Curse

Kaon · Oct 27, 2009, 11:15 PM // 23:15

There've been a lot of good points made in all the threads here, though I think a lot of it has become very seperated. I figured compiling the problems would be a good idea.

1) You can't see all the skills at the same time.
- Solution: Add an npc that displays all available skills.
2) The skills change every day at a moment where there are only very few players online and many can't play. A lot of players will therefore never play in a fresh deck.
- Solution: Each day the skill changes should be at a different hour. Ideally switch between American primetime hours and european prime time hours.
3) Balance; Some classes are inherently stronger in CA than others. Physical characters especially can always count on their weapon damage regardless of their skills. Some classes (especially elementalist) have good skills that make them usefull overall in the game, but also large amounts of shitty skills that make them bad in CA. Other classes have only very few skills but a large percentage of them is good (dervish, paragon). Alongside this is that the fewer amount of skills for nightfall professions kills variety.
- Solution: Don't give each class the same number of skills. Elementalists need many more skills to be usefull, while paragons and dervishes should get their amount of elites drastically reduced. There is no need to scream this makes dervishes or paragons weaker because it doesn't. Currently they're just stronger, and instead of messing with skills (risky and does not fix the variety problem) it's better to mess with the amount of skills.

4) The ladder/guild problem:
4a) How to integrate guilds and rating in a pug format?
- Solution 1: Alliance does it by faction. Similarly you gain points for winning in CA then the amount of points combined in your guild determines your ladder rank. This means CA rank is mostly a grind. However this is not necessarily bad because it's an incentive to play!
- Solution 2: Seperate rated and unrated play. Whenever a team form's up they can go to an NPC and registrate they will play under one of their member's guild. Then they will enter a seperate pool of teams that will play. The problem with this is that you seperate the community cutting players down. The advantage of this is that hard core players will be more seperated from casual players, now all you need is a playerbase.
- Solution 3: Only allow guild teams in ATs and only let ATs count for rank.
4b) How to work out ATs. Are pugs allowed to compete? What about seperate skillsets for rounds? Then how much time should be given per round?
- Solution: Well you can go all ways with this. Giving seperate skillsets per round would be cool but work up the tournament round time. If the timer is set on 10 (or 8 i don't know what it is exactly) minutes per match then for seperate skillsets the "seeing opponent timer" together with the new skillset should last for about 10 minutes. Adding up to a total of 20minutes per round. Personally I think this would be great to do a couple of times but probably get tiring after a while. The advantage of keeping the skillpool of the day is rounds last shorter and you can quickly do normal matches inbetween ATs.

5) The accesibility Problem:
5a) Noob players enter the arena, want to pug, and mostly get mercilessly slaughtered by good players.
- Solution: I don't really know. Get more noobs playing so they face each other.
5b) A lot of players are in this for the title, but it works on consecutive wins, so not-so-good players don't stand a chance at getting it. This drives away a LARGE amount of players.
- Solution: Fix the title so it works just like Fame does, or alliance battle titles. Reward players for their wins, not for their winstreaks. When you beat someone you want to be rewarded. When you win 4 times but lose the 5th game you will be pissed off and quit.

6) The oberservermode issue: Adding oberserver mode would be fun to watch, but will also give away build, eliminate variety, and take away that 1 thing CA has above GvG and tomz: no observermode to steal builds.
- Solution 1: Don't add obersvermode.
- Solution 2: Add observermode but only for the previous day, so you can see what people ran yesterday. Also if you make ATs with seperate skillpools they can be observed without fear of copying.
# Note: I would definately NOT add observermode for the current day. The ability to make builds over copying them is the best feature of CA and will get destroyed by this.

Codex Guru · Oct 27, 2009, 11:44 PM // 23:44

Quote:

5a) Noob players enter the arena, want to pug, and mostly get mercilessly slaughtered by good players.
- Solution: I don't really know. Get more noobs playing so they face each other.

I know people won't like this idea but could make a reverse death penalty. If you lose a codex match and return you'd get a boost and keep getting a boost until you won at least one at which point the boost would go away. If you want it really insane could make the boost last until at least 5 matches. Now there might be tons of people resigning to give other people boosts, but if red and blue are random you couldn't just say I have 30% boost you have 20% boost you resign. It'd be hidden viewable only to the team so it'd be an extremely unreliable way of "farming" the title... oops I have 30% but I have to resign now because I'm red :P.

I Jonas I · Oct 27, 2009, 11:49 PM // 23:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Codex Guru

I know people won't like this idea but could make a reverse death penalty. If you lose a codex match and return you'd get a boost and keep getting a boost until you won at least one at which point the boost would go away. If you want it really insane could make the boost last until at least 5 matches. Now there might be tons of people resigning to give other people boosts, but if red and blue are random you couldn't just say I have 30% boost you have 20% boost you resign. It'd be hidden viewable only to the team so it'd be an extremely unreliable way of "farming" the title... oops I have 30% but I have to resign now because I'm red :P.

why do you even post?

Krill · Oct 28, 2009, 12:14 AM // 00:14

The title points issue could be resolved by lowering it to two consecutive = 1 point, 5 = 2 points, 10 = 3 points, 15 = 4 points , 20+ = 5 points every 5. This would accompanied by a rescaling of the title ranks (higher) and existing points. It's unfortunate that you have to give people titles to get them to play, but this would help noob groups get a point or three easier while also rewarding longer runs. This was always a problem that strangled new players in TA and I hope anet addresses it early on.

Kaon · Oct 28, 2009, 12:24 AM // 00:24

No there should be a reward for every single victory you make. I think hard cuts between getting a high reward or no reward at all serves nothing but frustration. Why should my 2nd victory be worth more than my 1st? It's not like it will be against harder opponents. I'm all for rewarding win streaks, but every single win needs to get it's reward. Basically it should work similarly to fame, only in tombs you keep facing harder opponents.

Codex Guru · Oct 28, 2009, 12:34 AM // 00:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jonas The Keen

why do you even post?

You're one to talk. Looking through your posting history looks like the main reason you post is to snipe or QQ, never suggesting any answers or fixes.

===

Quote:

Originally Posted by Krill

It's unfortunate that you have to give people titles to get them to play, but this would help noob groups get a point or three easier while also rewarding longer runs.

Unfortunately there's already an example of this: the rescaling of gladiator title and I'm pretty sure the population of people playing random arena's gone down in a year. People won't play for title if the title's worthless. Needs another answer, either making it easier for "noobs" to win or matching noobs with noobs. How to make it easier besides a handicap I don't know.

Krill · Oct 28, 2009, 12:37 AM // 00:37

Well not that there's a huge difference between one win and two, but one win would be more favorable towards point farming builds that are only designed for one win. Of course due to the nature of Codex this would be more difficult than it was in TA (RTL...) and UW fame farms in HA, but I can imagine it happening at least to some extent. That sort of crap should be discouraged.

@ Codex Guru

People will always play for titles no matter how worthless they are (they all are). Note people who still proudly display their resigned HB titles. To some extent I agree that catering to new / bad / retarded players by lowering the bar is only a license to breed further bad players, but you can't set the bar restrictively high. I'm sure if it was changed to 2 wins there would be players who would do 2 wins 4000 times to get a high rank. Proof of that is people who have achieved g8 in RA. Regardless, formats need players and players need incentives no matter how bad they are.

urania · Oct 28, 2009, 12:52 AM // 00:52

in other words, u want the title to be even more nubbed down it already is ^____^

I vote for 1 point per 10 wins, and only that. Old TA style.

Good post in general Kaon, but sounds like far too much work for someone with resources as limited as Anet's

.

Sierraa · Oct 28, 2009, 12:56 AM // 00:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

1) You can't see all the skills at the same time.
- Solution: Add an npc that displays all available skills.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Codex_Arena

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

2) The skills change every day at a moment where there are only very few players online and many can't play. A lot of players will therefore never play in a fresh deck.
- Solution: Each day the skill changes should be at a different hour. Ideally switch between American primetime hours and european prime time hours.

Can you imagine the QQ that would go on if Sealed Deck, sorry... Codex Arena didn't change everyday? I would much rather not get to play a deck one day, than to have to suffer through the vast amount of posts complaining about the degenerate meta and how it's turning the player base away. By the time Americans are logging on the Euros are logging off and vice versa.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

3) Balance; Some classes are inherently stronger in CA than others. Physical characters especially can always count on their weapon damage regardless of their skills. Some classes (especially elementalist) have good skills that make them usefull overall in the game, but also large amounts of shitty skills that make them bad in CA. Other classes have only very few skills but a large percentage of them is good (dervish, paragon). Alongside this is that the fewer amount of skills for nightfall professions kills variety.
- Solution: Don't give each class the same number of skills. Elementalists need many more skills to be usefull, while paragons and dervishes should get their amount of elites drastically reduced. There is no need to scream this makes dervishes or paragons weaker because it doesn't. Currently they're just stronger, and instead of messing with skills (risky and does not fix the variety problem) it's better to mess with the amount of skills.

No. Every profession has awful skills. Get over it. The game hasn't been balanced for 8v8, people cried about bad TA meta that never got balanced and consequently, it was removed.

Codex Arena isn't going to be any different than the rest of the game. People will still complain regardless of the number of skills dealt for each profession.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

5) The accesibility Problem:
5a) Noob players enter the arena, want to pug, and mostly get mercilessly slaughtered by good players.
- Solution: I don't really know. Get more noobs playing so they face each other.
5b) A lot of players are in this for the title, but it works on consecutive wins, so not-so-good players don't stand a chance at getting it. This drives away a LARGE amount of players.
- Solution: Fix the title so it works just like Fame does, or alliance battle titles. Reward players for their wins, not for their winstreaks. When you beat someone you want to be rewarded. When you win 4 times but lose the 5th game you will be pissed off and quit.

a) There will always be someone better than you. Sorry.
b) Focus on your faults and improve. Maybe you'll be the next good player.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

6) The oberservermode issue: Adding oberserver mode would be fun to watch, but will also give away build, eliminate variety, and take away that 1 thing CA has above GvG and tomz: no observermode to steal builds.
- Solution 1: Don't add obersvermode.
- Solution 2: Add observermode but only for the previous day, so you can see what people ran yesterday. Also if you make ATs with seperate skillpools they can be observed without fear of copying.
# Note: I would definately NOT add observermode for the current day. The ability to make builds over copying them is the best feature of CA and will get destroyed by this.

People wanna obs Codex Arena....? Lets add obs mode for Random Arena too while we're at it.

urania · Oct 28, 2009, 01:05 AM // 01:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sierraa

No. Every profession has awful skills. Get over it. The game hasn't been balanced for 8v8, people cried about bad TA meta that never got balanced and consequently, it was removed.

Some professions have better skill choices other though. The best example are 'monks and eles' (bad) vs 'dervs and hexers' (decent/good).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sierraa

Codex Arena isn't going to be any different than the rest of the game. People will still complain regardless of the number of skills dealt for each profession.

as always. today's monk skill choice was definitely the worst so far though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sierraa

People wanna obs Codex Arena....? Lets add obs mode for Random Arena too while we're at it.

always wanted an obs for TA...but CA, no ty.

Iotan · Oct 28, 2009, 01:22 AM // 01:22

I agree with most of your issues but have a few other solutions.

1.Skill set not displayed ingame.
Go to wiki. No, it's not the best way to do things, but it's easy and it already exists. The layout in wiki is more informative than anything I can think that could be implemented in game (esp. regarding attribute/breakpoint visualization)

2. Deck changes at same time.
20 or 30 hour rotation or some sort of schedule a la ATs.

3. Skill balance.
Use % total skills or skills by campaign. NF skills are generally better across the board than Prophecies, but this is not reflected in decks.

6. Obs mode for tourneys once the finals are complete would be cool. Could see how builds progressed after teams played each other.

Bobby2 · Oct 28, 2009, 01:24 AM // 01:24

I have doubts as to the usefulness of this thread. But it's plain that something is wrong when people start referring to Codex as 'Ebon Dust Arena'.

Sankt Hallvard · Oct 28, 2009, 01:51 AM // 01:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

5b) A lot of players are in this for the title, but it works on consecutive wins, so not-so-good players don't stand a chance at getting it. This drives away a LARGE amount of players.
- Solution: Fix the title so it works just like Fame does, or alliance battle titles. Reward players for their wins, not for their winstreaks. When you beat someone you want to be rewarded. When you win 4 times but lose the 5th game you will be pissed off and quit.

I will /sign this and sign it again. I'm so fed up with the title system in general and how you get awarded incrementally in particular.

At least give 1 point per win and maybe 1 extra point for every 5-streak. (you could just increase the number required for each rank) This system with 1 pt for 5 wins, 2 for 10 etc means you have to play for 2 hours without losing before you start getting the big points. I don't really plan on playing for much more than 2 hours straight!

Good players are still awarded by just winning more games, they don't really need huge boosts just because they have a long streak without going to the toilet in the meantime.

I know this isn't about CB but it's based on the same incremental system. Here you actually reach the cap after about 3 hours of playing. So after playing for 3 hours straight you are encouraged to stay on to get the most amount of points. CB for 3 hours! CB is something I want to do when I have a 15 minute break, I don't want to keep playing CB for hours with no break.

EDIT: Actually I take back my suggestion for 1 pt for each win. That would just encourage ridiculous offense teams to gamble at winning really fast to farm the stupid title. Maybe 1 point for every 5 wins or every 10 wins, just like old arenas. As long as it's not incremental.

Felix Infelicium · Oct 28, 2009, 03:49 AM // 03:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

No there should be a reward for every single victory you make. I think hard cuts between getting a high reward or no reward at all serves nothing but frustration. Why should my 2nd victory be worth more than my 1st? It's not like it will be against harder opponents. I'm all for rewarding win streaks, but every single win needs to get it's reward. Basically it should work similarly to fame, only in tombs you keep facing harder opponents.

Well the other thing with Tombs is that there's the Zaishen, this prevents RR going on as it happened for Hero Battles. Therefore a logical solution would be rewarding every victory after the first to prevent RR from happening all over again. However, if everyone gets a title because getting it means you're *1337*, and everyone obtains said title, then its no longer *1337*, therefore ruining the idea of trying to farm it in the first place.

N.B. I don't have any notable PvP titles, but that's just my opinion on things, one should really have to work to obtain titles rather than crying or whining for making it easier.

Malchior Devenholm · Oct 28, 2009, 04:53 AM // 04:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

4) The ladder/guild problem:
4a) How to integrate guilds and rating in a pug format?

4b) How to work out ATs. Are pugs allowed to compete? What about seperate skillsets for rounds? Then how much time should be given per round?

For these two issues, I offer this solution that I posted on another thread.

Take the 4-man team that you are willing to move into the Ladder, and register those accounts with that team via an NPC. Perhaps even assign the team a special name to distinguish the number of teams. The team could use the Guild Cape emblem of the Team Leader who registered the group or a customized Ladder Cape using the current Cape Creation tools, which would only appear inside the actual Ladder Match. This could be either an actual cape or just an emblem to represent that individual team.

You can only participate in ladder matches if all 4 members of the team are available (maybe allow for 1 non-registered sub). If 2 or more members are not part of the pre-registered team, then that group can not compete in ladder matches.

The above Ladder Registration would work very well if Ladder Matches were played on Sanctioned Sealed-Deck tournament rules, as it is done at PAX. I can't remember exact parameters such as skills allotted in a deck or time allowed to change build between matches. If you want the exact statistics, you can check out the PAX events on the Guild Wars home site.

Regulus X · Oct 28, 2009, 04:55 AM // 04:55

Theoretically Speaking

How to prevent RRing and stop capways in HB:
REMOVE /RESIGN COMMAND and ALL FORMS OF SHADOWSTEPPING.

How to fix Team Arenas:
Double Glad Point Rewards to repopulate the arena and BALANCE/NERF SHIT LIKE SHOVESPIKE.

*Any questions?*

Sierraa · Oct 28, 2009, 05:02 AM // 05:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

Some professions have better skill choices other though. The best example are 'monks and eles' (bad) vs 'dervs and hexers' (decent/good).

Dominant professions will change according to the decks, the same goes for skills.

Quote:

How to prevent RRing and stop capways in HB:

REMOVE /RESIGN COMMAND and ALL FORMS OF SHADOWSTEPPING.

How to fix Team Arenas:

Double Glad Point Rewards to repopulate the arena and BALANCE/NERF SHIT LIKE SHOVESPIKE.

*Any questions?*

Or, Fix the broken format you introduced immediately, and work on AI issues to better improve the game, for HB ofc. For TA fix skills that are OP in 4v4 situations (magebane, foul feast, hexes etc.) Remove syncing from RA, and offer the rewards and you MIGHT get a few players, though I wouldn't be too hopeful.

Regulus X · Oct 28, 2009, 05:27 AM // 05:27

Nuff sedd.

English Warrior · Oct 28, 2009, 09:32 AM // 09:32

I think Kaon's Points are very good however my suggestion for the noobs vs top end players is, maybe make a weighted system based off glad/codex titles.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Oct 28, 2009, 09:40 AM // 09:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iotan

3. Skill balance.
Use % total skills or skills by campaign. NF skills are generally better across the board than Prophecies, but this is not reflected in decks.

I think this point is the most important, I feel core professions would need a few more skills and NF professions a few less, factions professions are just about perfect in terms of # of available skills.

There's been like 1 viable ele bar since the introduction of sealed deck and not very many ranger or non-hex based mesmer bars either.

Mainly everyone is running dervishes, sins, paragons and the occassional hex necro or mesmer, physical professions are better when skills aren't that good, so expand the skill pool slightly for core professions.