Curse

wuzzman · Dec 03, 2007, 12:20 AM // 00:20

The problem with HA is not about r9 vs r0 or even thumpway vs balanced, it is about Pug vs Organized.

The truth of the matter is the current fame system, the way the servers are set up, your going to consistently have this issue without no one addressing it or figuring out why its happening. Organized groups >>> Pugs, so much so that they set the standards, meta, for the pugs they leave lying on the floor.

Those Pugs that beat enough Pugs to get their Bambi, tiger, phoneix whatever, will always try to separate themselves from the "noobs" because in the end they are trying to increase their chance to move up the ranking. Not to beat the organized groups, quite the opposite, it is to further farm more fame, the only thing that separates them from the noobs they think they are not.

Several r5,r6,r9 players play HA, not for good matches, trying interesting builds, or even improving on their abilities by testing their tactics and ability to organize. Quite the opposite, they HA to farm fame, and you can see it in the quality of their skill and the way they play builds. It's not the builds like zergway, or heroway will create bad players, bad players create bad players and the fact that they are able to beat equally bad players and get rewarded for it and suffer no punishment for losing to better players. Most people run balance like it is a zergway, c+space, hope things die, press random buttons. If they win, more fame, if they lose, rage quite. You tell me that isn't the case? How many legoways being run right now are using vent for target calling and strategizing? Its the same with the countless countless crappy guilds that gvg and yet run the same exact build everyone else is running and lose horribly only winning when they face a guild that sucks more then they do. Having no strategy, not being able to call a target besides a monk, which they train for 10 minutes at a time, and an inability to handle sh*t.

My friends the problem with HA is that Organized groups come in, crush the puggers, and the Puggers in turn attempt the emulate the Organized. What ends up happening is that half the pug'er community will play slightly better then the other half, and instead of increasing their skill, they opt to fame farm to further increase the artificial gap between them and the other half instead. The community eventually gets segmented into the have's and have not's which ultimately leads to degenerative decline. Simply because new players will always fall into the have not's category and as time goes by the gap and the time it takes to close the gap only increases.

The solution is not to make all the puggers organized players, like most players say is the answer to every new player/puggers complaints to not being able to get a group. That will never happen, and there are several factors involve into why they are so many people pugging for groups. Not everyone social network in game can really meet all their needs while gaming. I can't and neither can most people get online expect 12+ friends waiting for me to start or join a group. It is not possible to expect most players to be able to sync their schedules, especially for a casual game like Guild Wars that most people play BECAUSE of the lack of time drains and sinks this game doesn't have. Also replacing players who leave your network, which happens quite often, is not some trivial exercise since finding another player with their skill who can fill in during their time slot is another hassle all together.

Some players note removing Gimmicks. That is not the solution easier. As stated before even with a balance build players will play it like they do iway and ultimately get fame because they will eventually found several teams that suck worse then they do. Limiting the amount of playable builds is bad for pugs and makes the game increasingly boring. Most players will not appreciate the "skill" in two mirror image team going at it. Gimmicks simply allow pugs to form quick groups, unless you see a gimmick holding halls, I have little respect for the "destroy X build because....because.....its just annoying ok!!" arguments.

Map mechanics will solve nothing. You can't please everyone and that is what new or changing back to old map mechanics have to be able to do to justify changing them, they have to please everyone. Honestly waste of developers time. Some people link map mechanics to gimmicks, and while builds in HA center more around the map mechanics then they do the variety of builds they face and have to counter, fact of the matter is gimmicks like iway, and thumpway will always be able to farm fame as long as UnderWorld is the first map in HA. Even if you make the first map in HA a relic run map, players will just invent a relic running gimmick builds to compensate. Fame farming at its core is always about farming the first map thats all.

The solution has been to separate the districts by rank and make the fame system count loses.

The problem is it's far too late to implement either. Even if you could implement it now the results won't show it self for at least 6 months. I guess I defend my solution anyhow. For one separating the districts by rank, will move the higher ranking players away from the lower ranking ones, which will ultimately mute their influence. Players can't complain about rank discrimination when they are no higher ranked players lfg. Also if they were a way for similar ranked players face each other in at least the first 2 maps, new players will have some breathing space. Unfortunately for that to truly work HA needs 9 id districts not 3.

Secondly losing fame for losing is fundamentally right anyway. The problem with half the community doing slightly better then the other half of the community, however while performing no better then the other half but being significantly rewarded because they scrubbed a win off a similar disorganized group of players is pathetic. Try removing loss of rating from GvG's and see how many sh*tty teams make it to top 100. You must reward winning and punish losing. It keeps the community honest and it kicks out the idea of farming fame.

Players can't farm rating, those that do almost always have the skill to back it up, they may be sh*t compared to the older guilds, but the fact of the matter is they played seriously enough to have the skill or at least the ingenuity to back up it up. Players in HA who fame farm neither have the skill nor the ingenuity to back it up, most of the time getting their fame by barely scrubbing past equally as sh*tty players always playing the same old build and losing the same old way, never learning the game cause they aren't playing it. They are playing the system, not Guild Wars, they just want the emote. The quietness of their vent servers, if they even have vent at all, or the lack of even CTRL + SPACE being used to call targets(something as elementary to guild wars as switching to another energy set) making their team chat void of any announcements besides "just got 2 fame", tells me what game they are playing.

Instead, why don't we treat HA like a tournament and let fame be lost for every lose. The community must stay honest, if your just winning at UnderWorld and losing the game that follows your rank should tell people that.

"All have gotten wtf owned and had their balls crushed on occasion, so let no man boast."

elektra_lucia · Dec 03, 2007, 01:55 AM // 01:55

Do you know of guilds which play spikes or remember SF way getting to top 100? What about the emote system? Have it only for people in the top 100 of HA? Or have it based on a system like hero battles and then an emote for a title?

This would be even worse than rank discrimination. There would be no point in HA. People would just GVG.

Quote:

Map mechanics will solve nothing.

For good players who win halls a lot only to find they lose purely because of a gank, map mechanics will solve a bit.

Rewarding skill is what helps. Adding a rating system does not reward skill. Quite the reverse. Look at hero battles, people tank their rating down low to help them get more points

.

I don't agree with what you have said in general.

Tyla · Dec 03, 2007, 01:58 AM // 01:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by elektra_lucia

Rewarding skill is what helps. Adding a rating system does not reward skill. Quite the reverse. Look at hero battles, people tank their rating down low to help them get more points

.

yeah but what i also hate - is they rely on an absolutely imba build to do it,why i quit HB :'(

wuzzman · Dec 03, 2007, 03:47 AM // 03:47

actually not a rating system. HA rank system doesn't have to be complicated lol. Just lose 1 fame per lose. If double fame weekend, 2 fame. Its not rocket science, I'm not saying "ADOPT THE HB RATING SYSTEM OR DIE!!!". skill is not rewarded when players can play UW lose, then play it again over and over again, lose at the 2nd or third map over and over again and then get a shiny emote for "work well done".

diabiosx · Dec 03, 2007, 06:15 AM // 06:15

i dont think your solution will help the current HA. you are saying the problem in HA is organized>pug and i totally AGREE. How will sparating ranks make pug>organized? i dont see a link to it.
HA is 90% pug, and it is an area where skill and a ton of strategy is needed to win. Thanks to new map mechanics, startegies has became more complex and each individual player have a different strategy appoach to win those maps and often don't listen to the strategy caller. There's a million and one different way to solve a problem and people usually think their's is the best way. Because of this fact, Pugs are disorganized. They do things that does not help the team as a whole.(ex. a paragon was supposed to help body block a runner in unholy temple but decides to kill the ghostly hero instead, lack of dmg the hero is healed up and lack of body block/snare the relic runner easily returns the relic.)
Skill is too general. A PD being able to PD 1/2sec spells 100%of the time and does not know how to cast diverson or shame correctly does not make him a good player. If a woh can keep the team alive but the rc sucks, the woh will suck too. TEAM Builds in GW rely too much on the team as a whole.
If 1person is not doing what they are supposed to the whole team will suffer.
all the these things does not favor pugs, which is the majority of the HA community.
Another problem in HA is a rank9 pug might never have played a woh/infuse or is bad at it, but because he is rank9 and u dont know him, u accepted him into the group and he was one of the reason your team failed.
Make a friend's list you say? Not every one in your friends list is on.
Make a bigger friends list?? that in a sense is like a pug.
HA is for hardcore players that play 24/7. take [GANK] for example, they can get 6/8 of the same guys every night to play the same old roles chamelee=sin,spartan=pd.
Most of the casual players don't have cores that specialize in roles and of course they can't win against specialists that play the same shit 24/7 for 2and a half years.
If a gw player finds a solid network of friends who share the same time schedule, and plays regularly then that player will be good.
Pugs unfortunately are on the opposite end of this spectrum.

I got to sleep and dont have time to spell/grammar check. sorry have disorganized analysis for a pug like me=disorganized

Alex Morningstar · Dec 03, 2007, 06:39 AM // 06:39

I think this is an aspect where PvP (HoH gimmick builds) overlaps with PvE (Tombs before the pets got nerfed, DoA, up and coming Ursanway), HA and AB (running around in a mob without capping shrines), etc, where there is no longer value put into using strategy to win, but instead, using the same 'gimmick' that any player with a mouse and two fingers can use at least with practice. No forethought to what happens next, no thought into what you go after once you pop the monk.

When I first played Guild Wars, there was a sense of older players taking in newer players and teaching them how to play. They would download vent, make groups and provide leadership. These guilds had strategies to their play and were fun to observe, a sense of what will they do next. There were always gimmicks, like holding, but not as bad as now. Now when there is no taking in of new players because people are getting bored, people are no longer loyal to their guilds, making a communial effort to do their best to get ahead.

What is wrong with HA isn't the maps, the skills, the layout or the fame. It's people's attitudes, it's how people play the game. People always bitch about how it didn't used to be like that, and it's true. There used to be competition, now it's just pugs, slightly more thoughtful pugs and guild groups.

Kyp Jade · Dec 03, 2007, 07:19 AM // 07:19

The problem with HA, is winning HoH matches 1v1 in 5 minutes, waiting for a 6 minute timer, and then getting

"No Opposing Party"
and a 12 minute timer

...

we should at least get a free chest for that

edit ---

Added again a No Opposing Party
second 12 minute timer

elektra_lucia · Dec 03, 2007, 11:26 AM // 11:26

Are you playing at nub hour or something? I get timer reset but I don't usually wait too long.

17eIvIoN · Dec 03, 2007, 11:29 AM // 11:29

Well separation by rank would prob stop me playing HA even less. I'm a HA noob have 150 ish fame so nearly a Bambi. But majority of the time I GvG, were just outside teh top 1000. Most of my guildies less than half still play HA range from r3-10. The only time i go HA is when i know 5+ ppl, and we go for a laugh and win maybe 3 or 4 maps over 2/3 runs then we have a GvG team ready and off we go. The point of the rank discrim thing would stop ppl like myself getting the grip of HA through the team i usually play with. I'm a Midliner who covers frontline/flagging. So i mean its not like i cant pick up a HA build suited to me fairly quickly, i just dnt like the fame farming attitude of players, i mean why would u want to run zerg for more than 2 runs? It's not really that much fun. And the whole point I play is fun, so heres my point lol. You cant seperate districts by rank cos then the whole point of a Guild doing some HA dies.

TaCktiX · Dec 03, 2007, 12:15 PM // 12:15

Attitude is the problem in HA, yes. You have a bunch of cheapwads who want to put in the minimum effort for the maximum reward, and all the ranked groups, friends of friends groups, and guild groups are around to avoid that.

I am Rank 4, and have been for about 3 months now. Thing is, I don't roll with PUGs or gimmicks, I only roll with friends of friends or guild groups. I ALWAYS enjoy the groups rolled together, even if we don't net that much fame, and by rights I shouldn't be in those groups (R8+ has been my typical as of late). I'm not in it for the fame, for the new shiny emote, I'm in it to get better at playing HA, and eventually be good enough to land in HoH and hold. And I got into Guild Wars AFTER Tombs was ceased to exist (June 2006). It's a shame others don't have the patience that the old Tombs people (what few are still around), and what the few like me have.

infymys · Dec 03, 2007, 01:51 PM // 13:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyp Jade

The problem with HA, is winning HoH matches 1v1 in 5 minutes, waiting for a 6 minute timer, and then getting

"No Opposing Party"
and a 12 minute timer

...

we should at least get a free chest for that

edit ---

Added again a No Opposing Party
second 12 minute timer

It hasn't been too bad lately. We got 3 NOP's in a row sometime last week. Took a shower, got a snack, went outside for a smoke....you get the idea. There are still a lot of 1v1 matches, though. And the holding team has a huge advantage. And when there is a three way, ganking is guaranteed but what comes around, goes around.

shoogi · Dec 03, 2007, 02:31 PM // 14:31

I don't understand some things.
First, "they won because they found several teams that are worse than them". And the problem here is...? you expect them to win teams that are better than them? please clarify.
Second, rank #+ districts was offered many times as a solution to the HA problem, yet I fail to understand what does it have to do with anything and how will it help. What "influence" do high rank players in id1 have on low rank players in id1?
Third, losing fame for defeats will be a blow to new players. As I see it we all agree that what HA needs atm is more players. Players that are new to pvp will naturally lose more than win, and their progress will be so slow that they will give up HA and go somewhere else.

Renowned Spartan · Dec 03, 2007, 04:18 PM // 16:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by TaCktiX

Attitude is the problem in HA, yes. You have a bunch of cheapwads who want to put in the minimum effort for the maximum reward, and all the ranked groups, friends of friends groups, and guild groups are around to avoid that.

I am Rank 4, and have been for about 3 months now. Thing is, I don't roll with PUGs or gimmicks, I only roll with friends of friends or guild groups. I ALWAYS enjoy the groups rolled together, even if we don't net that much fame, and by rights I shouldn't be in those groups (R8+ has been my typical as of late). I'm not in it for the fame, for the new shiny emote, I'm in it to get better at playing HA, and eventually be good enough to land in HoH and hold. And I got into Guild Wars AFTER Tombs was ceased to exist (June 2006). It's a shame others don't have the patience that the old Tombs people (what few are still around), and what the few like me have.

Yea, we should all aspire to be exactly like you.

I'll tell you right now, I'm one of those players who wants the emote. I'm rank 8. I'm going for r9. I try to make HA as enjoyable as possible and I try to enjoy the ride on my way to having a kickass tiger come out of my body.

The morale of the story is people play for different reasons. Whether that be to have fun, or to have shiny emote, or to have fun and a shiny emote...: It does not matter! These incentives are keeping HA alive right now. Take away any ambition to play the arena, then you take away HA. One thing is for sure: I don't give a damn how you think I should be playing the game or for what reasons. I do it because having a tiger makes me be able to flex my e-peen a little more (sarcasm) and I'm sure as hell not going to be caring what a lower ranked person (you) thinks of how I should be playing as opposed to how I am playing it currently and under what motives.

/thanks

The Real Roy Keane · Dec 03, 2007, 04:30 PM // 16:30

The main problem with HA, as is the main problem with Guild Wars in general, is that the game is over two years old. Believe it or not, it's fairly normal to get bored with somehting after this length of time. Why people can't grow up and accept this is beyond me.

Kyp Jade · Dec 03, 2007, 04:30 PM // 16:30

The sad thing spartan, is that sometimes you have fun playing against really good teams, enough fun that you come back after months of quiting HA because of always fighting shitway just to hope for a few good matches. Only reason to play an area like HA after getting the emote you like is just for kicks. If Anet wanted HA to be more popular they need to GvG scale rewards (HA guild ladder)

// I dont see why hero battle bullshit gets a ladder and higher level pvp like
// HA doest tho tbh

wuzzman · Dec 03, 2007, 04:33 PM // 16:33

At best, for 1 HA is way beyond fixing, any changes will be met lukewarm by the community unless HA starts giving out gold every win. While proposing a fix for HA that should have been done a long, long, long time ago is really redundant, the past I don't know, half a dozen threads on HA hasn't addressed the fact that the HA model that was presented ever so long ago is doomed to fail.

Concerning shoogi: It's one thing to beat a team that is worse then you. I mean all good players beat worse players routinely. It's another thing, that you get rewarded in such a way that it doesn't really separate the UW farmers from the halls winners. What is the difference between the warrior who doesn't know how to call targets or even downloaded vent from the warrior that does call targets and uses vent? The good warrior will probably get more fame in a single hour then the noob warrior. However the noob warrior if he spent enough hours in the day, can easily get the same amount of fame. There is no "time check" to see if one player got 20 fame in one hour or another player got 20 fame in 6 hours. If you get rewarded all the same, whether you play good, or play poorly, then what does rank mean? The community is not honest, and why should it be? Guys who C+Space their shock/warriors like they do their thumpers can say "r*+ lfg" just the same as the guy who puts the proper amount of thought into playing melee can say "r*+ lfg". Sure eventually when they C+spacer is r9-12 he may be better then the r0-3 but is he really that better?

Rank + district, is something that should be common sense to a pvp game. Plenty of games do it and not suffer half of our problems. New players or under ranked players will always try to get into higher ranking groups. It's not really hard not to tell why. The rank signifies knowing what you are doing, and for a new player who first couple runs in HA was probably in a Random way, is it not hard to understand why they try to join those groups? To be denied entry especially when you have the very bar they want, puts all the hostility that new player has, not only to the player that won't let him in but to the community as a whole. Most new players or low ranking players will list "snooby elitist, r*++'ers" to one of the reasons why they don't like or simply no longer play HA. Honestly, you can't smooth talk your way out of that one, your not going to make the community better by saying "get some friends and a guild noob and stfu".

Ultimately if any such system is implanted, it wouldn't be some hard wired fence separating the ranked from noobland. For one allowing guilds to enter HA from guild halls is a must, allowing high ranking players to guest low ranking players (change their rank only visually to meet the minimum requirement for districts so they won't be a big fuss of course). You can set it up so that the rank districts are between a certain ranking like r0-2, r3-5, r6-8, r9-12. Most of the stubbornness to only letting certain ranked individuals into a high ranking group, especially in the r7-12 category comes from the illusion of having so many people running around in Id 1. That illusion that somewhere in that mass of players there is a r7-12 who just haven't saw my "GLF" spam will get obliterated once they realize how small their community is. Allowing higher ranked players to move to lower ranked districts (while not entirely sure is a good idea) should also be implemented.

Losing fame is something that should have been done a long time ago. It is however, something that needed to be done that long ago. The community isn't honest, and for that matter losing rank will denote who is really what rank and who isn't. Yes new players lose more then they win and so does everyone else for that matter. A better match making system that pits similar ranked groups against each other should be made. I don't think the current HA can support it, but that just tells me how much the ball was dropped for this arena. All losing rank does is force players to play the game, not farm fame, but actually sit down and think about the game. Only when you put the strategy and thought back into guild wars does good matches start showing up, players enjoy casual or hardcore, good thought out matches. Instead of this random button pressing sh*t we have now, why don't we encourage playing Guild Wars like its Guild Wars. That probably does more then any balance change would ever do for HA.

Remember HA was designed that everyday players, pugs, can enjoy good quality matches without waiting for their guildies or friendlist. Lets bring back the HA that was played for good solid matches, not fame. We don't have that and players are leaving because of that.

Zabe · Dec 03, 2007, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Well, big problem I see in HA is pugs. Seriously, in our guild we have just decided to zerg. There is absolutely no reason to not play it. Earlier there have been other builds, but at the moment, we win 99.9% of matches we play. Lastly to so said good HA players we have lost are Dom running hexes and stuff. And courtyard/KotH HoH are also bad ones. But otherwise you bash every pug you face.

Another thing is related to what I said, there aren't anymore any highly skilled HA players that would bash those IWAY nubs in Scarred, or outplay them in Broken tower. There are only anymore IWAY PuG vs. another. The one who gets more lucky or in someway has better build (hammers>axes) and stuff.

And I can understand that there are no hiskilled HA players. Matches before halls you can lose to some ultimateshit like IWAY (yes, I do farm fame with this myself, and YES I do call it ultimate shit build ever made.), heroway, sometimes SF Spike, castersinspikes and somewhat RSpikes. You can lose with your r12+ PuG against these builds that need no skill at all you just do some random button smashing. Another thing is halls. 99.9% of non KotH matches here I have lost with IWAY (sucks in KotH if you don't already know) is because you get ganked. I even remember one of our Courtyard matches, match starts: "Hi Günther!" "Hi Jürgen!" "Let's gank blue" "Oh, ok" and you lose.

Another thing related to good people leaving Ascent and everyone leaving it, is the fact that you need to use like an hour to put up anything else than IWAY. If you use any rank/skill discrimination.

Bit messy post I think, just wrote up some things that came into mind and stuff.

Byron · Dec 03, 2007, 05:47 PM // 17:47

The maps are too small.

The objectives are too restrictive.

The rank system is contradictory to the mission of Guild Wars.

You can lock this thread now.

shoogi · Dec 03, 2007, 06:04 PM // 18:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by wuzzman

...comes from the illusion of having so many people running around in Id 1.

And the catch is, we wish there were so many people running around in id1.

Vel · Dec 03, 2007, 06:18 PM // 18:18

After getting my tiger after 2 months of pugging, I realized one thing, I should have gotten it long back with my friends who continued to do HA when I stopped and got their phoenixes and now are trying to put Mahogony in their guild halls or doing something else. It would have been WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY easier and fun.

Reality is this...if the game is new, lot of people play. Less wait, faster matches, more fun. Regardless of what we try to do to HA, it will not revive anymore. There is no point in it. In GW2, I will NOT make the same mistake and gank these e-peen titles upfront as soon as possible.

Now HA id1 is excellent for this....

eJogging anyone?