Curse

Missing HB · Dec 03, 2010, 02:21 PM // 14:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by diabiosx

People want to win, thats why rank discrimination is there. Beginners complain about it because they want to win and because they know if they play with people their level, they will not get anywhere. The problem is beginners want to win but GW wont let them due to the high learning curve. The quick fix you talk about will not change that, it will not change the inactivity of HA. There is no difficulty in getting into a group, most beginners just dont want to form r0+ because its a waste of time(will always lose) and not only that, they dont know how to because even with the existence of pvxwiki, they cant get the builds correctly. I went to my 2nd account that was unranked and i was able to form up a BBway in 10minutes.

Well idk , but then i didn't make this thread in that way. I made it because , personnaly , each time i log into HA , there are at best 15 players in id1 , and hall is usually setting sun 2 hours ago. Actually , this situation happens whole day except euro evening . I mean , if i played only at those hours i wouldn't see any problem , but you should just try play at my hours and see ....

Considering i'm not alone aswell to play at this hour , these suggestions fit then simply because there would be many teams . In fact , i hardly see how can having teams with 7 henchs wouldn't change inactivity at any hour ( no more rank discrimination and not much complaining since players would fight themselves and enter again in half sec when lose ....), since players would just take all fast and go instead of waiting 2 hours to have THE team....

But well , if people are still convinced that there's no problem at forming in HA , then it's pointless and /close plz...

superraptors · Dec 03, 2010, 02:24 PM // 14:24

pvers arent taking the initiative to get into ha, i mean our guild has a person who never ha'd before in his whole life and in about 2 weeks of ha about 3 weeks ago he got rank 5 because he was willing to learn and listen, vent helps alot whether u like it or not, he was bad and he caused a few losses and got bagged like any other person who screws up.
Really u cant blame higher ranked people for not wanting to play with bad/lower ranked people, there all a bunch of mindless drones and r9s/10s+ arent much better aswell..

descrimination has nothing to do with ha being dead...

halls needs a revamp and add dp for every single map, obviously winning/holding teams resets after every match, this would actually make ganks less effective.

anyways all games playerbases will reduce over time never increase in most situations, what do u expect from a 5+ yr old game.

Missing HB · Dec 03, 2010, 02:34 PM // 14:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by superraptors

anyways all games playerbases will reduce over time never increase in most situations, what do u expect from a 5+ yr old game.

I don't disagree but things weren't done in order to keep players though . You do realize that 3/4 of players left do only play to farm underworld/DoA. They're adding 7 heroes now because they know on long term( probably after gw2) it will be clearly impossible for players to do anything . The problem is that it should but doesn't apply for PvP , and except RA , whole PvP will probably end when gw2 release.....

Sirius Bsns · Dec 03, 2010, 02:42 PM // 14:42

If Anet cares, they'll find a way to make HA playable even after GW2 comes out. But if they don't, they'll simply leave everything as is (at a bare minimum), or possibly LOL "remove" the arena as they did TA and HB because they're apperently unafraid of deleting content they refuse to fix.

Reverend Dr · Dec 03, 2010, 07:07 PM // 19:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazello

There's another way too.

see:

Quote:

Originally Posted by diabiosx

People want to win, thats why rank discrimination is there. Beginners complain about it because they want to win and because they know if they play with people their level, they will not get anywhere. The problem is beginners want to win but GW wont let them due to the high learning curve. The quick fix you talk about will not change that, it will not change the inactivity of HA. There is no difficulty in getting into a group, most beginners just dont want to form r0+ because its a waste of time(will always lose) and not only that, they dont know how to because even with the existence of pvxwiki, they cant get the builds correctly. I went to my 2nd account that was unranked and i was able to form up a BBway in 10minutes.

What we are trying to tell you, is that there isn't another way. There are (or at least were) a lot of PvP players that left HA, not because of the difficulty of forming groups or the lengthy times between matches, but because the format is terrible. Without a change to the format, it doesn't matter what the players themselves try, it won't work.

diabiosx · Dec 03, 2010, 09:01 PM // 21:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by superraptors

anyways all games playerbases will reduce over time never increase in most situations, what do u expect from a 5+ yr old game.

WoW is 12million and counting.
Starcraft was korea's national sport and its 10years old.
People still play Quake and CS1.6 competitively.
Super Street Fighter II SUPER TURBO 20years old and people still play that competitively.

Elri · Dec 03, 2010, 09:08 PM // 21:08

i think the main problem is that the current ha population are too scared to vring in new players for fear of losing..as with the player base so small..the chance of getting a good fame run are virtually nil...so why should they jeapordise what little fame thay can get ..Ha has been destroyed..and you can only blame the developers for that

Reverend Dr · Dec 03, 2010, 09:49 PM // 21:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elri

i think ...

Well that's what you get for thinking. You are wrong.

I have brought in many new PvP players. Somewhere between 30-50. Only one plays anymore, and even then I have to catch him on AIM to convince him to log on.

Success in PvP is about two things, attitude and effort. If you don't have the effort to seek groups or form your own and instead have the attitude to bitch about current players; it doesn't matter who picks you up, you aren't going to have any success in PvP and will quit.

Lanier · Dec 03, 2010, 10:56 PM // 22:56

The biggest thing I see is that people simply dont want to play HA. It just isn't fun to them, and even if they are willing to put in the effort, it just doesn't appeal to them at all. Granted, most people I know are PvEers but still, a vast majority of the playerbase are PvEers and they arnt going to play HA if its not fun for them. Why would they?

jazilla · Dec 03, 2010, 11:08 PM // 23:08

HA's problem is the players and rank discrimination. If the ranking system was set up as something more akin to Prestiging in CoD games where you have to work at it but it doesn't take literally thousands of hours to do it would be a better system. People aren't trying to win halls as much as they are farming points. That leads to poor build set ups that don't lend themselves to competitive play for the long run, but for the short term.

There should be different prestige levels and only players in the same ranks of prestige should be allowed to group together to play against groups that are in the same prestige level as they are(just an idea, would have only worked if implemented when GW1 came out). I almost think players should be able to keep their emotes but the rank system changed to accommodate something like this. At this point in the game I would honestly be about resetting the ranks altogether to get HA back to people wanting to group together. IDK, maybe it's unfixable at this point.

I know that this isn't a perfect set up by any means, I am just trying to get the ball rolling in a direction that is more conducive to parity in play. There is ZERO parity anymore. I think the rank system was bad at how steep the curve is for attaining ranks, and that led to rank discrimination amongst the player base. I sure hope they make up a better system in GW2 that lends itself to more players being able to get in groups, thus promoting parity amongst the competitors.

Lord Mip · Dec 03, 2010, 11:52 PM // 23:52

I don't see how the rank system has brought the downfall of HA. Would more likely be caused by the format and the player base. If you'd change the title system then people would just find a new way to filter out players.

jazilla · Dec 03, 2010, 11:59 PM // 23:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Mip

I don't see how the rank system has brought the downfall of HA. Would more likely be caused by the format and the player base. If you'd change the title system then people would just find a new way to filter out players.

if the ranks didn't take so long to achieve there would be less of a filter is my point. i think a tiered system would be great too. that way supposedly like skilled players would be fighting on teams against each other. like i said though, maybe the format is busted beyond repair.

diabiosx · Dec 04, 2010, 03:56 AM // 03:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Mip

I don't see how the rank system has brought the downfall of HA. Would more likely be caused by the format and the player base. If you'd change the title system then people would just find a new way to filter out players.

yes i agree with that.

and I would like to add that rank discrimination is actually a good thing and is not the culprit of HAs inactivity: UWsc stone discrimination actually helps on the activity in ToA. B4 the intro of stones no one dared to form uwsc simply because they knew it was a waste of time since 1 person failing meant the entire group had to go back to ToA. Since the intro to the stones, PUGing UWsc was actually possible because people had something to correlate with a player's skills. Now there are NO STONE REQ groups and people always fail in those runs however it only takes 3-5runs to understand the simple tasks that each person had to perform inorder to suceed in the run. Because of this ease of learning due to UWsc's simplicity, it is a populated area.
HA on the other hand takes a VERY LONG time to be "below decent" at. and you need to take over 100runs to be at that level as a result you have to be very tolerant inorder to break through that barrier and since most people cant take that shit, they RQ for something else.

Master Fuhon · Dec 04, 2010, 05:45 AM // 05:45

I don't HA, so I'm not going to go into specifics on stuff I wouldn't know about having not paid attention to the format for the majority of the game's history. But to me, allowance of 2 players + 6 hench seems like something that could at least be done. Game designers know people often play in pairs at least, but I don't know anyone who commonly hangs around with a group of 7 anywhere in the real world outside of an already existing team or job. My closest friends in games were always DPS types of different classes (I try every class, but my primary is DPS), so I wonder if there are greater difficulties where similar people play the same classes too much and end up competing instead of playing together.

Henchmen are awful compared to experienced players, mainly because the more skilled roles are healer/melee and hench do those poorly. They might have good weapon spell reflexes, but that Infuser sometimes gets himself killed while providing most of the spike contribution upon himself, and a full prot bar isn't something AI can do. Melee heroes require the micromanagement of putting them on the right targets, but they semi-randomly assist with damage and don't coordinate or call clean spikes. Heroes were strong because they could be turned into hybrid offense/utility/defense, you could use them as part of an interrupt gimmick, and you could micro skills. Henchmen don't have these advantages.

Background story

This is not completely suggestion related so not necessary to read, but if it helps, who knows. The reason I don't HA is because I didn't HA when I started playing, and part of the HA community was worse than even the RA community (my experiences may differ from yours). I never felt like it was an end-game format, but if you were in it, I thought you were actively trying to advance out of it to not get stuck there. In the past, I believed that if you could put together an organized team of 8, you belonged in GvG, and not in a place that should be pugged when desperate. I thought of it as a place where no one was supposed to hold halls indefinitely; if you won someone was supposed to counter you, outgimmick you, or gank you and throw you out again. If you won, wasn't it supposed to be because you wanted to UW/FoW or get a Sigil or something like that? Weren't you always supposed to gank the Korean or Euro if you were American? I never considered old HA to be a competitive arena because of the uneven matching, lack of tournament support, and the fact that it once controlled PvE favor. Things have changed though (that damn RC/WoH combo that I hated so much became the GvG balance standard along with a whole lot of no-split mechanisms being added).

GvG is now shark-poacher infested waters, while HA is just shark infested. Everyone starts as a fish and tries to first become a shark, but human beings net and eat everything regardless of what you become. I see this happening with disorganized guilds like many of the ones I myself frequently join (maybe I have bad luck, but best guilds I've joined in MMOs were West Coast US oriented play times, and I'm East Coast). These guilds strategize with 1 or 2 people, log on, set build for the non-strategic types and go: this is going to get you rolled in a GvG by 5 year vets or a build you didn't hard counter. I used to go with a guild like this, and even though we were never champ range, GvG was fun enough despite having flaws and exploitation. Then I've been in other guilds, where they wanted to run the latest spike for wins and the gameplay wasn't so dynamic. HA was tough when you set up a pug and got rolled by pure offense on the early maps (IWAY or spike) and that pug would prefer to auto-disband (or rank discriminate) over discussing what changes could be made to try again. The auto-disband PuG is pervasive in every part of the game now, even in PvE; and there's always a player calling bad strat who cusses out the group and sets off a chain reaction. It was so nice to have played this game during a time people thought of the content as difficult and talked about it when they failed. Entitlement and reward seeking are higher nowadays, while commitment and discussion are lower (my pug experience over time).

My view of HA has completely changed over the years as the game changed. I think shorthanded teams need access to HA to get their PvP exposure if they really want to climb the PvP ladder to open up opportunities for themselves (it's less synchable than GvG, for now at least). I now see it as part of the pvp end-game for most disorganized groups, because even if the top players in GvG quit, they could likely beat mostly everyone in GvG playing a few times a month based on the level of game experience they currently have. On the other hand, I came back from a several month break from guild wars a few months ago, the final remnants of my friend's list had evaporated, and I gave up on rebuilding it. So rather than live in guilds of people I hadn't played with previously, or putting up with the garbage that goes on in guilds of people actively trying to climb a title ladder, I put myself in a solo guild for xunlai/merchant access and committed that I would be pugging whatever could be pugged in the game (not really an oxymoron, committing to being uncommitted). My friends are elsewhere, the community is vastly different than what the game started with, I'm older, and I'm far more casual about formats than I was before. This is a bad combination to do 8v8 PvP (irregular login times also) and I would expect more than a few people to be dealing with stuff like this nowadays (they have more motivation than I do though, motivation is very important along with attitude as everyone says).

If there's a crisis in HA, I've started to think people can no longer say "Let the format die, GvG matters more". I've been in guilds where our goals were so far from compatible. I've previously relied on Friend's List for almost everything non GvG related. My guilds, let's face it, they know how to keep a schedule, and it was fun playing the game along with them, but incompatibilities come into play eventually. Guild stuff tied with crushing foes too much begins to feel like I can have more fun elsewhere when we are only great people while crushing foes. Most guilds are also built around original friends and then other people join. My Guild Wars 'core' was always spread out, people who joined at different times, played different hours, or had personal reasons for staying in other guilds. GvG only gets harder to jump into.

If you haven't experienced it yet, it's not very enjoyable being a JQ/FA/RA player who still recalls playing an 'alive' game (fortunately I can get by not having to speed clear PvE). I say that because HA players need the rank to keep going and the drive to grind from low rank to not fall into this. I'm more looking forward to the next Costume Brawl or random holiday event, and that's partly because I never used Heroes Ascent to build up being able to casual PvP in the later years of the game. I find the format worth keeping alive based on having directly seen the consequences of not doing it, because while I dislike it, I probably would have adjusted to it eventually and viewed it more favorably than I view the current RA. At least Guild Wars has GvG observer TV though, and at least I enjoyed single player games before I ever tried MMOs.

I will say though, that most high rank discriminators belong trying out GvG against better competition, because there are always less talented players putting themselves out to be farmed to keep the game alive, but they won't be doing it forever because they realize it's a parasitic relationship. And while I despise HA, even I've gone into HA wasting more than an hour of my time (multiple times) and forming a complete pug of people just sitting there (no requested rank), knowing that the playtime would be based on experiencing embarassing losses and disbanding. But dealing with idiots who'd rather wait in an outpost for hours than face the ego bruising of losses to learn isn't worth saving. Even costume brawl is ruined by moronic types, leaving down 0-3 or hitting the resign button instead of playing, in a place where you could pull out 6-10 points in a 3v5 or even win 4v5 due to people not knowing about base bonuses, class strengths, or tactics. One quitter even boasted about his HA rank 8, despite proving he didn't have what it takes in the face of PvE casuals 'competition' when he requested his teammates join him in cowardly resignation. So if you are genuinely doing a format for selfish rank/title farm, and not for fun or for challenge or to climb the pvp ladder: I'm not defending your gameplaying preferences nor would I ever want to be misinterpreted as doing so.

Azazello · Dec 04, 2010, 06:00 AM // 06:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by diabiosx

People want to win

Can't win if you can't play. Can't play if there's not enough players.

People are right here in this thread saying they'd like to play but can't get into a team with any shot of winning, so they don't. The solution could not possibly be any more obvious.

To be perfectly honest, constantly repeating the reasons why rank discrimination exists is making a few of you look a little silly. Everyone knows why it exists. We know there are good reasons for it. It's up to you whether those reasons matter so much that you'll give up HA entirely rather than actively try to get new people playing it.

It's so odd that I even have to point this out. You need new players. You don't want to bring in new players. I think we've discovered the problem.

helloeveryone · Dec 04, 2010, 06:56 AM // 06:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazello

To be perfectly honest, constantly repeating the reasons why rank discrimination exists is making a few of you look a little silly. Everyone knows why it exists. We know there are good reasons for it.

It's so odd that I even have to point this out. You need new players. You don't want to bring in new players. I think we've discovered the problem.

Yep agreed, and having to constantly repeat the reason that HA can't get new players is simply due to rank discrimination and child-like snobbish of majority of the HA players is getting boring.

Missing HB · Dec 04, 2010, 08:34 AM // 08:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by helloeveryone

Yep agreed, and having to constantly repeat the reason that HA can't get new players is simply due to rank discrimination and child-like snobbish of majority of the HA players is getting boring.

Well , tbh i'm now starting to more likely get convinced by your points of views . Every solution suggested is either answered by " nah this sucked in the past " , " nah i wanna win " , " nah it won't change anything " . Players mentality is just terrible .. I don't know in fact if those mentality along the years made them decide to not code anything in some places....

There are obvious solutions suggested along this thread but anyway , people just wanna go on farming with their bbway or bala on dead hours and don't care enough so there is no point...

Azazello · Dec 04, 2010, 01:31 PM // 13:31

I wouldn't hold my breath for a dev driven solution btw. Anything that doesn't help get new players through the door will not change a thing. Asking for all new maps, rebalancing, and converting the format to 6v6 again is a massive request to make of four people, especially when it only helps a tiny fraction of the population. Besides which, converting to 6v6 is really just a bandaid, and not a very effective one. Aside from the fact that it only adds one team for every three you already had, people still quit, still no new blood entering, next you'll need 4v4.

If they do decide they want to dedicate dev time to making HA more active, I can see it being something more like Aceholes suggestion. Perhaps taking the average rank of each team and never matching teams who differ by too much. Sadly, it wouldn't help any of you find games more easily if you wanted to stay with your regular crews. In fact it would be harder. It just gets rid of the entry barrier for new players. It would work too I think. You tell new players they'll never have to fight more experienced teams, they can get a high enough hero rank for their hom etc, and they'll flock there in droves. I'd quite enjoy observing crippleface mcpvpfail's team holding halls during primetime too.

It's open to alt abuse certainly, but if you're bringing r0 alts to farm newbies, you're not going to be r0 for long. It's self correcting. Same with people who start 'lf g6+'. They'll get their team together, roll over the newer players, and find themselves playing against more experienced HA players in no time. The more success you have, the more challenging it gets. People who try to make it easy on themselves in the short run will just get to the more difficult stages where they belong that little bit faster. It might even stimulate demand. While I have to wonder at the mentality of anyone who would keep spending real money on an entire teams worth of accounts just to grief newbies for a few hours of play, I know they're out there

You have to keep in mind, a lot of you guys are pretty abrasive towards anet. I would be surprised if anyone on the team thinks of HA regulars as their favourite customers, and they don't owe you anything except the box you paid for. If you want this fixed, I'd say you need to start thinking about how you're going to fix it, not ask them to do it for you.

diabiosx · Dec 04, 2010, 04:10 PM // 16:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazello

Can't win if you can't play. Can't play if there's not enough players.

People are right here in this thread saying they'd like to play but can't get into a team with any shot of winning, so they don't. The solution could not possibly be any more obvious.

To be perfectly honest, constantly repeating the reasons why rank discrimination exists is making a few of you look a little silly. Everyone knows why it exists. We know there are good reasons for it. It's up to you whether those reasons matter so much that you'll give up HA entirely rather than actively try to get new people playing it.

It's so odd that I even have to point this out. You need new players. You don't want to bring in new players. I think we've discovered the problem.

Again there are enough players to form a group. There are a bunch of unranked players sitting in ID1, you can form with them in a matter of minutes. Again like I said the reason why people dont is because its a waste of time, you go in, you get owned in UW and the group disbands. So FORMing or JOINing a group is not the problem. DENYing that its easy to form/join a group is silly. The problem is even the scrubs, the unranked, the complete noobs want to form a group that is capable of getting fame.
"I am rank0, i dont want to form or join with other rank 0s because they wont win UW, I want to get into a r6+ group because then I have a chance to get some fame." That is the mentality that is killing HA.

So its
Cant win because you are noob NOT Cant win if you cant play
And its
Can't play because I wont play with other scrubs NOT Can't play if there's not enough players.

Reverend Dr · Dec 04, 2010, 04:23 PM // 16:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazello

To be perfectly honest, constantly repeating the reasons why rank discrimination exists is making a few of you look a little silly. Everyone knows why it exists. We know there are good reasons for it. It's up to you whether those reasons matter so much that you'll give up HA entirely rather than actively try to get new people playing it.

It's so odd that I even have to point this out. You need new players. You don't want to bring in new players. I think we've discovered the problem.

To be perfectly honest, constantly repeating that rank discrimination is the problem is making a few of you look a little silly.

I'm sick of acting like a broken record for those of you that can't read.

I have brought in new players. Most PvP players have at some point. Those players don't stay around. Why? In most cases the moment you stop holding their hand, they quit. Initiative must be taken on the new players part; even with guidance, they must make strides on their own and most people are too lazy to do this.

So what's left? Every idea for how the players themselves can change the arena has already failed. What's left?