Curse

-Loki- · Oct 05, 2006, 05:52 AM // 05:52

Whats funny is, when the weekend event was over, all we saw were posts of people saying how much they loved it. Sure double fame contributed to some of that, but not everyone is in there for fame. All these people complaining about it could have spoken up then, at least to make their opinion on the subject known earlier. Arenanet have already started (and I'm guessing - done) the new maps and are putting them through their final tests. They aren't going to change their minds now no matter how loud you scream (ie - AI change).

Quote:

and who said theres going to be new maps? they said changes not additions. Either way, the "new maps" will just be skipped anyway because if anything there will be less people in halls.

Technically, they are going new maps, wether they are the old maps with alterations or completely new. They are still new maps. But that's being pedantic. I personally think for the most part they will be new, to take into account the fact that there's less people playing on them, and they were already too big in some cases since the previous changes (Scarred Earth has a whole 1/3 never used and the center is barely ever used, that first priest onw has 2/3 never used, etc). Why waste the opporinuty to redo maps that are never going to played the way they were originally, and the gametypes have since been changed considerably?

Thom · Oct 05, 2006, 06:00 AM // 06:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katina

So to warm up or test a GvG build, you must smurf to see how it will be in 8v8. Lovely

HA was never a good arena to test GvG builds. Your rank 400ish GvG teams are always going to give you a better look than anything you find in 8v8 HA. Your GvG team designed to play 8v8 are significantly different from anything you see in HA. HA style pressure and spike teams in GvG would normally call for split or movement tactics which aren't really applicable to HA. HA style balance/holding build isn't remotely comparable to anything you see in GvG.

Taking your GvG team in HA to warm up is a nice tradition which can save you an early GvG loss, but things don't change that much. Your 6v6 should be a better warm up for the type of play you are likely to see in GvG. Drop your flagger, ganker or split response team and bring your core 6v6 team into HA. You should have a basic flag stand grouping as it would respond to small splits. Your extra two can run a gank race in scrimmage mode to warm up (other guilds must also gank race).

Smurfs are a fairly important tool for testing.

Boofhead · Oct 05, 2006, 07:11 AM // 07:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyle The Piemaster

they already did test it, and everyone voted that they like getting double fame, so anet decided to change it

and who said theres going to be new maps? they said changes not additions. Either way, the "new maps" will just be skipped anyway because if anything there will be less people in halls.

No, there will just be less people like you. Overall population can only increase.

JR · Oct 05, 2006, 07:12 AM // 07:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jha Jha

At JR and Squishy...I wont bash on you, but seriosuly guys, both you of have absolutely no idea at all..all you have is your polls you make that pvers back u up on and that anet takes into consideration.

Haven't I already said to you personally that I disagree with the change? I have made no polls.

Minus Sign · Oct 05, 2006, 07:49 AM // 07:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

Haven't I already said to you personally that I disagree with the change? I have made no polls.

Yes, you have. This is the thrid time now...

The Silver Star · Oct 05, 2006, 07:54 AM // 07:54

Feels like a sad way to nerf a lot of builds quickly and for a short period of time until there are new dominat builds out there.. because there always will be. I would of preffered if they KEPT the 8v8 format but edited the maps/changed them because some were to big etc..

Sounds like the unranked or low ranked people decided that 6v6 got them quick easy fame and ranks and are hoping that the 6v6 forever will bring that back for them. However.. it was balanced around 8 players not 6, so there will be more dominat new builds soon i believe once people get sued to the 6v6 format.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 05, 2006, 07:57 AM // 07:57

I could honestly go either way on the update at this point. It depends mostly on the map changes, and how the metagame actually works out. I'm not at all convinced that it's going to be awesome, or that it's going to suck. I just don't have that much patience for people going on about how the new HA will suck, when they have no idea what the map changes or metagame will be like.

Having done some work in game development, I can guarantee that they won't cancel this feature within the next two days. If you think the backlash for this has been bad, try cancelling a major feature just after it's announced - the entire community would explode, calling Anet liars and griping at them for breaking their promises.

Clearly this is a controversial change, but if it's going to be rescinded, it will be well after release. The work has already been done.

R. Mindwalker · Oct 05, 2006, 08:28 AM // 08:28

Ok lets do it really short,

If you are leet, you adept easily without moaning,

If you think you a leet, you moan and moan and say that VIM is going to rule the place.

For all the moaners about VIM, they are out there already and there are more IWAY en VIM teams in HA then there are balance.
If you think clear its easy to beat them. And when you dont ask, talk or do something to know it, you will never become a good player.
Even if you rank 1337 + your still a nap if you dont know how your enemy fights.

Good players dont need rank, you need a brain and good teamwork.
ITS GUILD WARS its based around TEAMWORK.

*k my english sucks too, no stupid posts about it ktkxGG*

Thezela · Oct 05, 2006, 08:49 AM // 08:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yunas Ele

Wow, lots of whining going on here... I think I'll cover one big question people are complaining about?

Why change HA to 6v6? Why can't they just keep HA 8v8 and add a 6v6 arena?

You know, I wish it was like this. Add a 6v6 arena for those of us that liked 6v6, and keep the 8v8 HA for those of us that like 8v8 HA. Everyones happy, right?

Unfortunately that won't work out. Like DarkCloud pointed out, the amount of players that still play HA is no where near as big as it was before. You're lucky if you can even play 4 maps before getting to halls (and thats with avoiding hall skips, like if halls msg pops up, you wait a minute before killing, because you'll still go like UW->Scarred->Courtyard->Sacred or whatever...). If ANet impliment another form of PvP similar to HA except 6v6, that would basically be reducing the amount of HA players even more and also mean very few players in the new 6v6 arena. The result? Two dead pvp arenas (HA and the new arena).

So in conclusion, while adding a new 6v6 arena and keeping the old 8v8 HA seems like a mighty fine idea, in reality its not pratical.

Now if you're wondering Why not just keep 8v8 HA, screw 6v6, thats a fair stance.

And finally, to the people complaining HA will be more gimmicked.

The reason 6v6 HA was like 99% gimmicked fame farming builds on the 6v6 double fame weekend was because it was double fame. Anet: "Here, you have 5 days of double fame as well as a new 6v6 enviornment, farm away~". Now, lets think for a second. What are majority of people going to think. A) "Hmm, lets spend a lot of time coming up with a new balanced, fun build to fit the new enviornement, and when we finally modify it enough to make it a good build, HA will be back to 8v8" or, B) "Lets grab the first fame farming gimmick build we see on obs mode and farm the **** out of it to get as much fame out of the double fame (extended) weekend as we can".

Obviously, the majority chose B. Give the new 6v6 a chance to settle in for say... a month. Since its not double fame people will be concerned about more than just farming as much fame as you can in 5 days. Will HA become more (or less) gimmicked than it already is? We'll find out. But basing your assumptions on what the new 6v6 will be like based on 5 days of fame farming with 6v6 is not really valid.

Okay, so I'm about to agree with Yunas here. Seriously. That's not a joke. Adding a separate arena isn't feasible.

My problem with the change isn't the zOMG TEH PREEVEW SUXXORED response. Rather, I just don't think it's a means of solving the problem in Tombs. It's not that the number of people in the team allow for ridiculous amounts of defense while throwing in just enough skills to kill people breaks halls; it's why those skills are added that matters. Sure, there are a bunch of different map formats in the tournament, but how many of those maps do you actually fight on in a run? More importantly, the final map that matters, the one that will yield the most fame, the one that will drop you a Req. 9 15^50 Crystalline Sword, is one specific kind of map. So naturally, players are going to gear their builds towards whatever will work best on that map. What works best for keeping the Ghostly Hero alive on an altar? Retarded crap like Spellbreaker that really has no business outside of 2-man Underworld farms. Sure, SB is nice for fighting bloodspike, but no one would actually carry it just to fight bloodspike. People take SB purely for the Ghost.

In that context, even in 6v6 play, the purpose will still be to keep the Ghostly Hero alive on the altar, so players will continue making builds with as much defense as possible, and the minimum amount of offense necessary to get to the Hall of Heroes and kill the blue team's Ghost. For the personal response, seeing as how we at Pi are complete Rspike nubs, we've already started figuring out how to mod our build so that it has the same killing power (which is already minimal) and retains as much ability to hold as possible. So my response to Anet's change is... "Okay... so when are you going to change something that actually matters?" They may fix something indirectly in that the shiny-new-toy-effect may add more players (temporarily) and reduce the number of skips, resulting in more straight fights, but the purpose of Halls is still the same: hold the altar.

Much more interesting than the 6v6 change are the changes to the maps. Anet said they're only going to be updates to current maps (PLEASE cut out the giant area of Burial and do something so that I don't feel like resigning every time I see Scarred Earth, simply because it's a waste of time), so I don't think Anet's actually going to the root of the issue. If Anet wants to change the style of play in Tombs, they need to change the objective. Make the Hall of Heroes have a random objective each time, and you're much more en route to a solution. Or simply changing it to a single objective other than hold an altar would freshen up the game for a while, because you would have to see new builds geared towards an entirely different objective. The change to the number of players seems more like adding a fresh coat of paint to a house with unsound foundations: it looks like new, but it's still flawed, and I'm still incredibly tired of having to carry Seeking Arrows just because interrupting is a requirement. When the Blue ghost is dead with 1:56 remaining, and the rest of the team is dead with 1:30 remaining, Blue should never, ever win. 2 minute long Seeking interrupt-fests are infuriating. Yeah, there's going to be Song Of Concentration, but that just reinforces the point: no one would ever use Song Of Concentration if the fundamental goal of Halls weren't "cap the altar."

Of course, I could be completely wrong. The reduction in character slots may make holding builds of the same variety completely unviable, resulting in massive kill-or-be-killed free-for-alls in HOH. But for some reason, I kind of doubt that'll happen.

Oh yeah. And nerf Toxicity.

The Silver Star · Oct 05, 2006, 08:58 AM // 08:58

I see where your comming from and i agree, i dont think they should change HoH itself but.. but.. but if you are planning on holding halls it is anoying because your build HAS to have holding ability which will be harder with 6 people.

Boofhead · Oct 05, 2006, 09:07 AM // 09:07

Yes, it will be harder. This will sort the men from the boys.

phasola · Oct 05, 2006, 09:20 AM // 09:20

i'll just wait until they change it to make comments
if they change relics & altar maps to something else and remove scarred it MAY work

sir lockt · Oct 05, 2006, 09:27 AM // 09:27

First of all...

Why respond like this if you havent seen it all? They announced map changes (old-schoolers should remember that the maps are quite the same since 2 years...to use the "throw away all that 2 years work" argument) and Nightfall will come in 3 weeks. What are the effects on these for HA? you simply don't know...

To JR- and Squid...appearantly ppl havent read the entire post... I would recommend not to waste any energy on them... It will be a hell of a job to keep this topic clean even without responding to those...

A lot of points are used like: little space for that...not balanced on 48 skills... the game is made for 8vs8...etc. All suggestions I see are so retarding... be inventive! why you need 2 monks and complain 4 offense isnt enough? Be inventive...embrace the change as a challenge... and maybe it works, maybe it wont.

I just love the change...because its a change! if it appear not to work... reroll it or change it again... but first give it a chance to work with all things known... so AFTER the release of Nightfall and the new map mechanics implemented

Finally on creating a 6v6 and a 8v8 area... I am affraid this would disperse the community even more... but again here: are you sure Nightfalls doesnt incluide a new 8vs8 area?

Chill ppl chill..

Poison Ivy · Oct 05, 2006, 09:34 AM // 09:34

I think this update will close the old builds and create an entire new world of builds, working our creativity to some extent while providing new fun, nice move Anet

Ado · Oct 05, 2006, 11:23 AM // 11:23

Reading this thread many people are blaming all kinds of other people or Anet for this change. The fact is that the only ones we can blame are ourselves (and I have to include myself there as well tbh).

Lets just have a look at the builds we see in HA:

About 80% of the balancedteams we see is the gimmickversion. Furthermore, balanced made the least effort of all builds to fundamentaly change.

Iway is still being used a lot, but not as much as it used to be cause of rankdiscrimination. It is iway however who addapted the most of all builds.

Bspike/Rspike: all of them are the same and appart from some minor skilltweaks nothing has changed.

Vim: concists mostly of r5- former iwayplayers cause of rankdiscrimination. Changed from 3 Vimwarriors to 3 iwaywarriors, hence vimway.

About 90% of the players in HA play one of these 4 builds. Then we have some guilds/friendsgroups who are playing something else. Last week when playing, I've encountered maybe 5 teams who weren't one of the builds mentioned above. One of them being Your Math Teacher (funny to see how former hardcore iwayers are appearently willing to change the most)

I'm getting just as much as tired of seeing the 100th vim as when i see the 100th gimmickbalanced.

Then I read about the change to 6vs6 and thought about the reasons why Anet made this move, and I thought: omfg Ado, you are guilty of this as much as any other, for you are playing gimmickbuilds most of the time as well (monk in balanced/spike and ooa/oop in iway)

It are we, the players who are totally responsible for this change made by Anet. We keep on sticking to our gimmickbuilds forcing Anet to take drastic measures. If we wanna see changes, we gotta go play new and different builds. If we do not change our mentality in this, 6vs6 will in time face the same problem as 8vs8 does now: 3 or 4 gimmickbuilds dominating HA.

-Loki- · Oct 05, 2006, 01:35 PM // 13:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ado

It are we, the players who are totally responsible for this change made by Anet. We keep on sticking to our gimmickbuilds forcing Anet to take drastic measures. If we wanna see changes, we gotta go play new and different builds. If we do not change our mentality in this, 6vs6 will in time face the same problem as 8vs8 does now: 3 or 4 gimmickbuilds dominating HA.

This is quite true, but it's also the maps that cause a select few gimmacks to flourish. Multi objective, multi path maps should eliminate alot of gimmick builds from becoming overly popular. We really have to wait and see how the maps have been revamped.

Patccmoi · Oct 05, 2006, 01:50 PM // 13:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Loki-

This is quite true, but it's also the maps that cause a select few gimmacks to flourish. Multi objective, multi path maps should eliminate alot of gimmick builds from becoming overly popular. We really have to wait and see how the maps have been revamped.

Agreed with that. As long as Halls will be Halls with an altar cap, builds will be heavily defensive geared, be it 6v6 or 8v8.

I fully agree with people saying that Halls should have a random objective every game (still timed games though, because that's required for the system to work, but it could be a 6 min relic run, a 6 min altar, a 6 min death match with some form of VoD increasing every min after 3 min and in the last 30s everyone gets -10 degen, a most kills slug fest forcing the 3 teams to dish it out intensely and if you just have defense and no offense you'll lose because the 2 other teams will kill each other while you can't, etc., anything as long as it's not always 'hold the altar'). Otherwise builds will always be geared towards winning Halls and packing as much defense as possible, which overall makes for some pretty boring fights and kinda turns the game into newb mode imo (because you don't need to be all that good when you can afford to make tons of mistakes because your team packs 5 times more defenses than it needs).

I'm really interested in seeing the map changes. I've been bored of HA a long time ago but i love creating builds and can't wait to have the opportunity to do so in new maps with a new amount of players. We tested many crazy stuff in the 6v6 weekend and now we'll have the time to refine them.

Siberian · Oct 05, 2006, 02:15 PM // 14:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

That will not happen. GvG has always been the area Anets attention goes out to mostly. That's true regardless of the 'fact' if it's better or worse than HA. They've never changed one thing about GvG as far as I can remember. Skill nerfs don't count. It's not the first time they change something about HA (rifts).

Umm... they made changes to GvG plenty in the past.

Just last month they reduced the round duration by moving VOD up to 20 minutes (from 30) and adjusted the NPCs around the guild lord to add two new npcs (Knights) and remove 1 bodyguard.

Most Feared · Oct 05, 2006, 02:25 PM // 14:25

This change is horrid because of a few reasons:

1.) It pigeonholes you into running x amount of builds. In case you dont remember the double fame weekend, there was nothing but smite, vimway, and condition builds almost exclusively. So creative and fun!

2.) There will be no 'big fame holds' anymore due to the lack of defense a 6 man team can accomplish, while still having the damage output to kill things. Hence, slower fame.

3.) There will be no more IWAY. I dont mind this at all honestly, but i can feel sorry for the people who can only play it, yet have taken it to r12 in some cases. Whether i think its a sad build or not, the fact remains you're taking out the most popular build in the metagame when you could just as easily have nerfed it like they should've months ago. Theres more than one way to skin a cat, Anet should learn this.

Ive tombed for since about last august, and this change makes me cry. I like the new map idea, but ffs just create a 6v6 arena, ITS NOT HARD YOU LAZY ASSES

edit:

forgot to mention the crappiness of current 8v8 maps. If anet would just make new maps for HA now you wouldnt find the mass amounts of IWAYs and Vims. Why? Well if the maps were more open, you can get to the ooa necro without going thru 2 trappers and a deep freeze on your whole team, it might mean less of a struggle. Most of the maps in HA promote the builds that are being ran by it. Vimway sucks if you fight them in open areas. unfortunately for the balanced players, there is almost no open area in ANY HA maps. If you had a few maps with an open area, you would see a lot less aoe dominant builds played (oppressive gaze spike, vimway, and even iway to an extent)

In reality, if Anet wouldve just fixed the maps earlier, NONE of the current metagame builds would still have flourished to the point they did.

Legendary Shiz · Oct 05, 2006, 02:31 PM // 14:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Most Feared

This change is horrid because of a few reasons:

1.) It pigeonholes you into running x amount of builds. In case you dont remember the double fame weekend, there was nothing but smite, vimway, and condition builds almost exclusively. So creative and fun!

2.) There will be no 'big fame holds' anymore due to the lack of defense a 6 man team can accomplish, while still having the damage output to kill things. Hence, slower fame.

3.) There will be no more IWAY. I dont mind this at all honestly, but i can feel sorry for the people who can only play it, yet have taken it to r12 in some cases. Whether i think its a sad build or not, the fact remains you're taking out the most popular build in the metagame when you could just as easily have nerfed it like they should've months ago. Theres more than one way to skin a cat, Anet should learn this.

Ive tombed for since about last august, and this change makes me cry. I like the new map idea, but ffs just create a 6v6 arena, ITS NOT HARD YOU LAZY ASSES

Number 2 and 3 completely contradict with your angry rant. Getting rid of IWAY = good thing. Slower fame = good thing. Doesn't that mean higher rank might actually mean something more than just being able to count to three or click IWAY?