Curse

Vital · Jan 27, 2007, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Daily Automated Tournaments -Posted Dec 22nd on guildwars.com
This is the first big change coming up, most likely in late January. Instead of having to spend hours playing lots of matches to climb the GvG ladder, it will all come down to how your guild does in actual tournament play.

It's late January! It's been 36 Days since Arena Net has shared any valid information on this project with the general Guild Wars community. GvG, the last hope for competitive PvP in Guild Wars has been held hostage by the lack of information on the progress of the proposed new format and it's rules.

I am challenging the people who take GvG seriously to take these matters up with Arena Net. I am not going to throw any email addresses out but Michael Gills is in charge of this project and Gaile Gray is our Community Relations Manager. Gaile can be contacted fairly easy and should be able to forward any 411 on to Michael.

Thanks

DreamWind · Jan 27, 2007, 08:16 PM // 20:16

I love Anet but this is typical of them. Waiting so long to release big game updates.

Vital · Jan 27, 2007, 08:21 PM // 20:21

From recent thread, thanks to Billiard for the 411:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billiard

They are going to be delayed. Izzy said they know how much the PvP folks have been anticipating them and they want to get them out as soon as possible, but some things have come up and I was hearing into February at least. I asked to get some more hard info out to players about the tournaments and he said they are working on it, but no promises on anything. There is a lot going on behind the scenes it seems with this.

Grolubao · Jan 28, 2007, 06:05 AM // 06:05

Damn, can't wait for the changes to come. I'm at rank 78 and it's basically impossible to reach Cow

Alleji · Jan 28, 2007, 06:41 AM // 06:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grolubao

Damn, can't wait for the changes to come. I'm at rank 78 and it's basically impossible to reach Cow

Cow just grinds 25 wins per day. Not like there's extraordinary skill involved... some, yes, but first and foremost, it's just grind in the current ladder system. More so than the ladder we used to have.

I have no idea why anet does things the way they do... they should've let us play in the old ladder until they were ready with their goddamn update and then reset + change it with the update. This way we're stuck without ladder and without tournaments till March.

Vital · Jan 28, 2007, 07:40 PM // 19:40

37 Days and counting...

The old ladder system should have stayed in play until an updated system was in place.

Although Champ Points are not an indicator of true skill, they still raise your faction cap. It would be nice to be playing for them at the moment.

Right now the only thing that can be proven as highly probable is that ANet has dropped the ball, will not confess to the blunder, does not have the resources to fix the problem, and is trying to buy time with really crappy articles about PvP on guildwars.com.

If anyone at ANet would like to challenge the "highly probable", please be my guest!

Esprit · Jan 28, 2007, 07:59 PM // 19:59

It's not February yet, don't have a Cow.

Gaile Gray · Jan 28, 2007, 08:16 PM // 20:16

Hi, there,

There is no need to send emails to ArenaNet to let us know of your interest in and desire for these changes and improvements. So if that's what the OP was suggesting, don't worry about it, we hear ya!

There are many people who need to get involved in getting this feature on board: Programmers, designers, the tournament coordinator, and more. Unfortunately, some of these folks are double- and triple-tasked with other updates and game improvements, and that means there has been a delay in rolling out these features.

We are committed to making these changes, but quite honestly, it will not be possible to do that for at least a few weeks. We were excited to tell you about the upcoming changes, but in retrospect it may have been better to wait to announce until we had a clearer timeline so as to avoid any disappointment in the time that it is taking to implement the features. It's not always a clear call on what to announce: We want to be as informative as possible about what we have coming, so that you have time to think about and plan for the new features. But there are times, like this, when the timeline needs to be extended to allow team members to work on other important elements of the game. So we apologize for any disappointment that such situations cause and we'll see if we can get a more defined timeline for automated tournaments. As soon as we have some solid information we'll definitely post to let you know!!

Vital · Jan 28, 2007, 08:46 PM // 20:46

Thank you Gaile, your response is appreciated.

My company was over 6 months late rolling out a company wide software suite because of the exact reasons you mentioned. It is common when the project is not micromanaged to extremes. I understand the internal problems that arise on such cross departmental projects.

I am less worried about the release date, and more worried about the lack of information we have been given. Many hardcore GvG'ers are close to throwing in the towel out of frustration, many already have...5 weeks is way too long to not have any new information about the future of GvG. So many people love Guild Wars just for GvG.

It is my belief that if the GvG community is given fluid information and promises you will see the migration stop and perhaps reverse.

Thanks again.

Burst Cancel · Jan 28, 2007, 09:18 PM // 21:18

The problem right now isn't the gap between announcement and implementation, it's the fact that the ladder was reset and modified without implementing the tournament. The term for this kind of update is "half-assed". The ladder is a farce in its current form, because what matters the most right now is grinding out as many wins as you can. Since the ladder has been redesigned such that non-tournament games have relatively little impact on your ladder ranking, the system places all emphasis on farming, much more so than the old system. Right now it hardly matters who you win/lose against; the raw number of wins/losses is what counts.

Billiard · Jan 28, 2007, 10:10 PM // 22:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

The problem right now isn't the gap between announcement and implementation, it's the fact that the ladder was reset and modified without implementing the tournament. The term for this kind of update is "half-assed". The ladder is a farce in its current form, because what matters the most right now is grinding out as many wins as you can. Since the ladder has been redesigned such that non-tournament games have relatively little impact on your ladder ranking, the system places all emphasis on farming, much more so than the old system. Right now it hardly matters who you win/lose against; the raw number of wins/losses is what counts.

Actually I disagree with this assessment. Izzy talked about the ladder reset some and they were aware that a lot of people were concerned about the changes. If you have read all the discussion concerning ELO systems, the way the ladder was being run before with constant resents was not how ELOs are designed to work. Basically you need a lot of samples (i.e. games played) by a team in order for it's rating to normalize at it's "true" level. This was discussed many months ago when ANet shifted to the shorter seasons. So by going to a historical ladder that would no longer reset, they have brought the system back to where it was designed to be. And by lowering the K-value, they have actually decrease the incentive for teams to just farm rating so they could farm champion points, mostly because there are not enough other teams out there who are 1200+ yet. So yes there are some teams farming now, but not near as many as there would be if the K values were much higher. Instead a lot of teams seem to be waiting for the tournaments to come out before getting serious again.

So while I agree that getting the tournament info out and getting the tournaments going soon is very important, I don't think changing the ladder when they did was so bad, except perhaps for people who want to farm champion points.

Brother Andicus · Jan 28, 2007, 11:50 PM // 23:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billiard

Actually I disagree with this assessment. Izzy talked about the ladder reset some and they were aware that a lot of people were concerned about the changes. If you have read all the discussion concerning ELO systems, the way the ladder was being run before with constant resents was not how ELOs are designed to work. Basically you need a lot of samples (i.e. games played) by a team in order for it's rating to normalize at it's "true" level. This was discussed many months ago when ANet shifted to the shorter seasons. So by going to a historical ladder that would no longer reset, they have brought the system back to where it was designed to be. And by lowering the K-value, they have actually decrease the incentive for teams to just farm rating so they could farm champion points, mostly because there are not enough other teams out there who are 1200+ yet. So yes there are some teams farming now, but not near as many as there would be if the K values were much higher. Instead a lot of teams seem to be waiting for the tournaments to come out before getting serious again.

So while I agree that getting the tournament info out and getting the tournaments going soon is very important, I don't think changing the ladder when they did was so bad, except perhaps for people who want to farm champion points.

I agree that it is good that they have now decided to run the ladder as ELO was designed to be run, but to do so without a full range of K value in place was foolish. Yes in the long term, it is a good thing, but it does mean that in the short term the only thing the ladder promotes is pure grinding. If you are willing to run 5 SF eles in the off peak times you are guaranteed success at the moment. Add that to the complete ineptitude surrounding the state of balance since the release of NF, and all you have is widescale frustration.

Burst Cancel · Jan 29, 2007, 02:12 AM // 02:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billiard

Actually I disagree with this assessment. Izzy talked about the ladder reset some and they were aware that a lot of people were concerned about the changes. If you have read all the discussion concerning ELO systems, the way the ladder was being run before with constant resents was not how ELOs are designed to work. Basically you need a lot of samples (i.e. games played) by a team in order for it's rating to normalize at it's "true" level. This was discussed many months ago when ANet shifted to the shorter seasons. So by going to a historical ladder that would no longer reset, they have brought the system back to where it was designed to be. And by lowering the K-value, they have actually decrease the incentive for teams to just farm rating so they could farm champion points, mostly because there are not enough other teams out there who are 1200+ yet. So yes there are some teams farming now, but not near as many as there would be if the K values were much higher. Instead a lot of teams seem to be waiting for the tournaments to come out before getting serious again.

So while I agree that getting the tournament info out and getting the tournaments going soon is very important, I don't think changing the ladder when they did was so bad, except perhaps for people who want to farm champion points.

(emphasis mine)

I don't care about champion points, and I was under the impression that top GvG players don't either. What I'm talking about right now is the ladder ranking system itself, independant of farming for champion points. Also, I don't say anywhere that I think the old system is superior. My problem with the current implementation is that only half of the intended changes were put in place, and as a result we have a meaningless ladder system that nobody except the farmers are interested in playing with.

The part of your statement that I emphasized is the natural result of a ladder that is based on farming, so the fact that so many teams are waiting it out (which is something I observed as well) only strengthens my point. The bottom line is that the current ladder system is a reflection of raw win/loss ratio, without taking the skill of the opposing team into account. It doesn't really matter if Team A is strictly better than Team B; if Team B plays significantly more games, they will easily have a higher rating than Team A.

The end result is that serious teams are either a) farming the ladder or b) waiting it out. Neither is good.

drekmonger · Jan 29, 2007, 09:09 AM // 09:09

Telling people about the (potential) automated tournaments was a good thing. Elicits feedback. Implementing step one without step two was a bad thing.

Quote:

the timeline needs to be extended to allow team members to work on other important elements of the game.

I know that I'm almost entirely clueless as to what goes on at a.net's offices. As it should be. But I have a sinking feeling the "other important elements" might have included HA's facelift.

The bulk of HA's population is gone. Moved on. It's not going to get any worse than it is right now for HA. The few (but vocal) players still attached to that corpse don't want a facelift -- they just want their old 8v8 back and have fixated on the (extremely silly) team size issue to the degree that nothing else will satisfy them.

Development of HA is probably wasted effort, unless it somehow draws in a whole new crop of players. Unlikely outcome unless there's dramatic changes we haven't seen yet to make the mode more inclusive.

It can get worse for GvG. It is getting worse, as I see (just from my tiny corner of the universe) GvG players sitting out or defecting to other games.

It can't get any worse for my pet PvP mode Hero vs. Hero either. The strange reward mechanic has killed that particular mode via encouraging /rollers. So, sadly, GvG is what's left, all that's left, for serious PvP.

Bankai · Jan 29, 2007, 09:14 AM // 09:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

We are committed to making these changes, but quite honestly, it will not be possible to do that for at least a few weeks. We were excited to tell you about the upcoming changes, but in retrospect it may have been better to wait to announce until we had a clearer timeline so as to avoid any disappointment in the time that it is taking to implement the features.

Yes, you definately should. This is happening way too often. (Ok, not really way too often, but similar thinks. First you open a new discussion for people to bitch about [for example, the 'brand new holiday storage'] without giving any details [or a few]. Lots of people will bitch about it with the wrong ideas.)

I hate threads with an eye-catcher in the title.

Grolubao · Jan 29, 2007, 10:22 AM // 10:22

The thing is that we need to know if the rank will mater for anything, like if the rank will mater for the determination of who plays with who, much like swiss rounds in MtG.

My guild wanted to test some other builds besides the one we play but at the rank we are now (69) we can't afford losing some games because otherwise it would catapult us to 100- rank, and if the rank will mater for anything it would ruin all our work.

The Chimpster · Jan 29, 2007, 10:59 AM // 10:59

I come from a non-hardcore GvG team. We do well relatively speaking and usually maintain a 500-1000 rank most of the time. I don't see that changing any time soon with the current system.

When we beat someone rank 2000 odd, we get +2 points (hardly a challenge), when we beat someone rank 500 odd we get +2 points (A big challenge). When we lose to rank 7 we lose -2 points (complete whooping). As a result, we're not advancing on the ladder at all despite us due to our rating never really changing all that much. We get to about 1004 rating points, come up against rank 10-20 and lose horribly. The process seems to repeat itself over and over again.

In the old system, we could beat decent opposition, get a load of rating points from it, lose to a high rank guild and still come out with a positive rank increase - as it should be.

The way it should be setup at the moment is in leagues. The top players should be in league 1 and only play each other. Each week/month the bottom 10 or so could be demoted to the next league down with the top 10 from the lower league being promoted. Doesn't really matter how many leagues you have, at least it would work with a standard reward (+2) system and ensure fair matchups (albeilt fewer prehaps). The tornies could then co-incide with that, prehaps giving promotion spots for the winners.

At least then low ranked teams have the chance to work their way through the leagues until they get to a standard where they plateu so to speak. Once they get to that point, they face simmilar opposition, fair matches (good matches too I bet) and the chance to improve.

I appriciate that changes take time, but currently, GvG is going no-where fast and no-one has anything to work toward.

Grolubao · Jan 29, 2007, 11:21 AM // 11:21

The Chimpster, altough what you say ideally is correct, it wouldn't work nice in that way, because most of the times top guilds couldn't play because there weren't any other top guild out there.

Anyway, I believe something must be done. Last night we played against another guild that only brought 3 people + 3 heroes and one of them were lvl 16 and the other two were lvl 7. Sigh...

Vital · Jan 29, 2007, 02:30 PM // 14:30

Captains Log...whooo, wait wtf.

Last night two of the [OUT] core decided to hang it up until the GvG system is fixed. I can't blame them as they stated that GvG has no real satisfaction at the moment and after waiting for more than a month they feel that ANet bailed on them. So gg ANet, thanks. You can see what the lack of information does to people who love an aspect of the game so much.

Luckily our guild has overstocked on good players, but you can imagine how frustrating it must be for guilds trying to get 8-10 dedicated players when the reward is so little and nobody can tell said guild when to expect to schedule for these auto tourneys (is it 2 hours or 4 hours, 7pm CST or 9pm CST etc.). Not to mention the absolutely absurd 30 day waiting period for guild changes, please change this to a manageable 14 days FFS.

P.S. Send that Scribe dude to "teh isle of auto tourneys" to get some 411.

Bio-Flame · Jan 29, 2007, 02:57 PM // 14:57

Gayle: the problem is that you guys told us there was going to be a game balance but you kept delaying it forever and ever + we also have a meaningless ladder.

Nobody is going to try new builds (and in fact nobody has tried new stuff for quite some time now) because it's just a waste of time since all skills will change.
Also, nobody likes to play a meaningless ladder.....which also has the HUGE problem that it encourages grinding.

Most guilds have now realized that until the ATs come there is NO way to reach COW and vD.....unless you outgrind them (>25 games/day).
So there is no point to try to catch them because you can't make it. Also there is no point TRYING to catch them since the ladder doesn't count for nothing.
And like I said previously, there's no point designing new builds and strategies because a game balance is coming (we're expecting it for months now).

So, all of this is Killing competitive GvG. It started when Eurospike appeared and it has been getting worse.
Competitive GvG feels like a pond with no new source of water and no source of oxygen.....it's all stagnant water..and it stinks.

See, thing is, EVEN if ANET does this new game balance, all the problems I've mentioned will still exist - meaningless grinding ladder .

ANET needs to change things VERY fast, and the skill balance will not make it alone.