Curse

Homsar · Jan 29, 2007, 03:46 PM // 15:46

All this reminds me of a simple thing we all miss, and wonder why its gone.

UPDATE WEDNESDAY

Where did it go?
Why did it stop?

While I thank Gaile for finally saying SOMETHING for the people upstairs, all this just baffles me sometimes when i think about how GW used to skill balance almost WEEKLY, fix bugs WEEKLY. Now things are so spread out, bugs stay in game for weeks, months. It all makes me wonder, what happened? Why does a game that used to fix everything as soon as it was broke or gave us something new on time (sorrows furnace), suddenly have Perma-migraine on them to get things done. Somehow i feel the attitude in the Anet office has changed from working 90 weeks just to keep us happy, to OMG we have to get Chapter 4 out ASAP when in reality we dont need more stuff, we want the stuff we have to be better.

Its a simple buisness concept, if you expand to quickly and too much, you often experience losses. Im sure i speak for a lot of the PvP community when when we say, we dont need more skills, new guild halls, new ladder seasons, we just want the game we love to be restored to what it was before this game expanded itself so much that people are going out to buy shovels for its grave.

So i say this: get this game balanced again, fix whats broken, make pvp fun again, and worry about everything else later. Chapter 4 can wait, fix what we have now first.

Thank you.

Alleji · Jan 29, 2007, 04:14 PM // 16:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by drekmonger

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.

Extremely silly? If you actually played HA and understood how it worked, it wouldn't seem that silly. How would you like GvG to be changed to 6v6 and VoD time reduced to 8 minutes? That's exactly what anet did to halls, so please don't judge the HA community for bitching at them.

On the "wasted effort" part, I agree, though. Anet is trying to do some useless crap to halls instead of admitting they up and reverting HA to the way it was a year ago.

Alex Weekes · Jan 29, 2007, 05:19 PM // 17:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alleji

Extremely silly? If you actually played HA and understood how it worked, it wouldn't seem that silly. How would you like GvG to be changed to 6v6 and VoD time reduced to 8 minutes? That's exactly what anet did to halls, so please don't judge the HA community for bitching at them.

On the "wasted effort" part, I agree, though. Anet is trying to do some useless crap to halls instead of admitting they up and reverting HA to the way it was a year ago.

8v8 vs 6v6 is something the devs are still looking at, please do be aware of that.

I do, however, want to comment on why other changes are also being looked at. As much as we've seen complaints about 8v8 vs 6v6, there's also historically been a lot of criticism from players about the Altar-capping maps, as especially the issue of "Holding Builds" in halls.

Any change back to 8v8 won't simply cure HA. Team size is not the only HA issue that the community has made us aware of.

The team learned a lot from your feedback during the testing weekend. This weekend you'll be able to test an updated HA and provide even further feedback on the changes. Objective comments about team size are welcome as well, as part of a whole feedback about what you like and what you do not.

Grolubao · Jan 29, 2007, 05:21 PM // 17:21

Alex, can you please clarify us a bit about the actual GvG guidelines? Will the rank count for anything for the tournaments?

Morgan Crowe · Jan 29, 2007, 05:39 PM // 17:39

I'd love to have the old laddersystem back. I hate GvG at the moment, you're just playing against bad guilds - even if those bad guilds are playing in the top100 - or you lose against really good ones. So in fact, it's quite hard to get rating. Yesterday we won 4 GvGs and then we lost against a top100 guild - okay, don't worry - go ahead. We were facing a guild about rank700 - so it was very easy to beat 'em.
At last we lost because one player had an error while he was connectin' and there's no possibility to cancel, if the counter has started - sux btw. So the GvG started and another player had an error ... -3...

What I'm trying to say is that it is impossible to find worthy opponents and those +2, -3 rating isn't really fair. I'm not happy with this situation... so bring back the old system and start the ladder without freeze when the tournaments are running.

so far. - btw excuse my bad english :/

Lodurr · Jan 29, 2007, 07:05 PM // 19:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morgan Crowe

I'd love to have the old laddersystem back. I hate GvG at the moment, you're just playing against bad guilds - even if those bad guilds are playing in the top100 - or you lose against really good ones. So in fact, it's quite hard to get rating. Yesterday we won 4 GvGs and then we lost against a top100 guild - okay, don't worry - go ahead. We were facing a guild about rank700 - so it was very easy to beat 'em.
At last we lost because one player had an error while he was connectin' and there's no possibility to cancel, if the counter has started - sux btw. So the GvG started and another player had an error ... -3...

What I'm trying to say is that it is impossible to find worthy opponents and those +2, -3 rating isn't really fair. I'm not happy with this situation... so bring back the old system and start the ladder without freeze when the tournaments are running.

so far. - btw excuse my bad english :/

The whole changeover was poorly managed IMO. Because of a bad estimate of when it would be ready, the whole GvG community is stuck with a broken ladder system for two months.

Instead of waiting three weeks in purgatory for the new ATs, how about a quick fun season with the old ladder system? Something to keep the competitive spirit of GvGs fresh.

Vital · Jan 29, 2007, 07:07 PM // 19:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alleji

How would you like GvG to be changed to 6v6 and VoD time reduced to 8 minutes?

Oh good lord, don't give them any ideas. I used to Tombs/HA quite a bit, now GvG is the Alamo for me.

I liked the points Homsar made about fixing chapters 1-3 before pushing out a chapter 4. These points go for PvE also. Clean up the current game and then give the community a quality - balanced chapter 4.

Also give us honest, knowledgeable, and less "hush-hush" public relations. There is a way to satisfy the customer without giving away trade secrets and such.

Lord Master · Jan 29, 2007, 08:50 PM // 20:50

I agree with Bio-Flame, competitive GvG is simply ''sinking'', maybe I didn't quiet understand the components of the tournaments, will they reflect on the ladder, e.g. Guild X wins tournament Y and gains Z rating points in the ladder? If so then you will need to give over 40 rating as prizes, because some guilds are simply grinding the ladder and therefore no change for ''normal'' gamers...

If there isn't a drastic change in the way this AT update is going ( or where i believe its going) Anet will suffer as many competitive guilds will leave the game, at least, I won't be playing at the same level as guild X and because they play 10 hours a day, I can't reach them ... -_- .

Skill balancing is not so important, ok change Spoil Victor, SF, etc, but we want AT or another positive change which will allow the guilds who don't play 10 hours a day to achieve top of the ladder and compete with extreme guilds, for example how can QQ not be in top5?! Oh, yeah, top5 is reserved for Ladder Farmers.

I think the solutions are: either making the ladder not important and only the AT will count or introducing a revolutionary gaming division, such as Division A (rank1-50), division 2 (51-100), and top/bottom 10-15 will go up/down division, during divisions games are scheduled so teams do 50 gvg's per Season. Ok I am being unrealistic, but AT seem like a pre-disaster, first the problem of time will still exist, there are little guilds who are willing to play 3-4 hours every day in a tournament style.... :|

I really hope Anet can own me and all other users who forsee this update as the destruction of competitive gvg and making it exclusively for guilds with a lot of time, another solution i remenbered, would be to reset the ladder like old-school gvg system and restrict GvG's to 10 per day or something... because 25 gvg's per day is just pure grinding....

Let's hope Anet can pull a magic trick when the pressure is evident, eventhough I don't think this will happen...

, but anyways there isn't yet enough information to forsee the AT's so I'll just keep waiting and hoping it will be a successful change

Bankai · Jan 29, 2007, 09:14 PM // 21:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Chimpster

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.

You're not supposed to climb the ladder with such a record.

I can only suggest you to change the times you GVG at. Try experimenting. During the 'rush' hour, you have a much bigger chance to meet guilds around the same rank.

Bio-Flame · Jan 29, 2007, 09:22 PM // 21:22

I too fear that the ATs will be for people with loads of time on their hands....

Lord Master · Jan 29, 2007, 09:30 PM // 21:30

Did Anet make a mistake and screwed up all their update plans? Are they gona leave us in a crappy ladder full of farmers, if I wanted to farm then I would go to Droknars Forge and farm Trolls...

Bring competitive play back and not time fighter tactic... guilds with 250+ games...

I think we have the right to know exactly what Anet is doing this is not Xmas event and we are not waiting for fun surprises, we are constantly blinded by Anet's response, ''something came up'', bla bla bla, tell us what is going on, did you make a mistake? are you chilling? ... we need some GOOD modifications for a change! 8v8 in HA and good GvG system, and stop delaying, this is not the PS3 release, we should be informed about the reality, not ''in a couple of weeks''...

Vital · Jan 29, 2007, 10:06 PM // 22:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Master

Did Anet make a mistake and screwed up all their update plans? Are they gona leave us in a crappy ladder full of farmers, if I wanted to farm then I would go to Droknars Forge and farm Trolls...

Bring competitive play back and not time fighter tactic... guilds with 250+ games...

I think we have the right to know exactly what Anet is doing this is not Xmas event and we are not waiting for fun surprises, we are constantly blinded by Anet's response, ''something came up'', bla bla bla, tell us what is going on, did you make a mistake? are you chilling? ... we need some GOOD modifications for a change! 8v8 in HA and good GvG system, and stop delaying, this is not the PS3 release, we should be informed about the reality, not ''in a couple of weeks''...

Q to the F to the T !!!

lennymon · Jan 29, 2007, 10:13 PM // 22:13

Ok, while I'm not in a gvg guild or HA currently (mine sorta pre evolved the other way), this is getting stupid. Alex and Gaile have gone out of their way to do the right thing, told you what they know and what they can... quit frikken whining about the system, they know... If people leave they leave, its sad, but they'll either come back or they wont. Que sera sera... Shikataganai...
They want it fixed too, and they want to fix it so that we're ALL happy. Constructive criticism in the proper thread will of course have more weight than all the heart rending stories of loss and sadness. Demanding results? I'll just laugh, don't be ridiculous. Anet knows, anet wants to make it the best they can (yes enlightnened self interest) help them make it better for all of us instead of wasting band width. Flame me all you want, but I'm right... and you know it... and it'll just prove Im right.

moriz · Jan 29, 2007, 10:17 PM // 22:17

sometimes, the best thing to do is to give anet a huge boot in the rear.

get to work. stop playing WoW.

lennymon · Jan 29, 2007, 10:22 PM // 22:22

heh... I wanna job where I get paid to play wow all day (its about the only way I'd play it actually)

Bio-Flame · Jan 29, 2007, 10:34 PM // 22:34

We have a right to complain! The game has been slowly dieing for SEVERAL months now....

What do you expect us to do? To complain AFTER the game dies?
Duh

lennymon · Jan 29, 2007, 11:57 PM // 23:57

sure, you have a god given right to whine.... not my issue, dont care, expecting it to have a positive impact IS my point. Im suggesting that the pvp community as a whole try to drive the change in the direction they want. I've seen people complain about anet 'listening to the whiners'. It could be that a minority of people complained because they didn't like some change, and none of the majority who liked it said anything constructive. From reading the skill balance feedbacks threads and the feedback for HA forums there are a lot of people on one side or the other regarding the changes, and this is a HUGE step in the right direction GG anet for asking for a feedback forum. What I'm suggesting is make your voices heard, make new threads say the same thing somebody (or a hundred somebodies said). Make gvg specific skills threads and make everyone in your guild speak up there... Im just saying make your voice count for something, instead of just thinking 'oh great, more whining about a skill that now works more like it should', reply to those posts.

DreamWind · Jan 30, 2007, 12:01 AM // 00:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Weekes

I do, however, want to comment on why other changes are also being looked at. As much as we've seen complaints about 8v8 vs 6v6, there's also historically been a lot of criticism from players about the Altar-capping maps, as especially the issue of "Holding Builds" in halls.

Holding builds are in existence because the ultimate objective of HA is to hold an altar for 4 minutes. It isn't because of altars in themselves, but the fact that HoH is an altar. From my experiences, people didn't have a huge problem with altars, but instead the fact that skills weren't balanced around it (song of concentration is one example).

The fix to the problem is to keep altars, but make a map AFTER HoH or change the final objective to something other than holding. Oh and 8v8.
----
But back to the subject at hand. I think the current ladder is even more of a joke than any ladder in history to be honest. It is even MORE grindy than it ever has been before, because your wins and losses count for almost nothing. The team that plays the most games has a huge advantage. At least in the old ladder you could get a couple wins against higher ranked guilds and have a good day. Now, it almost doesn't even matter who you play. It just matters that you win. The K rating it way too low.

Add to the fact that the ladder is meaningless. No prize, no points towards a championship, no nothing. All it shows is who grinded out the most wins. Also, tournaments were announced way too early. Everybody was expecting them to already be implemented, but now we may have to wait another month. I think the whole ladder/tournament transition is bieng poorly done. GvG seems worthless at the moment.

Also, although nobody has seen them yet, I think tournaments are going to be a bit of a headache. First of all, the 30 day rule is way too long. Secondly, an entire group of 8 people are going to have to log on at given tournament times. And most importantly, they are going to have to spend potentially all day or all night playing in it to win. In a game such as Magic the Gathering (which this whole new system is based on), only one person plays in a tournament and makes the choice to play all day. In a game like Guild Wars where you need 8 players to play all day, it is going to be almost impossible for most guilds.

I guess we will have to wait and see how it turns out. I do think this update is coming very slowly and I know work is being done on it, so thanks to Anet reps for responding.

aeroclown · Jan 30, 2007, 12:22 AM // 00:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bio-Flame

We have a right to complain! The game has been slowly dieing for SEVERAL months now....

What do you expect us to do? To complain AFTER the game dies?
Duh

You are absolutely right, you do have a right to complain, but you don't have a right to tell a someone how to do their job. You all want changes and you want them now, it just simply does not, never has, and never will work that way.

Development processes are slow even when you grind a 90 hour work week to meet a deadline, you guys have to remember that these guys are people to, they are not your [insert], to be made to do your biding. Very often deadlines get pushed and features get pushed further down the line along with them. Why?! Because let's face it, anyone that has had any experience in development much less game development (which is more often then not much more difficult) knows that very often things simply do not sort them self out as you plan them. Very often simple changes become complex, involved projects requiring far more research and development then you had ever thought you would need. If you complain be constructive, there is no point in making a complaint just to make one, it really doesn't make a point stronger and doesn't help an already stressed situation or an already stressed staff.

Schorny · Jan 30, 2007, 12:40 AM // 00:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

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.

The problem isn't that you have announced something without telling details. The problem is you have implemented half of the system already.

GvG at the moment is broken. That is why we are disappointed. We are not awaiting some amazing new feature, we just want a system that works to some extend.

The Information you are giving is a bit sparse but so far not too bad. But please, never ever again implement a feature before you are finished designing it.