Curse

Patrograd · Jun 02, 2007, 10:02 AM // 10:02

So, I had the last week off and had more time for GW than is usually the case.

I decided to muck about in Hero battles in all this spare time instead of RA/TA as I usually would when not GvGing, and I discovered a few things.

It is worth noting that I suck badly at Hero battles (yeah I know, I suck at GvG too, but I suck *worse* at this

). I cant be bothered to micro hero skills and all that stuff, I'm only in it to kill time really. It is worth also noting that the format sucks, its kind of PVE in a PVP setting, weird.

Anyway, after a little bit of mucking about and winning some games and losing some games, i decided for a laugh to enter a daily tournament. My experience of GvG tournaments had been pretty brutal, I made a post about it somewhere, but as this was hero battles and I dont care about my rank or rating there seemed nothing to lose.

The first thing that strikes you when you enter these tournaments is the level of participation. Five or six completely full groups of 64 players, for each and every tournament. These players are not, as is the case in GvG tournaments, almost exclusively from the top of the ladder, there is a complete and toal spread in each group - players from the top 10 and players who are so low rated they have an N/A rank.

This level and spread of participation makes the tournaments really worth entering. I have played in four of these now, and despite being absolutely awful at this format, I have been regularly matched against players of around my skill level (which just doesnt happen in GvG tournaments) and can usually come out of the tournament ahead in rating. There is absolutely no disincentive, you know when you enter that there is a fair spread of teams, that most of these teams wont forfeit and will play to the end.

The rewards for entering, even if you suck, are also pretty hefty. You can pretty much lose all your games (although you would have to be truly awful to achieve that) and still come out of it with enough reward points to buy yourself a nice shiny sword or whatever. These four tournaments (and remember, I suck at this) have yielded me 61 reward points and, amazingly, 2 qualifier points. I am up by about 40 rating points too.

The point I want to make is that this is how the GvG tournaments should be, this is how I had imagined them to be when the concept was first announced. Large participation across the whole range of guild ranks, with there being plenty of incentives to enter and no real disincentives.

While participation in GvG tournaments is getting better, there is still much to be done in order to bring it to the kind of level the HB guys are enjoying. personally I would like to see Anet taking steps toward encouraging this greater level of participation in the GvG tournaments.

Clearly, the key thing is to make it easier to enter. Some things to consider:

1) Reduce the requirements for daily (but not monthly) tournaments. 6 guild members plus 2 guests? Remove the 10 player limit so you can roll people in and out as you see fit within this framework?

2) Maybe some form of "designated" guest system could be introduced to retain the "known opponent" status? Each player can be entered onto the "roster" of 2 guilds, his own, plus one other as "designated guest" (you can keep the 2 week rule for this if you like to prevent too much smurfing/PUGing)

3) Remove the swiss format from the daily ATs and make it straight elimination, meaning you dont have to put aside 4 hours unless you are going to the later rounds.

4) Either reduce the K value for early rounds, and/or increase the k value for ladder, so that a loss in the early rounds doesnt destroy your rank, retaining relatively high k values for the later rounds. Maybe a k value of 10 for rounds 1 and 2, with the k value for quarter finals onwards being 30?

Taking some or all of these steps would, in my opinion, make the GvG tournaments a much more attractive proposition for the lower ranked teams like us that want to take part but currently either cant or just wont.

One last point on hero battles by the way......how much fun would those maps be with 4 real players? Strategically challenging, engaging.....maybe a TA ladder/tournament system could be introduced using those maps...I think that would be worth entering

TheOneMephisto · Jun 02, 2007, 02:28 PM // 14:28

For your last point, check out http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10156701 for my suggestion on merging some of the HvH maps into TA and the ladder system it should get.

Div · Jun 02, 2007, 03:29 PM // 15:29

The reason why HB is enjoying a much better player base and participation rate is because it's much easier to enter it. Assuming a similar player base, HB should have more than 8x the number of participants. If you take into account how organization for GvG's work and how guilds can't play with 6 or 7 people, the amount of HB players is even more. While I agree with your suggestions, you can't fully hope the GvG AT system will be as ideal as the HB one. After all, Anet doesn't care about GvG's anymore...they just want to promote HB.

Thom Bangalter · Jun 03, 2007, 12:01 AM // 00:01

let's see...64...divided by 8 is 8. so that's like 8 full teams entering in a gvg tournament. The problem, of course, is scheduling. However, I'm definetly going to go hit up the Hero battle tournaments since I've been chronically ineligible for the gvg ones, and they sound like the payoff is worth it.

minor · Jun 03, 2007, 11:30 AM // 11:30

I think the ATs could be refered to as a death spiral. Lots of teams don't enter or forfeit. Too many mismatches where one team gets steamrolled. All this causes less teams to enter, and the cycle gets worse every time.

Xioden · Jun 03, 2007, 02:27 PM // 14:27

Main problems with GvG ATS:

Too farmable: People enter for hopes of getting pitted against a low-ranked team. If they're not they simply forfeit.
Solution: Forfeiting yields a rating loss (not necessarily -11), but enough so that majority of teams can't be bothered to risk taking the hit. Possibly reduce the penalty slightly in later rounds (-10,-9, etc.) to help some for teams that have legitimately lost players and can't continue.

5 matches + 4 forfeits = 4 teams sitting around waiting for 30 minutes when they could be matched up against each other and actually playing while the other match goes on.

All teams done = still waiting? (If it doesn't already work like this) There should be a "Ready" Button for once all matches have finished to force a start of the next round if all current participants are ready. Theres nothing like having to sit around doing nothing because the 15 minutes until the next round isn't enough to squeeze a GvG in unless you plan to forfeit the next round or resign from the match.

(Another if it already doesn't work like this) Low ranked guilds shouldn't be penalized quite as badly if they lose to a high ranking guild (Likewise high ranking guilds shouldn't be rewarded quite as highly (rating wise)).

(Yet another if it doesn't already work like this) GvG Tournaments should yield slightly increased amounts of reward points if the team plays through to the last round (ie. +10). Even A small amount per round played could be helpful (+1, 2, 3, 4, 5 for example).