Curse

Trinity Fire Angel · Feb 08, 2010, 09:30 PM // 21:30

Surprisingly after the recent update, i have really started to like Codex. It sometimes takes a few rounds to adjust the team correctly and get the right build, but after that, well... awesome.

Unfortunately the only days that i reallly enjoy Codex is on zquest days when getting a PUG is much easier, but admittedly, i find it more balanced than normal pvp play. this is because we are all forced to find new skills and design stange but effective builds. Who would have thought that running a Mo/D bar yesterday with nothing but Signet of Pious light, Emphatic removal, and Gift of health and a whole bunch of earth prayer enchantments could create a reasonably strong monk build and it was fun.

So against the tide of Codex is doomed to failure people and all the QQ about wanting TA and HB back i am makeing my statement that i think there is definitely a place for Codex. Now... bring back mAT's and ladder play (since you took them from HB) and you will significantly increase the number of people in Codex.

Ariena Najea · Feb 09, 2010, 04:17 AM // 04:17

Codex would definitely benefit from having its own mATs. In addition to the ladder appeal, the potential for TRPs would help bring in more PvE players. My only concern is that adding daily tournaments would decrease the number of people playing not for the the tournaments.

RhanoctJocosa · Feb 09, 2010, 06:22 AM // 06:22

people were begging for a ladder with TA for ages and nothing happened, i doubt they will introduce anything for CA, which is already quite dead.

Ariena Najea · Feb 09, 2010, 07:35 AM // 07:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by RhanoctJocosa

people were begging for a ladder with TA for ages and nothing happened, i doubt they will introduce anything for CA, which is already quite dead.

Actually Regina said they would consider adding ATs for Codex depending on how the arena was received. The recent update to Codex Arena proves that the developers are keen to ensure its success and will support it with updates at least for now.

Trinity Fire Angel · Feb 09, 2010, 12:49 PM // 12:49

since most of the HB community were begging for sealed deck play, i am hoping that mAT's will get introduced. i love the appeal of the arena that it encourages thoughtful play and constant working on builds that don;t get enough time to develop into a broken meta via wiki or obs mode.

crosses fingers...

RobotMULE · Feb 10, 2010, 11:02 PM // 23:02

Due to little activity in CA, I doubt Anet will add ladder or MAT's to the arena. This really should have been done at the time CA was opened.

Despite this, it is not too late. I think adding these will make the format more popular than TA has been in a long time before it was closed.

The only reason I rarely play codex, is because after winning a few rounds, there is usually either 1 team that we face repeatedly, and it gets boring, or all the teams quit after a few losses, and "no opposing party" 20+ times in a row. When this happens (or when one newbie team gets beat by the same team 10 times in a row), people do not have a desire to return.

If adding MAT's or some type of ladder even doubles the population, it will be make CA 10 times more playable. Then more people will play.

Even if they do not make MAT's, if some reward is increased (either title points every 1 or 2 wins, or even just more balth faction), then CA might have enough population to be playable.

Terrible Surgeon · Feb 11, 2010, 08:43 PM // 20:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trinity Fire Angel

Surprisingly after the recent update, i have really started to like Codex. It sometimes takes a few rounds to adjust the team correctly and get the right build, but after that, well... awesome.

Codex is the worst PvP format I've ever encountered and most people agree with this assertion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trinity Fire Angel

Unfortunately the only days that i reallly enjoy Codex is on zquest days when getting a PUG is much easier

Thanks for pointing out a HUGE flaw with the CA arena. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trinity Fire Angel

So against the tide of Codex is doomed to failure people and all the QQ about wanting TA and HB back i am makeing my statement that i think there is definitely a place for Codex.

You're right there is a place for CA. It's called the trash bin.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trinity Fire Angel

Now... bring back mAT's and ladder play (since you took them from HB) and you will significantly increase the number of people in Codex.

Why? So the four teams that regularly do CA now can fight each other in a MaT? If CA was a good pvp format people would be playing it now..so sorry, but CA is apparently a nice failure.

Karate Jesus · Feb 11, 2010, 08:47 PM // 20:47

Hell no. mATs for the Codex would be sooooo shitterific.

I don't even....I can't....so bad!

HB Fails Now · Feb 11, 2010, 11:20 PM // 23:20

Well I can think of one idea that may benefit this crap format. Set it to your armor/weapons/profession is entirely irrelevent. Then allow it to where you can change primary/secondary at any time when in town (your skill bar/profession will be set to normal after leaving town until you go back in) and then you can easily check available skills plus switch builds without having to change characters. And then implement an automated tournament with 6 or 7 minute waits between matches and for each round there is a different deck to choose from and you can quickly view skills and change and get your team set in time.

RobotMULE · Feb 12, 2010, 01:39 AM // 01:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by HB Fails Now

then you can easily check available skills plus switch builds without having to change characters.

The recent update does allow you to check all available skills without having to change characters. While in CA outpost, in the upper right corner of your Skills window, there is an icon you can set to "display all codex skills" or "display equippable codex skills".

So as is, if ATs are added, you will not need to change character more than once in between each fight. Although I would not assume the deck would change every round. It would make sense to me that the whole AT would be either one deck unique to that AT, or it would use the same deck that is available in CA at the start of the AT, or even the previous set (then teams could practice with the deck before the AT, but I'm not sure if that would good or bad thing). I think creating a new team build for every round of the AT would be excessive. It often takes some trial and error to make a decent team build, and some time for the team to get to know the deck.

Sad Hippo · Feb 12, 2010, 01:54 AM // 01:54

Having a different deck for each round would be good in the sense that not every team is going to have the same build and you also get the challenge of having to create a build in a short period of time however I can kind of see changing/making so many different builds kinda get old...but when reward points are at stake idk.

Trinity Fire Angel · Feb 15, 2010, 01:33 AM // 01:33

perhaps if there wasn;t a new title for the format either. you know, make it glad points as well. people still want their glads.

Sad Hippo · Feb 15, 2010, 02:19 AM // 02:19

I agree with making it give glads which is more valuable as no one cares about codex titles. This format clearly needs some sort of reward...I know that reward points and tournaments may be good for this format...

Ariena Najea · Feb 15, 2010, 03:23 AM // 03:23

Granting Glads would certainly bring a lot of the TA crowd back, farming in RA is awkward and unreliable outside of syncing. Codex is a completely different format though, so it doesn't make sense to give glad points instead of Codex points.

It would be interesting to change the Codex title to granting points per win with possibly an extra point or two every five, and additionally giving 1 Glad point at 5 and 10 wins, 2 glads at 15 and every 5 beyond. This maintains viability in RA for obtaining glads points while providing another option for players who prefer organized teams. At 25 wins, a player in RA would obtain 1+2+3+4+5=15 glad points, whereas a player in Codex would obtain 1+1+2+2+2=8 glad points and the 25 codex points.

As for the topic at hand, I stated before that adding tournaments would increase the player base by encouraging PvPers to return/play the format. Additionally, PvE players are enticed by the potential for zkeys (=money), but the chances of even a skilled PvE player winning more than 1 match maximum in a set of matches is unlikely, and so the rewards are sparse compared to farming PvE content. . Rather than dumbing down the ability required to obtain TRPs, perhaps the PvP reward weapon system needs changes that grant something more useful for PvE players. In addition to the option of transforming existing weapons (ie PvP Spear) into the reward skins (ie Draconic Spear), an option should be available for PvE characters to create a Red, r9, customized, clean, inscription weapon of that skin as per the existing constraints of the system, including the tiered setup of Basic, Fancy, and Exotic categories. Note that the weapon is customized for that user, meaning it cannot be used by other players and therefore is near-worthless in trade. Before anyone gets the wrong idea, this should NOT be implemented for Armor, since there are no unique skins to "aim for" and material prices would be affected.

I'm sure that most of the people reading this assume that this is the worst idea for inflation and market flooding ever proposed on Guru. Remember that the weapons are customized, so that they are useless in trade. This means everyone will spend 5 minutes in PvP and get a Voltaic Spear and they will crash in price... not! Nearly all of the desirable high-end weapons in the game are not in the Basic tier, meaning that a vast number of TRPs is required to unlock anything expensive, as usual. The only exceptions to this are the Clockwork Scythe, Bo Staff, Paper Lantern, Demon Fangs (Fancy), and Paper Fan (Fancy). These five skins should all be moved to Exotic anyways. Extremely high-end items such as Crystallines would potentially be affected by this change, however, most of these don't go around to be used, but rather for collections. Customized Reds lack prestige.

Opinions folks?

greep · Feb 15, 2010, 07:31 AM // 07:31

automated tournaments would be great!

However, I very much dislike the idea of codex giving glads though, for the same reason I wouldn't have wanted HA to give gladiator points. They're just different playing styles.

Perhaps another way to increase participation would be to have another one of those double balth weekends, just for codex.

urania · Feb 15, 2010, 08:48 AM // 08:48

Suggesting to add glad points to CA is a ludicrous idea. Do you still not realise that people who refuse to play CA as a TA substitute decided so not only because of glad points, but mostly because they just hate the format itself with all its limitations? That certainly goes for ALL the TA regulars.
Pugs might love it, but they are irrelevant for the most part.

FoxBat · Feb 15, 2010, 02:46 PM // 14:46

The simpliest, least effort for greatest effect thing they could do right now, is convert the codex title from glad-style to fame-style, rescaling appropriately. (1 point at 1 win, 2 points at 2, etc.) Also double the faction rewards, codex matches generally take longer than RA and it certainly takes more time/effort to set up for. Crap rewards are what made JQ dead for so long, and were a significant factor in TA's demise.

All of this has been mentioned a million times before, but as mentioned it's much less work than setting up the AT system and would be a good step.

Sad Hippo · Feb 15, 2010, 02:57 PM // 14:57

^^ You know that may not be a terrible idea. Codex is so dead it just needs a lot for it to help it get people. Having it to where you get the title faster may encourage people to get at least codex 1...the double faction would be nice as well. I also agree with the reward points system allowing pve players to get stuff as that should get a whole lot of players. However I just don't know that anet is going to implement any of this. I remember they promised to fix hb and they never did, and instead they deleted it. It appeared to get more glitches as time passed. Crossing was never fixed, it was just taken out of the tournament map rotation. If they weren't willing to fix hb, I don't think they are willing to fix codex either

Ariena Najea · Feb 15, 2010, 09:02 PM // 21:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

Suggesting to add glad points to CA is a ludicrous idea. Do you still not realise that people who refuse to play CA as a TA substitute decided so not only because of glad points, but mostly because they just hate the format itself with all its limitations? That certainly goes for ALL the TA regulars.
Pugs might love it, but they are irrelevant for the most part.

The problem as I see it with the old "TA regulars" is that they either like Codex or they don't, period. There is however a large number of players who used to TA that moved to RA to keep working on their Glad titles that may be interested in migrating to Codex since teams are more reliable than RA. Also, you know generally what you will up against in Codex at any given time and can choose to play Codex accordingly, whereas in RA you run the risk of going up against 2+ Monk teams, Blind Rits, etc where you end up with 10 minute matches.

tl;dr version: TA regulars that don't like Codex aren't the demographic to reach out to. It is better to reach PvE players and the RA crowd.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

The simpliest, least effort for greatest effect thing they could do right now, is convert the codex title from glad-style to fame-style, rescaling appropriately. (1 point at 1 win, 2 points at 2, etc.) Also double the faction rewards, codex matches generally take longer than RA and it certainly takes more time/effort to set up for. Crap rewards are what made JQ dead for so long, and were a significant factor in TA's demise.

All of this has been mentioned a million times before, but as mentioned it's much less work than setting up the AT system and would be a good step.

Agreed with doubling the faction rewards, but I really disagree with the point scaling. As I have said before, Codex needs to gain population from RA and PvE, which means rewards have to be obtainable by non-pro teams. The title should be obtainable by steady and determined players who lose a lot (but win every couple or few matches) as well as those that are highly skilled and get lots of consecutive wins.

For the more high-end players, they can always give bonus Codex points during ATs since those are inevitably more competitive and difficult.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sad Hippo

^^ You know that may not be a terrible idea. Codex is so dead it just needs a lot for it to help it get people. Having it to where you get the title faster may encourage people to get at least codex 1...the double faction would be nice as well. I also agree with the reward points system allowing pve players to get stuff as that should get a whole lot of players. However I just don't know that anet is going to implement any of this. I remember they promised to fix hb and they never did, and instead they deleted it. It appeared to get more glitches as time passed. Crossing was never fixed, it was just taken out of the tournament map rotation. If they weren't willing to fix hb, I don't think they are willing to fix codex either

You're probably right about ANet being willing to spend a lot of developer time on Codex. Do remember though the vastness of problems in Hero Battles. Apart from the rampant fail of the Hero AI, the format as a whole was disastrous. So many mechanics were horribly broken, most notably Shadowsteps, that it would have taken a massive update to fix it, and it would hardly be the same format. Fortunately, Codex doesn't have that much wrong with it. The only glaring problem with Codex apart from set-up time is the fact that you can have multiple copies of OP skills. This isn't as big of an issue since Protector's Defense was taken out, so really it's a legitimately balanced trade off whether to get that one OP skill, or go /something else and gain more utility.

Sad Hippo · Feb 15, 2010, 09:29 PM // 21:29

It felt like to me that hero battles was more broken but also had a lot of benefits in that it could be played at any time (you don't need others to play) especially if you don't know how long you will be on for. The idea that you win battles by yourself and don't depend on others was great. Then there were the downfalls in gimmicks, ladder manipulation, bad hero AI. Codex arena to me seems the complete opposite of hb in that it is a whole lot more balanced and fair but then it is also not near as exciting has hero battles. I liked the rush of being about to go into the last round of the tournament and having to beat out someone good to win the tournament. Perhaps most of the excitement from hero battles was just from the tournament system. I guess the biggest problem in codex is that there is just never any excitement...