause exhaution, but thats only minor. Even without glyph energy you can get off alot of spikes before exhaustion hits you to the point you cant afford 5 energy. You cant unnerf blackout and gale because otherwise you run into people shutting down monks too easily (the reason for the nerfs in the first place). You cant further nerf mantra resolve without making it totally useless, although I suppose you could argue that it only has ONE use really, and removing that abuse from the game might not be a bad thing

I guess you need to increase the recharge on ob flame to something reasonable, 20 seconds maybe? Its the strongest ele spike skill around because

1) It doesnt require LOS, meaning the spikers dont even need to care too much about positioning. It is a "lazy" spike comapred to even something simple like orb spiking, which at least requires the spike to move into LOS.
2) It costs 5 energy to hit for 118 armour ignoring damage (23.6 damage per energy). Compare to for example the similar necro skill shadow strike, which hits for 100 damage (conditional) for 10 energy (10 damage per energy). Ob flame causes exhaustion, big deal, so does shock which only causes 63 damage for 5 energy (12.6 DPE), requires not only LOS but touching distance.....and best of all, compare to the air magic spike skill mind shock, which also causes exhaustion, also costs 5 energy but only does only 106 damage (conditional, plus AP) - and this is an elite, meaning you cant pair it with glyph energy. Balanced? Really?
3) It is in the same attrib line as ward stability and other very strong defensive utilities
4) it recharges in 5 seconds, enabling very rapid spiking. Shadow strike has 8 sec recharge by comparison. Balanced?

Or bring in some nightfall skills that actually do something against this as well as having general utility enabling you to fit them into a balanced build. Maybe this latter is the case, I havent yet studied the nightfall skills enough

Thom Bangalter · Oct 09, 2006, 06:32 PM // 18:32

When I logged on yesterday, our guild had gained over 100 rating. It's pretty powerful, and there aren't that many counters to it. We had one lost, which I watched part of on observer (I was gone during the rating grind, as I actually have a life) anyway, all they did was split repeatedly on imperial isle (which as we know is surprisingly bad for spike teams, despite it's large open area) and they picked off most of our npcs and then ran around until VOD.

Of course, there are no real counters for it skill-wise, simply tactical counters you can have on various maps. Our guild leader did change our hall to burning though.

as I've said before, It makes me sad because it makes lazy players, but Being the flag runner, It has no effect on my skill, and I get champ points.

SaintGreg · Oct 09, 2006, 07:52 PM // 19:52

Quote:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

The only real fix I can see for this is some kind of league system. Rather than an open ladder (or perhaps in addition to one), each guild that enters the league is matched against another guild. The first matchup is random, and following that you are only matched against teams with an equivilant number of wins/losses. You would play maybe 2-3 matches a week, in a 'best 2 out of 3' game at a scheduled time. .

Well, I could see how this would work in a system where there were only 20 or so teams. but in a system comtaining up to 5,000 teams? I dont think its viable

CAL CS1.6:Open alone has nearly 2000 teams, and the league system works just fine there. The bigger problem is that ANet has everything set up around its one ladder, so you have to either play by ANets rules or not play at all. In a game like CS, there are dozens of high quality leagues to choose from.

In terms of obsidian spike, I shudder the day it gets popular enough to have to take psychic distraction into gvg.

Shortyafter · Oct 09, 2006, 10:19 PM // 22:19

ANet could start off by making the Fire Isle, and then the Jade Isle a bit less ridiculous for splitting. The 6-2 spike split isn't really that effective. It only works if you do exactly what the spikers expect you to do (and unfortunately, most players do just that.)

Ensign · Oct 09, 2006, 10:43 PM // 22:43

The reason you're seeing a resurgence of spike teams is the obliteration of Shelter and spirit spamming Ritualists. 321spike used to resignspike to random Ritualist teams. Now those aren't in the way, so they just beat each other up and only lose to teams with hard counters, or who really know what they're doing with movement.

Fire map is fine for splitting on, especially if they're running spike. You can split on any map if they don't have any sort of pressure, and don't have a thief they can kill.

I've already made my suggestions on how to address 321spike in the game, we'll see if it gets implemented.

Peace,
-CxE

Lews · Oct 09, 2006, 10:49 PM // 22:49

DeeR is sorry for making this build. Just bring 8 mesmers, then we can't spike you!

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 09, 2006, 10:55 PM // 22:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The reason you're seeing a resurgence of spike teams is the obliteration of Shelter and spirit spamming Ritualists. 321spike used to resignspike to random Ritualist teams. Now those aren't in the way, so they just beat each other up and only lose to teams with hard counters, or who really know what they're doing with movement.

I think it's that and the general decline of Dom mesmers. Even with the Gale nerf, Dom mesmers with stuff like Blackout and CoF were a great anti-spike when everyone was running them. I've seen them getting a lot more popular recently, but there's still plenty of teams playing pure pressure with a bunch of rangers, warriors, and smiters.

Neo-LD · Oct 10, 2006, 03:14 AM // 03:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lews

DeeR is sorry for making this build. Just bring 8 mesmers, then we can't spike you!

You mean to imply that Deer used even one drop of creative sweat in making that build?

Shortyafter · Oct 10, 2006, 03:27 AM // 03:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

You mean to imply that Deer used even one drop of creative sweat in making that build?

Deer takes ordinary spike builds and makes them better. IE, charge mesmers, and orders bonders. More creative then a lot of other stuff out there.

Thom Bangalter · Oct 10, 2006, 03:31 AM // 03:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

I think it's that and the general decline of Dom mesmers. Even with the Gale nerf, Dom mesmers with stuff like Blackout and CoF were a great anti-spike when everyone was running them. I've seen them getting a lot more popular recently, but there's still plenty of teams playing pure pressure with a bunch of rangers, warriors, and smiters.

having played the build, cry is going to do next to nothing, since the mesmer run mantra of concentration and the eles have mantra of resolve. Blackout is a good counter that no one runs, and Psychic distraction works well also. Other than that, a good split and good tactics and reasonably good monking should be able to handle it.

Also, arcane conundrum and migraine work really well too. I smell hex builds if caster spike remains popular.

Lews · Oct 10, 2006, 03:42 AM // 03:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

You mean to imply that Deer used even one drop of creative sweat in making that build?

In fact, yes. The fact that we took regular obs spike and added 2 me/w's. If it wasn't so good then how come everyone is copying it?

Neo-LD · Oct 10, 2006, 04:57 AM // 04:57

Hmm I guess you got me. No one had ever thought to use PP/Shatter or Shatter/Burn in spikes before. Original ftw.

/end sarcasm.