Curse

Thock · Nov 03, 2010, 10:29 PM // 22:29

I am not posting this in the suggestion thread as the PvP community pays little attention to that part of the forums and prefers to pretend it doesn't exist. If the mods that be find my logic at fault I pray that they move it there but leave it open.

Pertinent Threads

HA in Crisis
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/h...t10457070.html

GvG In Crisis
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/g...t10455697.html

About me

The first thing you might want to know is who I am and why my opinion on this matter is relevant. I am a casual player, I started out in GW as my first mmo back in 2005. I didn’t even touch the PvP scene at first but eventually the PvE got boring so I started out in RA. I was instantly hooked and wanted more, after coercing the members of my small PvE guild to try some PvP we started to group up in TA. A few new friends, some invites, and a hunger for more soon brought our group to GvG and HA. We never got higher than the 300s in GvG and we only did enough HA to get most of us rank 3-6. Inevitably most of us got bored with the game shortly after GWEN came out and we moved on to other games.

I recently came back to work on HoM and play some PvP to find the later in distress. The only casual organized PvP left for small groups is the codex arena. While I am sure it has its niche following CA is hardly a step between GvG/HA and everything else. Playing with purposely gimped builds will not give you the experience necessary to design and run builds for the higher formats. I believe this lack of a proper stepping stone, compounded by rank discrimination and a dying population, is the reason for the current state of affairs.

What I hope to accomplish with this giant wall of text (that will for the most part be lightly scanned and then flamed) is to propose a solution. Something that will hopefully breath new life into the PvP community before the last great gasp when GW2 is released.

What is wrong with the current pvp system

Basically, as stated above, I believe that the main issue that has a reasonable solution is a lack of a proper place for players to learn and discover what organized pvp is about in a casual and small format. Yes there is also the elephant named “Dying Population” over there in the corner, trying to hide behind that recliner, but there is little that can done about him. I think that if there were a less imposing format for players to try to get their friends together to start pvping for the first time. They currently have no place to learn about spiking a target, team build synergy, utility, running flags or relics, the bare basics of the larger formats. More on that later.

What was wrong with the old TA

While far from perfect TA did serve as a stepping stone between RA and GvG/HA. The problem was that once players got a reliable group together they moved on. With little new blood being introduced into the game after GWEN the format died. There was little incentive for veterans to come back, no ladder, no chest full of goodies, no bragging rights. The other issue is that the formats balance was never supported. As far as I know anet has never balanced a skill because it was an issue in TA. More on this later.

The proposed new TA System

Rewards

In order for this to work the players need to be significantly rewarded. HA has ranks, emotes, and a box of shiny things. GvG has the ladder, obs mode, and tournaments. The original TA had neither. The new format must reward players for joining in the action or they simply wont. What I propose is a score system, much like what is seen in the challenge missions in pve, along with a ladder with a ranking system.

The first part would be a scoreboard, just like in the competitive missions. You are awarded points for consecutive wins and flawless victories. When your run is over your team gets a score that gets placed on the scoreboard. If your team is in the top five at the end of the week each member is given a bronze gift. If still in the top five at the end of the month your team is given a silver gift, at the end of a quarter a gold gift. Bronze gifts would contain basic stuff, flames of balthazar, regular skill books, one use consumables, 5zkeys, elite skill books, etc. Silver would contain random golds, white and purple minis, 10 zkeys, 5 flames, etc. Gold gifts would give only rare weapon skins, gold and green minis, 25 zkeys, 10 rare crafting materials like ectos, shards, rubies and sapphires, etc. The gold rewards need to be good as we probably only have a few quarters left before the messiah is born.

The second part would be a ladder, much like the current gvg ladder. When you get your group together your leader can go and speak with an npc to register a team. Once the team is registered they are entered into the ladder with 1000 rating. As you win battles your rating goes up, when you lose it goes down. How much rating you gain or lose is determined by the opposing teams rating. When you enter battle the system will try to pit you against a team with a similar rating for 5 minutes, if after five minutes no team is found you are thrown against whoever is available. If you are in the top 25 teams your battles will be available to watch on observe mode. Also any battles your team is in will be available to just your team to watch. It is important to note that a team does not need to be in the same guild. This is to allow players to get together with friends without breaking up guilds. The easier we make it for players to enjoy this format the better. Perhaps we could add the ability to name your team, as hilarious guild names have always been one of my (and I'm sure others) favorite parts of the game.

Faction rewards also need to be high, not as high as GvG or HA but higher than the other formats.

There should be no new titles or emotes for this format, I think we have all had enough of that. Also disable HA rank titles in the outpost, both displaying and emoting, just to be safe.

This might seem to some to be a lot of rewards but we need to attract players to this format in order for it to work. We need to attract players that normally wouldn’t even consider pvp. And we need to announce these rewards in a loud booming voice. If you build it, they wont come, unless there is a very shiny carrot on the end of the string. Plus the rewards may attract veteran players as well.

The Format

The format should be 5v5. That is the Goldilocks group size for this type of format in my omnipotent opinion. Plus it will get people ready for GW2 as most of the content is supposed to be 5 person groups. It is a size that hasn’t been seen in the game, small enough to get a few buddies together, pick up a pug, and throw down, but large enough that it doesn’t feel like a rehash of the old team arenas.

Maps would be the old TA/HB maps but some with new objectives. Convert one of the maps to have a guild lord/priest you need to protect. Another with a flag that needs to be capped that gives a bonus to a team if they hold it for a certain amount of time. A map with a Ghostly Richard Karn that has to cap a shrine to win. A map that is 5v5v5 that has shrines to cap to gain points to win. A map with relics to run back to the base. Just a little programing, and some duct tape, on the existing TA and HB maps should be all it takes.

Lastly, the game needs to have skill updates to balance this format if and when needed. These need to be quick and to the point updates. Don t sit around and think about it to see if the problem fixes itself, Izzy, smiters boon it if you have to but only apply the change in TA.

Hopefully if this is implemented we will at least have a active viable form of organized pvp available to the masses. Hopefully the players in this format will decide they want more and move on to gvg but this is secondary to the main objective of having a healthy format. Hopefully anet adds a format like this, with toned down rewards, to GW2. Hopefully I wake up tomorrow to find I'm richer than Gates and hotter than Clooney.

More likely this will be flamed, trolled, ignored, and eventually closed. It is too much work for a dying game with a limited dev team with a sequel in the works. I will wake up, look in the mirror, go to work, and die a little more.

Forget I said anything.

drkn · Nov 03, 2010, 10:35 PM // 22:35

Quote:

Lastly, the game needs to have skill updates to balance this format if and when needed. These need to be quick and to the point updates.

That's the biggest problem now. Skills would have to stay on a constant rotation or you'll see the meta builds that are the game and no one plays anything else.

I'd love to get into organised PvP somehow, even to lose the first matches, but learn nontheless. I don't have friends to try HA with and i can't get into a pug without a rank, so TA should be more pug-friendly.

urania · Nov 03, 2010, 11:13 PM // 23:13

some sort of rewarding for winning in TA has been suggested in the past...a lot of times. Many others things you mentioned have also often been discussed in the past.
Just get over it already. Really.
On a side note, the scoreboard idea is laughable - TA (during the last 2-3 years, at least) was farmable with 2nd accounts during dead hours just as much as CA is/was.
Also, if you want it to be 5v5 it cannot be called Team Arenas because TA was 4v4. Renaming it to Train Arenas might work though!

Wishful thinking/posting coupled with lack of knowledge about past (futile) efforts and attempts to improve the state of TA is what I'd call this thread.

JoeGrogan · Nov 03, 2010, 11:17 PM // 23:17

I agree with a lot of your points there - however what's to stop the top PVP guilds sweeping all prizes constantly?

Maybe have a random gift (like gift of the traveller), for making winning streaks, (say 5 in a row), that have a chance of dropping all the things you've mentioned.

Thock · Nov 03, 2010, 11:24 PM // 23:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

some sort of rewarding for winning in TA has been suggested in the past...a lot of times. Many others things you mentioned have also often been discussed in the past.
Just get over it already. Really.

The point isn't just bringing back TA, the point is to provide a proper place for players new to pvp/interested in pvp to learn and discover the basics of pvp.

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

on a side note, the scoreboard idea is laughable - TA (during the last 2-3 years, at least) was farmable with 2nd accounts during dead hours just as CA is/was.

If this were implemented I believe it would be active enough that this wouldn't be an issue because of the large rewards, that's one of the main reasons they are there.

urania · Nov 03, 2010, 11:28 PM // 23:28

nah. early euro - late american hours have been empty on a regular basis for years now.

you're missing Anet's point of removing TA/HB - no ta&ab = no "balancing" needed for those 2. and for CA, they already "balanced" or adjusted the things they wanted to. They did it way too late, but they still did it.
lack of resources, you know.

kudos on trying, but you're wasting your time.

X Dr Pepper X · Nov 04, 2010, 02:17 AM // 02:17

I like the idea of TA being brought back in a 5v5 format.

Codex is salvageable though. Its a decent idea to help create a non stagnant metagame by having random skills each day, however there are so many skills in GW that the bad ones bog down the gameplay experience. There are skills which are neither too good or too bad like Prepared Shot and Punishing Shot that could fit into a random skill rotation decently if awful skills like Quicksand and Arcing Shot were removed.

Also, there should be more depth in the 5v5 format in objectives than to simply eliminate the entire opposing team and/or their Priest on the shrine. If this is truly a stepping stone to GvG and HA, there will be a need to implement more strategy such as splitting, flag running, relic running, defending very key NPC's, gimping NPC's, maintaining good positioning and to discourage gimmicks like Shove spike teams or Searing Flame teams.

I like the sound of a rewards system. An end chest would be appropriate after a certain amount of wins.

Personally, I'd like to see an end chest that drops one of the following (as well as normal drops like ZKeys, tomes, firewater, lockpicks, etc): new minis, new EL tonics, new q9 weapon skins ONLY attainable by this form of PvP. All would be as rare as an EL tonic from the Zaishen Chest or a rare item from FoW/UW chest. Have these cycle each month like EL tonics and people would probably go nuts. New minis and tonics should be easy for ANet to make as well, but the weapon skins would probably take more time.

With all the attention PvE has stolen from PvP, I think its about time they fix something in PvP properly, but that's if they even deliver on their promised PvE content which is severely lagging behind its timeline.

Lanier · Nov 04, 2010, 04:11 AM // 04:11

I would love to see TA brought back and I think your idea gives competitive PvPers more of an incentive to play there. Definitely /signed. It would be nice to see more of a stratification among the PvPers so that the casual ones could stick to the random formats and the competitive ones could have TA/HA/GvG

kedde · Nov 04, 2010, 11:09 AM // 11:09

You put thought into this, that much is clear. Some good concepts and well worked out ideas to me and hell I'd be positive if we had this implemented, but yet suggestions like these have been put out for years, and should've been implemented years ago to have a chance at making the difference it should.

Crimson Robes · Nov 04, 2010, 11:14 AM // 11:14

Quote:

There should be no new titles or emotes for this format, I think we have all had enough of that. Also disable HA rank titles in the outpost, both displaying and emoting, just to be safe.

GLF r10+

Zone to GTOB, make him flash his emote

Kick him for not having rank and get someone new

Gz you made PvP'ers spend 20 seconds extra getting a team!

galactic · Nov 09, 2010, 03:39 AM // 03:39

In all forms of pvp, the title is the main reward.

awry · Nov 09, 2010, 05:04 AM // 05:04

I like your suggestions, your writing is engaging and it was a good read. I mean honestly, the people who complain, whine and troll are a small minority, posters vs. readers is a huge disparity. I'm sure a lot of people just nod their heads and say to themselves, yeah that's a good idea, but not post anything because there's not much to post when all you can think is, "I agree" and have lives to attend to and games to play (instead of whining about games they don't play). Wish there was just a thumbs up button in guildwars for a thread. Double thumbs up from me, especially your idea about the 5 v 5, although with the player mentality as it is, I fear it's going to just be shove spike w/ 2 wars, 3 monks or some lame superdefensive build(which I think is going to be inherent to something that rewards based on streaks).

Edit: Doh, ratings... I just found it. Yes I'm slow.

Missing HB · Nov 09, 2010, 08:39 AM // 08:39

Nice suggestion , but people will for sure , like urania said , sync accs on dead hour and it will be the same people who are codex 6 now who will be on the scoreboard.

However , your suggestion would be perfect if teams were 1 human + 3 heroes....( more teams , thus hard syncing ..)

Thock · Nov 09, 2010, 09:46 PM // 21:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by X Dr Pepper X

Snip

I don't see codex as being salvageable unfortunately. It is a niche format even in the game that it originally came from (MTG, which i have also played since the Ice Age cycle or ~1998). It was also poorly implemented, no rewards or ladder, hence no reason to go, and the horrible skill selections that are available. It has a bad history, whereas the name Team Arenas holds a lot of nostalgia for older players.

I like your idea about an end chest, maybe every 5-10 consecutive wins with increasing number of drops after 10,15,20 or 20,30 wins. This would provide players that do well, but not well enough to make the top five, a nice reward. Also we could add npcs to the priest maps like footman and archers. This would help encourage tactics like splitting on maps that it would work on like The Crag, Heroes Crypt, maybe some of the HB maps.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crimson Robes

GLF r10+

Zone to GTOB, make him flash his emote

Kick him for not having rank and get someone new

Gz you made PvP'ers spend 20 seconds extra getting a team!

Perhaps you are right, getting around rank discrimination wouldn't be easy. It would need to be a new title then, something that hasn't been used before.

Quote:

Originally Posted by galactic

In all forms of pvp, the title is the main reward.

Which is why pvp was never popular until titles were introduced, right? This may be the case for some HA players but I think being competitive and doing well on a ladder, the thrill of victory with teammates over an evenly matched opponent in a close match is the reward for most pvpers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by awry

Although with the player mentality as it is, I fear it's going to just be shove spike w/ 2 wars, 3 monks or some lame superdefensive build(which I think is going to be inherent to something that rewards based on streaks).

I think that with the different map objectives gimmicks like this wouldn't do well. Also as I stated in my op the game would need to be balanced for this format.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Missing HB

Nice suggestion , but people will for sure , like urania said , sync accs on dead hour and it will be the same people who are codex 6 now who will be on the scoreboard.

If it really is a problem I cant imagine it would be THAT hard to code the arena to close at a set time, as sad of an option as that may be. Something that perhaps should be done for ca anyways.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Missing HB

However , your suggestion would be perfect if teams were 1 human + 3 heroes....( more teams , thus hard syncing ..)

As much as I empathize with your loss of hb I don't see heroes as being a proper introduction to the higher formats.