Curse

Skyy High · May 02, 2011, 04:18 PM // 16:18

Loved the idea behind CA. Loved jumping into random lulzy groups for the first week after it was introduced. Hate that you need to get a string of five wins to get anything from it besides Balth Faction. That is the big problem, because it's what drove all the casual players just looking for something besides RA away. I wanted CA to be a place where your individual build making skills are tested; instead, it's just another place to get rolled by organized 4-man teams....except the 4-man teams aren't happy because it's more restrictive than TA was.

CA has had its chance at being a competitive arena. It's simply not good enough for that; the rewards aren't good enough and the population isn't large enough. Kill the competitive nature of the arena, introduce some better rewards, and let players earn the title one win at a time. It will be more popular, if only for the fact that it's an alternative to RA and it would be sensible to actually get the PvP points for the HoM without spending over a million gold.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unicorn Stampede

Hero Battles wasn't "less fail". All they needed to do was some balance changes and updating hero pathing and behavior. However when any of the top HB'ers told Anet how to make Hero Battles better, Anet stuck their fingers in their ears and screamed lalala, to an extent where the mat hb finals were composed of joke builds and resigners. Which looked extremely bad on Anet, so they just removed Hero Battles from the game.

That's hilarious. "All they needed to do" was fix the AI? You say that like it was so simple...."all" they needed to do was code AI for heroes that would only be useful for HB. A format that had been plagued with imbalances and dedicated capping builds since the week it was introduced. A format with a community so dense that they decided that they'd throw hissy fits during monthly tournaments because they thought that it was just soooo simple to fix the format. Do you have any coding experience? Have you ever coded AI? In GW? No? Then shut up with the "it would have been so easy to fix" BS, because you have no idea how easy or hard it would have been to fix. Even if they did fix it, that still wouldn't have fixed RR, which was going on for far longer than people in this thread claim it was, and the only reason people claim that it wasn't was because they want to claim that everything wrong with HB was ANet's fault. The community decided to do RR for title points well before it became common on quest days.

TA had the issue of being a competitive 4-man arena with skills balanced around 8-man formats. CA was an attempt to make that workable. It's failed miserably, so I say bring TA back and turn CA into a casual arena, because it was a lot of fun when it was all about that. HB doesn't deserve to come back until they fix the AI so it's functional, and even then the arena will be more about capping than killing by design. It doesn't just need an update, it needs a complete overhaul, and I don't think it's worth it.

Missing HB · May 02, 2011, 05:30 PM // 17:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Even if they did fix it, that still wouldn't have fixed RR, which was going on for far longer than people in this thread claim it was, and the only reason people claim that it wasn't was because they want to claim that everything wrong with HB was ANet's fault. The community decided to do RR for title points well before it became common on quest days.

You know , i will say it once again i hope i won't have to anymore , RR wasn't the reason why HB was deleted , it was just a consequence of their announcement so that people farm quests and title the last month.... Before zquest , there was actually almost noone farming title points , and the few people who did usually had an account on top level also and weren't total noobs.....

An other point is that , although having some flaws , people did manage playing TA and HB , did manage microing heroes ( thinking of HB), did manage finding correct builds to buildwars the buildwars ( thinking of TA)....

CA didn't have its chance , it never ever got any update, and i can remind you it was ( HB+ TA)^sealed = win!... where's the HB part in it ?? ( i could even ask where's the TA part in it in fact ....)...

I'm not going to argue more about it since they said they will work on improving PvP , but if you got no idea what you're talking about, just don't post...

bhavv · May 02, 2011, 09:01 PM // 21:01

Why cant we simply have a hero arena with no capping / flagging required?

Just load up 7 hero bars and battle it out with other players. Even without any kind of title, points or leader board, this would become massively popular and most players would love it.

I did do CA for a while and I really liked it. However the complete absence of any opposing teams made me stop wasting my time.

UnicornStampede · May 02, 2011, 09:41 PM // 21:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Blah blah blah coding RR

One of the suggestions that's was brought up constantly when Hero Battles was around was just make the heroes phase-able in Hero Battles,meaning you could walk through them. So the problem of body blocking and making the hero stand there while you cap a shrine isn't an issue.

However that thought, or any thought, was never taken in by Anet regarding Hero Battles in my opinion. Which made serious competitive HBers became enraged because in their opinion Anet did not take Hero Battles as a serious competitive format of PvP, such as GvG or HA. So the HB'ers became defiant against Anet, and as you can see, Anet simply pulled the plug on Hero Battles.

Obviously the coding wouldn't be done in a day, and wouldn't even have to be perfect if they worked around the hero AI such as implementations of phase-able heroes/etc. And the reward of bringing an entire new competitive balanced format to Guild Wars PvP would be unfathomable in the playerbase and business aspect. And they did so much coding and changing of AI to the monsters in UW, that i think Anet is capable of making somewhat fair and decent hero AI.

And if you think that RR day was the reason Anet took out Hero Battles, you have no idea what you're talking about. I would advise you to read one of my previous posts.

urania · May 02, 2011, 09:44 PM // 21:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Hate that you need to get a string of five wins to get anything from it besides Balth Faction. That is the big problem, because it's what drove all the casual players just looking for something besides RA away. I wanted CA to be a place where your individual build making skills are tested; instead, it's just another place to get rolled by organized 4-man teams....except the 4-man teams aren't happy because it's more restrictive than TA was.

I hate you're trying to fit in HA mentality (the guaranteed fame/match gain) to where it doesnt belong to start with.

What more likely drove them away are:
1) the long times to figure out proper group builds and find people,

2) (more important and also influences point 1)the fact that the arena demands a player to have above-basic understanding of the game - to skim through all available skills and immediately be able to tell what kind of group build set-up is viable to take and separate it from utter trash AND also to be able to tell when something is not completely bad, but not good enough to take up a character slot for it (e.g., no real rupts apart from d shot (and lets say there are strong skills like dom hexes or woh/hburst that need shutting down because they decide matches, and ofc lets not forget rez sig locking), but no apply or any useful preps, nor anything good in pet line - so you take d shot on other melees/ranged/even caster characters). most casuals wont ever be able to do so, most they can do is copy a build that steamrolled them and still lose to it at the end.

3) because most get stomped by the remnants of a few good players if they bother to drop by every now and then. but thats the case everywhere, really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

CA has had its chance at being a competitive arena. It's simply not good enough for that; the rewards aren't good enough and the population isn't large enough. Kill the competitive nature of the arena, introduce some better rewards, and let players earn the title one win at a time. It will be more popular, if only for the fact that it's an alternative to RA and it would be sensible to actually get the PvP points for the HoM without spending over a million gold.

indeed it had a chance to turn into sth awesome - IF the due updates had been delivered in time (certain skill ban like aura of sanctity+promised tournies). there's not much of this so-called competitive nature left anywhere, so why do you wanna kill it even here? i vote for title removal instead and upping bfactions. the players that only come to get their HoM title wont last, so why bother? it needs a stable and regular player base, not a one month wonder. TA had it and was still eliminated, same as HB, so i see little reason why trying to draw in trash player base when there's enough of it in ra already.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

That's hilarious. "All they needed to do" was fix the AI? You say that like it was so simple...."all" they needed to do was code AI for heroes that would only be useful for HB. A format that had been plagued with imbalances and dedicated capping builds since the week it was introduced. A format with a community so dense that they decided that they'd throw hissy fits during monthly tournaments because they thought that it was just soooo simple to fix the format. Do you have any coding experience? Have you ever coded AI? In GW? No? Then shut up with the "it would have been so easy to fix" BS, because you have no idea how easy or hard it would have been to fix. Even if they did fix it, that still wouldn't have fixed RR, which was going on for far longer than people in this thread claim it was, and the only reason people claim that it wasn't was because they want to claim that everything wrong with HB was ANet's fault. The community decided to do RR for title points well before it became common on quest days.

AI doesnt belong to pvp. As long as there's a healthy player base, at least. And if they absolutely MUST have it, then the iron rule "2 heroes max" should be followed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

TA had the issue of being a competitive 4-man arena with skills balanced around 8-man formats. CA was an attempt to make that workable. It's failed miserably, so I say bring TA back and turn CA into a casual arena, because it was a lot of fun when it was all about that. HB doesn't deserve to come back until they fix the AI so it's functional, and even then the arena will be more about capping than killing by design. It doesn't just need an update, it needs a complete overhaul, and I don't think it's worth it.

its not like TA regulars wanted a perfect balance situation - minor tweaks to skills that never needed a buff to start with, minor arena adjustments like the codex rules would have eliminated half the gimmicks (inc the infamous shove and rtl spikes). but with the current state of affairs as it is atm, neither should come back, really. sadly. i see enough multi derv synchs in RA already, no need to see the crap in TA too.

*lemming* · May 02, 2011, 10:02 PM // 22:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

That's hilarious. "All they needed to do" was fix the AI? You say that like it was so simple...."all" they needed to do was code AI for heroes that would only be useful for HB. A format that had been plagued with imbalances and dedicated capping builds since the week it was introduced. A format with a community so dense that they decided that they'd throw hissy fits during monthly tournaments because they thought that it was just soooo simple to fix the format.

Anet made the HB community a promise, ignored it for months, then killed the format without ever delivering. I don't blame them for not being happy.

If the prize in GvG monthlies were as low as those in HB monthlies, I'm sure you'd have seen some forms of protest at some point.

Also, RR was not a problem.

Elnino · May 03, 2011, 07:17 AM // 07:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

That's hilarious. "All they needed to do" was fix the AI? You say that like it was so simple...."all" they needed to do was code AI for heroes that would only be useful for HB. A format that had been plagued with imbalances and dedicated capping builds since the week it was introduced. A format with a community so dense that they decided that they'd throw hissy fits during monthly tournaments because they thought that it was just soooo simple to fix the format. Do you have any coding experience? Have you ever coded AI? In GW? No? Then shut up with the "it would have been so easy to fix" BS, because you have no idea how easy or hard it would have been to fix. Even if they did fix it, that still wouldn't have fixed RR, which was going on for far longer than people in this thread claim it was, and the only reason people claim that it wasn't was because they want to claim that everything wrong with HB was ANet's fault. The community decided to do RR for title points well before it became common on quest days.

Hello there Mr. Clueless

I suggest that before you come back here making further remarks about Hero Battles, you take the time to fully understand the format and it's history like myself and several others in this thread. Perhaps if you had paid some attention to HB (and the HB subforum here) while it was still around, you wouldn't have made those horribly innacurate statements.

Quote:

HB doesn't deserve to come back until they fix the AI so it's functional, and even then the arena will be more about capping than killing by design.

It will take more than just fixing the AI to improve HB. Of all the things needed to be done, fixing the AI would probably take the most effort. Everything else needed to be done should not be difficult to achieve. However, the AI not being fixed does not mean that HB doesn't deserve to return. There is such a thing called micro-management which allowed anyone with decent skill to bypass most of the AI flaws. Whilst fixing the flaws in the AI is a key part in improving HB, there are far more important issues that need to be addressed. For example, shadowsteps.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

Why cant we simply have a hero arena with no capping / flagging required?

You will be able to do that once Joe finds the time to allow heroes into scrimmages. He has expressed his ambition to fix that bug when he can find the time to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

promised tournies

Linsey said that they would invest the time to do that if Codex was successful which it certainly is not.

Quote:

AI doesnt belong to pvp

IMO, as long as one player is battling another, it really doesn't matter what else is there. The only place in GW PvP that doesn't have AI is RA/CA annihilation matches.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

If the prize in GvG monthlies were as low as those in HB monthlies, I'm sure you'd have seen some forms of protest at some point.

The throwing of mAT finals had almost nothing to do with the rewards.

urania · May 03, 2011, 08:46 AM // 08:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elnino

Linsey said that they would invest the time to do that if Codex was successful which it certainly is not.

and it was not successful because most of the updates did not arrive (in time).

bhavv · May 03, 2011, 11:24 AM // 11:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elnino

You will be able to do that once Joe finds the time to allow heroes into scrimmages. He has expressed his ambition to fix that bug when he can find the time to.

Then you are still only limited to playing against people in your alliance, and you have to spend ages waiting for each opponent to set up their hero bars. There would never be anyone to play against in a HvH scrimmage, and if you do find someone it would take too long to set up your groups.

A random based hero arena where everyone can go in, set up their builds, and click enter for a random match up is what a lot of players would enjoy, minus the tedious flag capping from the previous HB we had.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elnino

IMO, as long as one player is battling another, it really doesn't matter what else is there. The only place in GW PvP that doesn't have AI is RA/CA annihilation matches.

I definitely found HA a lot more fun when we could use heroes for a short while after NFs release.

Skyy High · May 04, 2011, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Weeee quote dump.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Missing HB

You know , i will say it once again i hope i won't have to anymore , RR wasn't the reason why HB was deleted , it was just a consequence of their announcement so that people farm quests and title the last month.... Before zquest , there was actually almost noone farming title points , and the few people who did usually had an account on top level also and weren't total noobs.....

Heh, no. I distinctly remember people going "shh, don't talk about RR or they'll nerf it," long before they announced the format's impending deletion. Hell, let's go back and look at the game updates, shall we? Zaishen Combat quests were added April 23rd, 2009. The /roll command was removed from PvP maps April 28th. Linsey announced that HB would be deleted on August 28th. They were deleted October 22nd. RR started up almost immediately after /roll was banned, and I don't even know how long /roll was popular before it was killed. It was certainly in use before the ZC quests were added, but it exploded in popularity after that (hence the sudden ban). That's at least 4 months of RR before the announcement that HB would die. Relevant link: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_updates:April_2009

Lie all you want, the game updates are very clear. HB was abused for months and months before it was slated for removal. Like I said, y'all pretend otherwise because you like to think the format only got griefed after mean ol' ANet told you it was going bye-bye, and that's just not true. I saw the districts exploding with players on "RR DAY"s. I remember trying to get some games going and having players /roll at me, and then call me a n00b and ragequit. And now, I'm sure, some of those "pro" gamers are HB apologists, claiming that it only ended up being a degenerate format because ANet was going to kill it. The facts do not support this claim.

Quote:

An other point is that , although having some flaws , people did manage playing TA and HB , did manage microing heroes ( thinking of HB), did manage finding correct builds to buildwars the buildwars ( thinking of TA)....

BS. Meta for HB was all about sin secondaries, and later pack hunter r/p cappers. There was almost no variety, especially before the long-distance shadow steps got nerfed, in part because of GvG, yes, but also because of HB. Before the nerf, no one ran anything else competitively. The format was gimmicky as hell; between the fact that capping was more profitable than killing alone made this unavoidable. I distinctly remember "real" PvP-ers complaining about how HB was influencing balance updates, and how it was a stupid format that shouldn't be even a consideration when balancing the game, because ANet was spending too much time trying to fix it to be anything other than a cesspool (an opinion helped, in no small part, by the prevalence of /roll and RR). Oh yes, I remember those threads.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unicorn Stampede

Which made serious competitive HBers became enraged because in their opinion Anet did not take Hero Battles as a serious competitive format of PvP, such as GvG or HA.

See above. No one took HB seriously as a competitive format, least of all other PvPers, because it was (through at least 2 separate shadow step updates) a micro-managing minigame where combat barely happened. Anet probably took it more seriously than any "real" PvPers, considering they updated so many skills with HB at least partially in mind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

I hate you're trying to fit in HA mentality (the guaranteed fame/match gain) to where it doesnt belong to start with.

Hey, at least people still play HA. CA would be even easier to get into, considering you can just enter with whatever and get grouped.

Quote:

the fact that the arena demands a player to have above-basic understanding of the game

Yeah....I said before, I loved the arena for this reason. I loved looking at a limited selection of skills and making a viable build out of it. What I don't love is the fact the population of non-organized players dropped very, very quickly, such that the only groups you were ever likely to meet were comprised of organized teams that just rolled over anyone else. If you want to have new blood to play with, you need those "newbs", you need people who are getting beaten to enjoy themselves enough to keep coming back for more. That's why people still play PUB games of CS:S (or any other FPS) even if they never break a 1:1 kill ratio, because the game is fun and there's always a chance of getting paired against someone of equal or lesser skill. If the only servers available were clan servers with 10 professional players, do you think any casual player would stick around to get headshotted 15 times in a row?

Yes, players need to help themselves get better, and there is very little of that in this game...but the few players who do want to get better need rungs on the ladder that are lower than "ultra competitive". They need tangible rewards for little victories, especially when they can look at RA or JQ or FA or AB and go "I could get way more there, for way less effort, and having way more fun....so why bother with this?"

Bottom line: you want a format to be healthy, stop complaining that my suggestions would open up the "newb floodgates". That's the point. You'll still steamroll almost every team, you just won't be playing against the same 10 people over and over and over now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

Anet made the HB community a promise, ignored it for months, then killed the format without ever delivering. I don't blame them for not being happy.

If the prize in GvG monthlies were as low as those in HB monthlies, I'm sure you'd have seen some forms of protest at some point.

Being individually famous, and getting a shitton of reward points (40 for 1st, compared to the 120 for 1st that GvG got) wasn't enough? Yeah, you got lower points than GvG, you still got way more than most individual players could hope to earn through PvP. That's not even counting the real-world prizes, which were often as not exactly the same for GvG and HB. (First page that I found, here: http://www.guildwars.com/competitive...2007/rules.php)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elnino

Whilst fixing the flaws in the AI is a key part in improving HB, there are far more important issues that need to be addressed. For example, shadowsteps.

Which brings us straight back to the old issue of "real" PvPers getting pissed whenever HBers asked for skill updates to fix their broken format.

********

Anyway....I seriously think we're getting something to try to shock life back into CA with this upcoming PvP update. I want them to casual-ify the arena; like all of you said, it's effectively dead competitively. Let the casuals flock to the arena, and you'll be surprised, some of them are (or will get) surprisingly good at picking builds. At the very worst, you'll have players to play with again. I know I'll be there, if the format picks up.

Oh, and just to preempt the incoming comments: I'm not continuing a 5v1 quote war. Y'all can say whatever you like, the game updates and the forum arguments that raged around HB do not back up the BS. If I have the inclination (and my search-fu is strong enough), I might edit this with a couple of links to relevant forum threads, but I doubt I'll have the urge to waste my time further tonight, so don't hold your breath. HB had a ton of problems, for a very long time, and there were many attempts at fixing them, but in the end a format that was completely different from everything offered in every other PvP format was un-balanceable. Shocker.

Elnino · May 04, 2011, 05:00 AM // 05:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Heh, no. I distinctly remember people going "shh, don't talk about RR or they'll nerf it," long before they announced the format's impending deletion. Hell, let's go back and look at the game updates, shall we? Zaishen Combat quests were added April 23rd, 2009. The /roll command was removed from PvP maps April 28th. Linsey announced that HB would be deleted on August 28th. They were deleted October 22nd. RR started up almost immediately after /roll was banned, and I don't even know how long /roll was popular before it was killed. It was certainly in use before the ZC quests were added, but it exploded in popularity after that (hence the sudden ban). That's at least 4 months of RR before the announcement that HB would die. Relevant link: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_updates:April_2009

Lie all you want, the game updates are very clear. HB was abused for months and months before it was slated for removal. Like I said, y'all pretend otherwise because you like to think the format only got griefed after mean ol' ANet told you it was going bye-bye, and that's just not true. I saw the districts exploding with players on "RR DAY"s. I remember trying to get some games going and having players /roll at me, and then call me a n00b and ragequit. And now, I'm sure, some of those "pro" gamers are HB apologists, claiming that it only ended up being a degenerate format because ANet was going to kill it. The facts do not support this claim.

Your evidence proves the removal of the /roll command and nothing else. We have had plenty of discussions regarding RR and it has been proven time and again that it only became widespread after Anet announced HB's removal. Before the announcement, RR was not widespread. A very tiny minority actually did it (amongst friends) but it was nothing like /roll until the announced removal. I am a HBer (unlike you). I was there the entire time from the 4th anniversary up to it's removal. I would have noticed if people were RR'ing before the announcement but I didn't notice any widespread RR'ing until after the announced removal. I guess you didn't take my advice after all.

Quote:

BS. Meta for HB was all about sin secondaries, and later pack hunter r/p cappers. There was almost no variety, especially before the long-distance shadow steps got nerfed, in part because of GvG, yes, but also because of HB. Before the nerf, no one ran anything else competitively. The format was gimmicky as hell; between the fact that capping was more profitable than killing alone made this unavoidable. I distinctly remember "real" PvP-ers complaining about how HB was influencing balance updates, and how it was a stupid format that shouldn't be even a consideration when balancing the game, because ANet was spending too much time trying to fix it to be anything other than a cesspool (an opinion helped, in no small part, by the prevalence of /roll and RR). Oh yes, I remember those threads.

See above. No one took HB seriously as a competitive format, least of all other PvPers, because it was (through at least 2 separate shadow step updates) a micro-managing minigame where combat barely happened. Anet probably took it more seriously than any "real" PvPers, considering they updated so many skills with HB at least partially in mind.

Yep, you have no knowledge of Hero Battles. For one, HB was not all about sin secondaries and r/p pack hunters were around for a very long time (since 07). Long distance shadowsteps were not nerfed and Anet never spent anytime trying to fix HB. I honestly don't know why you are still posting about HB.

Quote:

Being individually famous, and getting a shitton of reward points (40 for 1st, compared to the 120 for 1st that GvG got) wasn't enough? Yeah, you got lower points than GvG, you still got way more than most individual players could hope to earn through PvP. That's not even counting the real-world prizes, which were often as not exactly the same for GvG and HB. (First page that I found, here: http://www.guildwars.com/competitive...2007/rules.php)

The reward was 1000 for HB. It's obvious that you know nothing of HB. I suggest you stop kidding yourself.

Quote:

Which brings us straight back to the old issue of "real" PvPers getting pissed whenever HBers asked for skill updates to fix their broken format.

As long as HB requires one player to fight another, it is PvP. Besides, skill updates to GvG have also affected other parts of the game (like HB).

Quote:

Oh, and just to preempt the incoming comments: I'm not continuing a 5v1 quote war. Y'all can say whatever you like, the game updates and the forum arguments that raged around HB do not back up the BS. If I have the inclination (and my search-fu is strong enough), I might edit this with a couple of links to relevant forum threads, but I doubt I'll have the urge to waste my time further tonight, so don't hold your breath. HB had a ton of problems, for a very long time, and there were many attempts at fixing them, but in the end a format that was completely different from everything offered in every other PvP format was un-balanceable. Shocker.

You must have already accepted that you are in a losing position, thank you. Fyi, there is a difference between what is said on a forum and what is happening in the game so any "sources" you may pull out (I know all of them) will not support any of your claims. Here is one for you to read which will show you that your RR claims are completely false: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/a...t=Hero+Battles

Owik Gall · May 04, 2011, 05:29 AM // 05:29

Arena probably should've removed RA instead of TA instead. Sync is never going to be fix because of codec, so might as well keep the PvP that won't be sync. On topic, Codex arena should be like the halloween games. Yes, it would take out the specialty of the holiday pvp, but it's a good game that needs to be all year round. Have a set build bar mix with hero-pvp arena play. That'll get a lot of attention.

urania · May 04, 2011, 06:32 AM // 06:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Hey, at least people still play HA. CA would be even easier to get into, considering you can just enter with whatever and get grouped.

they play it because of the shiny emote, not because of the fame gaining system.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Yeah....I said before, I loved the arena for this reason. I loved looking at a limited selection of skills and making a viable build out of it. What I don't love is the fact the population of non-organized players dropped very, very quickly, such that the only groups you were ever likely to meet were comprised of organized teams that just rolled over anyone else. If you want to have new blood to play with, you need those "newbs", you need people who are getting beaten to enjoy themselves enough to keep coming back for more. That's why people still play PUB games of CS:S (or any other FPS) even if they never break a 1:1 kill ratio, because the game is fun and there's always a chance of getting paired against someone of equal or lesser skill. If the only servers available were clan servers with 10 professional players, do you think any casual player would stick around to get headshotted 15 times in a row?

GW used to be fun, even though it wasnt perfectly balanced and was plagued by many gimmicks and other type of skill abuse. But continuous bad balance decisions and fail format removal decisions took their toll.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Yes, players need to help themselves get better, and there is very little of that in this game...but the few players who do want to get better need rungs on the ladder that are lower than "ultra competitive". They need tangible rewards for little victories, especially when they can look at RA or JQ or FA or AB and go "I could get way more there, for way less effort, and having way more fun....so why bother with this?"

that's the problem with RA, jq and fa (in terms of reward, the latter 2 outclass AB by far) - too much reward for virtually no effort in comparison to more demanding formats like CA and TA.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Bottom line: you want a format to be healthy, stop complaining that my suggestions would open up the "newb floodgates". That's the point. You'll still steamroll almost every team, you just won't be playing against the same 10 people over and over and over now.

if you want a game (format) to be healthy, you need all 3 levels of players - high end as well as utter trash and those in between. as soon as one of those is no longer present or is in decline, its only a matter of time before the arena/game in question turns to either a ghost town or a nub fest. And for that not to happen, you need a game thats worth sticking around, not a dump yard for trash balance decisions and a playground for another game.

You're forgetting that simple reward increase doesnt bypass the requirement to know the game inside out in order to get somewhere in CA.
Moreover, a healthy pvp player base has a fairly big amount of players who wish to become better, to improve and learn from their losses - those who just come for zquest or weekend farm are not it, and those just playing casually...well, if they arent competitive they have little reason to care if they keep on getting rolled to start with? they do serve as good training ground for middle level players, but if there is no more high end levels present, they wont really ever move on from that middle level to start with, nor will they feel like the game is still interesting (because there will no longer be any proper competition).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Anyway....I seriously think we're getting something to try to shock life back into CA with this upcoming PvP update. I want them to casual-ify the arena; like all of you said, it's effectively dead competitively. Let the casuals flock to the arena, and you'll be surprised, some of them are (or will get) surprisingly good at picking builds. At the very worst, you'll have players to play with again. I know I'll be there, if the format picks up.

you still dont understand - middle to high end level players gain absolutely no satisfaction from bashing on helpless casuals 24/7. I usually quit after 10-15 wins if i keep on facing trash.
you'd be surprised how horrible most players, even middle levels, nowadays are. ra synch is a bad way to l2play, im afraid.

bhavv · May 04, 2011, 11:50 AM // 11:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Owik Gall

Arena probably should've removed RA instead of TA instead. Sync is never going to be fix because of codec, so might as well keep the PvP that won't be sync. On topic, Codex arena should be like the halloween games. Yes, it would take out the specialty of the holiday pvp, but it's a good game that needs to be all year round. Have a set build bar mix with hero-pvp arena play. That'll get a lot of attention.

No way. I like RA because I can simply click on enter battle and be in a group without having to waste time to set one up, and then having everyone rage quit after.

TA was a heaven for gimmick builds, but I think it should still be in the game, and that is should have been changed to 6v6.

Ellix Cantero · May 04, 2011, 11:54 AM // 11:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

Why cant we simply have a hero arena with no capping / flagging required?

Just load up 7 hero bars and battle it out with other players. Even without any kind of title, points or leader board, this would become massively popular and most players would love it.

I did do CA for a while and I really liked it. However the complete absence of any opposing teams made me stop wasting my time.

I never understood why they didn't have some straight deathmatches in HB.

Missing HB · May 04, 2011, 12:14 PM // 12:14

If you played HB at a correct level , you would know that it was a pain usually to face a mo/w with 3 packers or 3 n/a's on 4v4... It was possible to kill , but it required a very high level of microing compared to what monk had to do....

Deathmatchs with heroes could be nice with codex arena rules in fact ( owait , isn't what Codex was supposed to be ?) and would prevent situations i mentionned since there wouldn't be 3 bars same per team

FoxBat · May 04, 2011, 01:24 PM // 13:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ellix Cantero

I never understood why they didn't have some straight deathmatches in HB.

This is pretty much how the format started, as only the morale shrine granted any morale period. It was basically spirit spam vs eles.

Skyy High · May 04, 2011, 02:09 PM // 14:09

Sorry, but this is too good to pass up:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elnino

Your evidence proves the removal of the /roll command and nothing else. We have had plenty of discussions regarding RR and it has been proven time and again that it only became widespread after Anet announced HB's removal.

B-b-b-b-bullshit. I was there, I used it for a few "RR days". The fact that /roll was widespread enough that it warranted a ban a week after the introduction of ZC days conclusively proves that people were willing to cheat the format, and honestly /roll was popular long before that, just for the title points. People sync now for title points, and you expect me to believe that they didn't fix HB matches?

Ever think that maybe, just maybe, you didn't see how widespread it was because your rank kept you from playing against the masses of low/average players who used it? Maybe the high end players were more honorable than that; more likely, they weren't happy with averaging a 50:50 win record.

Quote:

Long distance shadowsteps were not nerfed

They were nerfed to not work outside of compass range. What, you forget that? It was a big deal at the time.

Quote:

The reward was 1000 for HB. It's obvious that you know nothing of HB. I suggest you stop kidding yourself.

Not according to the link I posted. Go on, click it, scroll down; everything I posted is true. The point was that HvH got 1/3 the prizes of GvG, and roughly equivalent out-of-game prizes.

Quote:

Here is one for you to read which will show you that your RR claims are completely false: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/a...t=Hero+Battles

LOL, a thread from 2010. Y'all have been running the same sad story since the arena was removed, I already knew this, thanks.

Try this on for size: a thread from April 28th, 2009, immediately after the removal of /roll (specifically because, as the OP said, people were using it to farm the title and the ZC quests). Look at the 4th post. The 4th f***ing post!

Quote:

Originally Posted by makosi

I hear 'red resigns' is the new HB rules. If you spawn as the red team, you have to /resign. Simple.

Another genius idea from the devs!

Are you f***ing kidding me?!

Oh, btw, the 6th post confirms my suspicions as to why you think RR wasn't a big deal in the arena:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

After winning 5 matches your rating will be high enough so you won't be facing rollers anymore.

Want more? Here's more: a thread from April 2007 concerning rampant /roll-ing for title points in HB. Note that /roll-ing dropped precipitously after they added ranking (note also that I posted in this thread, stating as much, because, yes, I used to play HB)...which only really means that it dropped for people who cared enough about their rank to fight. Once people figured out they weren't going to get anywhere with ranking, they resumed /rolling for the title, it just was invisible to all you top-ranked players.

More reactions to /roll's removal. Note the posters saying it was "2 years too late". Note how different the experiences of the players who had decent rating:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simply Kedde

I just did the quest once today, before I got bored like **** from utterly retarded AI and regular boredom due to stupid objectives.

Apparently, my ~1050 rating was way too high to be matched against people who would rps for wins

were, compared to the players who had terrible ranking:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psychotic

I did the quest yesterday before the update, won two/three matches from battling and got 3 wins from people who would ask "roll?" and i'd just respond "No, I want to play." and they would instantly resign. Then one of my wins was someone who asked if I wanted to roll, then they tried to fight me but left as soon as the score was 1-0.

Oh, and yet more mentions of RR, immediately after the death of /rolling.

So....yeah, every single one of your responses was BS in some form or another. You're an HB apologist, and the facts simply do not support your position. You (and the other few people who actually played it competitively) have been repeating these stories to each other for years now, but that doesn't make them true. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you simply didn't see a lot of the craziness that was going on in HB around that time (because you were waiting for a match against a real opponent, most likely), but that's as far as I'm going.

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

that's the problem with RA, jq and fa (in terms of reward, the latter 2 outclass AB by far) - too much reward for virtually no effort in comparison to more demanding formats like CA and TA.

And look where those "demanding" formats have gone. No scalable rewards for poor players = no incentive for new players to come into your format = no new blood populating your arenas = your format dies, end of story. This is precisely why they're consolidating all competitive PvP in GW2 into 5v5 matches. Lower level matches will be random and hot-joinable, and they'll scale up to organized teams playing in official tournaments. That is how you keep fresh players playing your formats, and learning; that is why you can actually work your way up from a random PUB player into a clan player in online FPS games. This notion that new players should have to scrape and suffer in order to get anywhere does not improve the format; they should have to put effort in, and try to get better, but it should be an enjoyable process, not a constant beating that they endure until they catch a lucky break.

Missing HB · May 04, 2011, 05:06 PM // 17:06

You know , people did /roll , /rr , or whatever , but the biggest proportion of players abusing it happened after it was announced they would delete HB..... If you read at the reasons they removed HB , it was mainly because the format was "unfixable" according to them......I hope you realize how easy it would be to RR in GvG quest ( people are already doing it anyway) , but there are simply not many doing it people because there was no thread suggesting it....
Aswell , top players wouldn't be annoyed at all ( and for HB , there was no more RR around 1060 rating, which corresponded to rank 4000 lol....)....

I can remember of the players who suggested that idea to farm title at very low rank , these were Ares , Howls , and other players which were all top200 if not top30 players....

Then , people decided to use it to just make mass zkeys easily .. Guess why they didn't delete HB for it ...That's a way of farming , not bannable i guess... and i see no difference in this at the easy way of getting ectos thanks to some skills in PvE sorry.....

Anyway , you mention " new players should not have to scrape and suffer in order to get anywhere "... Isn't a format such as HB the best for those since they can play it when they want to , with no rank required , no party forming needed , having parts of competitiveness ?? Players come from PvE with their heroes , then get on PvP have to develop their tactics with heroes and that's it.... It's also a good training for GvG to be honest....

They better make something about Codex in near future ( they said they would improve PvP rewards ) and stop ignoring the format like " guys , (HB + TA)^sealed =win! " and 2 months later " lalalala what is codex ??"

*lemming* · May 04, 2011, 06:53 PM // 18:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Sorry, but this is too good to pass up:

B-b-b-b-bullshit. I was there, I used it for a few "RR days". The fact that /roll was widespread enough that it warranted a ban a week after the introduction of ZC days conclusively proves that people were willing to cheat the format, and honestly /roll was popular long before that, just for the title points. People sync now for title points, and you expect me to believe that they didn't fix HB matches?

Hero Battles is uniquely easy to abuse. It's not exactly new that ever since the title track was introduced, people have been /rolling for points. The people you've pointed out as clamoring in the update thread that red resigning is a viable alternative just happen to be the people who are less stupid.

There's a difference between people abusing it on a small scale and it being advertised publicly as an easy, harmless way to get free titles and zkeys, with hundreds of districts of people doing it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Not according to the link I posted. Go on, click it, scroll down; everything I posted is true. The point was that HvH got 1/3 the prizes of GvG, and roughly equivalent out-of-game prizes.

Yeah, 1500 RPs for 1st, ~1000 RPs for 2nd during the timeframe when finals were being thrown to make a point.

If you're good enough to make the finals of an HB monthly, 500 RPs is peanuts.