Curse

Kyp Jade · Mar 24, 2010, 08:39 PM // 20:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

The real problem is that the actual top level players don't want to play HA.

True story, the people that pvp for the sake of pvp are in gvg
HA format just isnt fun for pvp anymore

Daveee · Mar 24, 2010, 09:59 PM // 21:59

Bringing back heroes and increasing the cap to 4 per team, like in GvG, would increase the influx of players in HA hugely.
6v6 would encourage too many over defensive builds.

Forming time down in dead hours, just ask 3 friends, and have fun.

Also i agree with anna that people have no idea of halls tactics nowadays, capping a base yourself immediately warrants a full gank, or taking a ghostly down for tactics induces the same response.

/support
-Dave

Krill · Mar 24, 2010, 11:14 PM // 23:14

I think HA is dying for the same reason TA did. There's basically only one balanced build (W/W/R/E/Me/Rt/Mo/Mo) that's been essentially the same bars for over a year contrasted by a few gimmick builds ran by pugs that have a shot at beating balanced without vent or much coordination. Even mighty r-spike has been reduced to one or two guilds running it at all.

So the question is, in the interest of making groups easier to form do we want heroes back so Gwen, Olias and Odgen can rape again? Maybe people are quick to forget how bad heroway was before and how little it screamed PvP. Then again most of the builds being ran now are equally as boring and stupid. The last sway - R/A meta completely drained my enthusiasm for HA and there's practically nobody playing during American times now. If they brought back 4 hero parties I might play again to screw around but there would be no denying that the format as a whole would be complete garbage with 4 heroes.

Missing HB · Mar 25, 2010, 08:33 AM // 08:33

Well actually , i noticed that every day at same dead hours ( 7am gmt till 2pm) , same people with same builds do play( they will recognize themselves), resulting in rest of teams wasting their time ( if they don't play for fun) , basically because they need half an hour to form , to then keep losing uw ( or skipping to 1v1 hall after very long restarts ), resulting in disbanding after obviously much more time to wait than to play.

HA has become a "simple farm" for those people , which appear aswell in other pvp areas , like gvg with sync champ pts .Hero battles used to be a nice place to have fun and to be able to win fast, but was deelted because this place was a farm aswell. So , maybe it's time to fix things in heroes ascent..

To come back to the topic, yes although HA with heroes wasnt that good , the best idea to fix time waiting and etc. would be to put 6v6 / or allowing heroes again.This might look again that it would be farm for teams mentionned earlier , but at least , since there would be more teams , those could have much more opponents and still would have a chance to win.

Nerf Me Haha · Mar 25, 2010, 10:28 AM // 10:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daveee

6v6 would encourage too many over defensive builds.

I don't think it will encourage too much defensive builds, and in the end, if it'll be a pure 6v6 the over defensive builds will probebly only be ran by non-competent players. Seeing as 1 Monk is enough in 4v4, a Monk + Support (Rit?) should be enough in 6v6, as long as everyone does his job.

Also, I'm not entirely sure if you meant 6v6 + 2 heros allowed, or just 6v6 with an all-human team.

OblivionDanny · Mar 25, 2010, 11:18 AM // 11:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daveee

6v6 would encourage too many over defensive builds.

I Do not think that this would happen either, if you look at 6v6 before, we had necros abusing soul reaping, paragons abusing shouts/chants etc... the list can go on, those things are what made those defensive builds

we dont have those now.

Daveee · Mar 25, 2010, 04:36 PM // 16:36

I don't understand why people are slamming heroes, they must love forming for over an hour during dead hours.
Actually, thinking about this you can't really form properly during dead hours.

6v6 not defensive? People will still run 2 monks and a supportive character, thats 3 players which works out to be half your team.

8v8 play we are seeing now, every team is running a Rit or PnH as a supportive character unless they like wiping in under a minute. Even so, this allows for 5 offensive slots, whereas 6v6 would promote tonnes of over defensive spikes.
6v6 also rules out hexway as you cant pressure a 2 monk backline with support enough with 3-4 hex characters.

-Dave

vinoth · Mar 25, 2010, 04:54 PM // 16:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Back to the 4 points made before:

1) Offcourse it will make people come to HA. So will giving 20 zkeys reward for every win you have, aswell as giving out mini ghostlies for every HoH win. But you're missing the point: attracting new people isn't the problem. It's attracting people with the right mentality/mindset.

Why did HA get so shit in the first place? Becuase it got farmed for over 4 years by PvE'ers (such as some people posting in this very thread) who can run brainless buttonbash builds till R10-11, who then believe this is a viable way to play PvP. When you got one brainless guild buttonbashing against another brainless guild, it's not competitive PvP anymore, and you might as well be playing: "Who can smack the most amount of keys in the least amount of time?!"

It's about attracting people who don't give to PvP solely for the rewards, but for the PvP itself. Cuz they are the people that will actually bother NOT running sway, hexway and IWAY, because they understand those builds arn't competitive in the least bit. (But again, just brainless buttonbashers)

HA has always been about farming, where win more consecs = more fun. Hold hoh = Most fun. Answer this,

a) Would you have a small serious player base?
b) Would you want a large player base running what they like, when they like and thus preventing multiple timer restarts?

Personally I prefer option B, which i believe the majority of the HA playerbase prefers. Again, I think the so called 'brainless button bash builds', are healthy to sustain the HA playerbase. IF you cant beat a sway or hexway or iway (which i think are really easy to beat), its your problem. Try modifying your build if your really that worried about losing to these builds. I personally feel some builds are very powerful on certain maps over others, just comes down to how you play it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

2) You're, once again, missing the point. Why do I care if the skill/reward ratio is messed up? Think about that for a second. How can you even understand game balance, if you can't see something as simple as this...

That's the intire problem with gimmicks such as hexway and sway. It's not necessarily that they are better than balanced, it's the fact that they require no coordination, no skill and no insight to use. They're all examples of skill2: easy to use, straightforward brainless buttonbash builds. There definatly not always better than balanced (IWAY for example), but some other builds definatly were.

Pretty much every sway combined with hexway (3 R/A's or SW's with a barbs and VoR) could beat a good balanced if played right, simply because you do such redicilous amounts of straightforward, often uninterruptable damage a balanced can not coop with it. And this also goes for some other builds: The old jaggedway for example. Or dual paragon holding, or SoMW, or ritspike, or bspike, or this or that.

Those were all builds that not only were easy to play, but at the same time were actually better than balanced. The sway you guys run is still better than balanced, and therefor needs to be fix'ed.

IF you really think some skills are imba, incorporate it into your build. You will see that its the players behind the bars that make it from a good skill to imba skill. Bulls strike is a good skill, but only if u can land it. If you take a scenario of average players in this game, you will come to the conclusion that:

average sway > average balance > average iway > average hexway > average sway.

You need to realise that every build has certain advantages over the other build, at certain maps. If sway beats you at uw, u may beat the same sway in relic runs. If your team is good and experience plays a part in this, your team will usually knwo what to do vs certain teams or certain builds at certain maps. You somehow seem to harbour the opinion that 'if balance does not beat hexway, hexway is imba'.

I felt that the N/E with barbs + 3 R/A was very powerful especially IF PLAYED RIGHT. But, it took us 1 run to figure what needed to be done to keep the damage from R/A's negligible. I am sure good teams would have figured that out too. I played that build a couple of times, and I felt they lost a lot of utility on shrines and antichamber, making it almost a guarentee free fame on those maps. Just for your information, you can stop reffering to me playing sway - I dont. I only support that it should be a viable build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

3) HA has always been about farming for you, clearly (Seeing as how you like IWAY), but it definatly hasn't been for people who played some real builds. In the early days, HA was about PvP. It was about seeing your name up there every 8 minutes, getting PM'd by 20+ PvE'ers sucking up to you saying how awesome you were. Then the title farmers came, and when HoM got announced, it went completely down the shitter. But HA definatly wasn't about farming, by friend.

Its about 2 things:

1. Winning x consecs (more the merrier).
2. Holding HoH , and if u hold 5+ times on peak hour, it gives more satisfaction.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

If you still believe vent isn't needed in a competitive PvP game, which HA isn't, read the following sentence over and over untill you start accepting it as truth:

If you have no valid counter arguements, dont post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

P.s.: I played just about every build in HA, besides the brainless meta buttonbashers. I've played balanced, spikes and pressure. I've played every role in every build (front, mid and backline). I know HA balanced is no more than knocklocking people in AoE, but that's only because HA maps promote balling up, and builds such as E/Rt's can't keep up with the many pulses of fire damage.

And KD'ing stuff in AoE as a hammer warrior is still a thousand times harder than just about every bar in IWAY or the sway the rest of you run... (And I don't even like playing hammer warrior in HA)

If you think thats E/Rts can keep up with pulsees of dmg, feel free to use E/rt in your builds instead of monks.

Yes it will be 1000x harder to kd a target as a hammer war because rangers can dshot earthshaker with relative ease (This does not need vent either). Bulls strike on iway wars is harder to dhsot.

@ Oblivion

6v6 should not be implemented because of the way it stifles the diversity of builds. Current builds such as r-spike, hexway, sway and iway will not be viable and will be promote only 1 kind of build: Defensive spikes.

Right now, i think there is a reasonable diversity of builds. Balance = 40%, Hexway + sway = 30 %, Rspike - 10%, Spike builds in general 10%, and iways 5% and randomways 5%.

ousbique · Mar 25, 2010, 06:14 PM // 18:14

Quote:

Personally I prefer option B, which i believe the majority of the HA playerbase prefers. Again, I think the so called 'brainless button bash builds', are healthy to sustain the HA playerbase. IF you cant beat a sway or hexway or iway (which i think are really easy to beat), its your problem. Try modifying your build if your really that worried about losing to these builds. I personally feel some builds are very powerful on certain maps over others, just comes down to how you play it.

No, brainless button smash builds is the problem, not the cure. It's not a question of "you can/cannot beat a sway", it was never the core of the problem since first iway in 2005 but it is the boredeness resulting of facing 75% of the time the same build played with mediocre players. No interest, no real difficulty, no fun...

I remember an old player (r9 in spring 2005) saying that tombs lost all interest since you can predict what your opponent are running before the gates opens : no reactivity, the strategy is already in everyone's mind at the start of the battle.

When a Fotm appears, you can be sure that the majority of the games you will play in tombs are against this fotm. And the "so-called' balanced results of the lack of creativity and the necessary of "adapt" (= play the wikibalanced) your build or die.

The "legoway" in mid 2007 wasn't really fun to play (like all the superdefensives spikes), but it was an necessary evil in order to counterplay spiritways and flaming thumperways (2ele 2 thumpers 1 ritualist 1 tainted). yes, it wasn't difficult to beat theses builds but you sacrifice the fun for this... worth it ?
And the old geomancer warder, soooo boring (at least he have earthquake+aftershock), purely designed to help against iway.

Same question about the HA current objectives :
- where is the fun in spamming savannah-tenai-searing holy RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing trinity ?
- where is the fun channeltanking altar's with Healer's boon up and playing the same combo "patient spirit + dwayna's" all the day ?
- where is the fun playing psychic distraction, a bad-designed interrupt which disabling the rest of your bar ? It's the same dom elite since 2006 (i don't count VoR, this one is only playable in over-hex builds)
- where is the fun playing only a "make haste" character ? Babysitting a ghostly to avoid bodyblocking... wooo
- where is the fun playing aura of stability ?

And so on. There's more than 1000 skills in GW, and in HA less than 100 are played. Repeatitavly.

Personnaly, buttonsmash fotm's made me sick and tired about HA, even more than 6vs6 or killcount fiascos. Back in the days, i love'd the variety of situations, and playing odd builds (like Grasping was Kuurong ritualists, Blessed
Aura smiters with Shield of Judgment, Divine Light monks, Blood is Power elementalists...) making your tactics DURING the match and not BEFORE.

Now it's always the same situations, the same tactics and the same builds. Following this logic, it's normal that we see also the same players.
If i want farming, I'll go PvE, at least my opponents drops something

axe · Mar 25, 2010, 07:00 PM // 19:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by ousbique

Now it's always the same situations, the same tactics and the same builds. Following this logic, it's normal that we see also the same players.
If i want farming, I'll go PvE, at least my opponents drops something

I agree with a lot of this, however its not the buttonmash builds causing the problems you mention. Before it was 6v6 there were just 3 kinds of maps, annihalation, Altar Cap, and Relics. Activity was high and annihalation was the main format that you could build many team builds and/or modify a gimmick to give you advantage on maps that give you trouble.

Now with low activity, you must build for HoH and take the usual tools in order to play the rotating win conditions. Once you have to bring certain tools as a given you are left with little variety.

Back before 6v6 when HoH was at its healthiest you had multiple gimmicks that were able to co-exist and offer every player a build option for their play style.

Rotating objectives are OK in an active format, but in a dead format you know you are going to get to HoH so you must have the tools needed in every team of 8.

Legoway was actually the first "pug balance" if you can call it that and it was necessary not to beat sway, because sway still gave that build big problems, but it was needed for the multiple win conditions at the time.

Missing HB · Mar 26, 2010, 08:44 AM // 08:44

Yes but the point is that you can't really " try" new builds anymore since it's a dead format. Aswell , some maps were made in a 3teams thinking , resulting in a very unfair fight sometimes ( especially on dead hours when you keep skipping to hall of heroes , 1v1 most of time ). How fair is it when you fight a hexway on holding 1v1 , or when you fight those " balanced " since you know that in that case ,whatever you play , you won't even be able to cap altar. That is quite same for relics , as i mentionned earlier , about the relic spawn stucking . Of course, blue team needs to have an advantage for being blue , but it results in a too unfair advantage .Only cap pts is a bit fair sometimes.

That's why some skills are a must , to even have a very small to chance to win in some cases : no song means you can resign if holding vs any mes + ranger team ; quite same if you don't have snare skills , good hex removal , make haste , etc.... That is why , sometimes in courtyard or hall , some team just say " hey , we got XX missing , so first to cap relic/altar will be ganked .

RespectMe · Mar 27, 2010, 12:39 PM // 12:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

You can play fire ele for 70K fame and still be bad at this game (And there's atleast 2 people out there who fit this description).

I loled and this is so true

.

DreamWind · Mar 28, 2010, 01:50 AM // 01:50

1. It is not dying. It is dead.

2. If you are arguing about rank discrimination you are wasting your time (and probably an idiot as well).

3. I never understood why people still rant on the iway era. The iway era was the best HA ever saw by far in terms of population and build variety. It was probably the most diverse metagame in the history of GW. Who gives a shit if there was 1+ arguably brainless builds. I'd rather have that than what the game has now.

4. I know the argument for "game integrity" that is being used to keep heroes and such out of HA is noble, (and I understand that heroes in part killed HA), but as far as I'm concerned game integrity has been gone from GW since Nightfall and is never coming back. HA is pretty much dead. Allow more heroes per team and the population goes wild over night. I don't even give a shit if its PvBot anymore. The time for worrying about that has past. I'd rather be worrying about the game being at least alive even if withering.

So my optimal solution would be put HA exactly how it was back in holding days (with the same builds/maps and everything) and allow at least 6 heroes per team. The population would bloom exponentially. But we know this scenario won't happen, because Anet is still garbage and we still have people whining about the game's integrity when they aren't seeing the real problem that the game is dead and integrity doesn't matter anymore.

superraptors · Mar 28, 2010, 10:56 PM // 22:56

yea 05,06 iway era was good alot of diversity because there wasn't 1 dominant build(skill balancing, different objectives,play style) also a pretty new game .5 years later shit has changed since then, pretty much if you dont run balance your going to suck.

although i want to see a active pop again, not going to happen thinking about it now.

bungusmaximus · Apr 01, 2010, 04:26 PM // 16:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nimble Night

HA is about social networking, if you can't make friends, you won't rank up. Rank discrimination has nothing to do with it.

HA died due to terrible game balance that left stale gimmick builds around for months, the addition of heroes, 6v6, stupid objectives in halls (relic run, capture points) and splitting PvP and PvE.

Networking indeed, very annoying fact. I'm not too much of a network guy, im just a good player. I cba with networking in a f*cking game olol. Hence im only r2, despite the fact I can play 4 classes pretty profoundly

.

Making my own team and facin the same r12+ trolls over and over again because there arent many players in int1 doesn't help much either.

Reverend Dr · Apr 01, 2010, 08:41 PM // 20:41

The reason there was so much diversity in the old iway eras was that due to the old HA winning conditions there were two archetypes of builds: Taking builds, and holding builds.

The former were builds that focused more on offense and the latter on defense. The former could get a team off the altar before the match was up, the latter could sit 2v1 almost all night. There were no certain "win" skills that are practically mandatory (ward foes, grasping, make haste, song of conc, aura stability, etc). The only thing really required was a lot of offense or a lot of defense, both of which can be done in many different ways. Unfortunately for the modern meta builds can only be done in a very few ways while still being able to slot the "win" skills; these skills (and the conditions which require their being brought) are the root of the problem of HA being unfun and thus unpopulated.

Fluffy Kittens · Apr 02, 2010, 10:28 AM // 10:28

Yeah I agree, something should be done with those "must have" skills like PD, song, make haste, aura, foes, grasping... it's really killing HA because all teams are so limited and you can only play 2-3 different builds because those skills take too much space

Missing HB · Apr 02, 2010, 10:55 AM // 10:55

Well ok but thing is that some skills are unfair because of too unfair situations , as i mentionned many times , when you keep getting 1v1 halls and when most of time , except if cap pts , you can just slash resign .

Problem with Ward foes is that its good and bad :
Lets just consider 1v1v1 relic in halls . If noone has ward against foes , then most of time , everyone will run free , and will rely on who do cap on 0.0001 . On the other hand , it's sometimes just impossible to do anything when 5 people come to stuck you , and you are blocked in double ward + grasping ,etc..

The problem would be that , upon all common skills used , PD , aura , song , snares , mh , an update would make some other skills much more OP, like people would maybe all use 3 melee characters , with an easy interupt .

The only thing to do to make HA better is to do something to make fights more fair , and more attractive for all players , in order to fix all constant restarts , especially on some hours . Making last to cap altar win , as it was before , and adding DP if 1v1 would fix all ganks problem , unfair 1v1 fights , etc... and maybe make at least some people come back

Bloodseeker · Apr 02, 2010, 03:57 PM // 15:57

bringing back 6 player teams and make changes to halls so you aren't required to bring so many specific skills, it could be fun again for a while.

Reverend Dr · Apr 02, 2010, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bloodseeker

bringing back 6 player teams and make changes to halls so you aren't required to bring so many specific skills

6-man was the single worst thing that ever happened to HA. Nothing else ever reduced the population so quickly.

Even with changing of winning conditions, there will still be skills that will be required, now you just have even less room to slot them in. 6-man would make that problem even worse. If you remember back during 6-man, once people got a handle on the 6-man concept there was far less diversity then than during the 8-man days.