Curse

J1000 · Jan 21, 2010, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Some people like CA, some people don't, but I think most people agree that there's a void where TA once was, and that we need another 4v4 arena. What do you think should replace it? I mentioned my suggestion previously, but I thought putting it here would be a good excuse to get a topic going on this. (If one already exists then sorry; I couldn't find it.)

Here's what people seem to want, based on the comments I'm reading (add to this list if you want):

A meta that doesn't get tired and simplistic
Easy group formation
Some way to avoid having totally stupid teams (3 monks, etc.)
Something the developers don't have to babysit

My suggestion would be a semi-random arena, rather than fully random. Upon entering the arena you need to declare your role (it would be nice if this could be linked to your template). You would pick from a list: "healer", "counter", "damage", and so on. Nothing too specific. Maybe 4-5 categories at most. Sure you can lie and declare your Monk healer build a "damage" build, but it will benefit you to be honest, as you will hopefully see below.

With your role declaration in place you have two choices: 1) click a button to automatically get started, or 2) request your own group (a third choice might be to pick from the available group requests, but this would enhance the likelihood of sync abuse). Group formation would be blind. You would be able to specify which roles you want in your group, up to four, but as people join you won't be able to see their name or profession (this is what keeps it semi-random and differentiates it from the old TA). If you don't specify a role in each slot, the remaining slots will be treated as wildcards. So you can specify healer/counter/damage/* and just roll the dice with your fourth slot, if you so choose. Or better yet (if they want to get fancy) you'd be able to use a little bit of logic, like so: healer/damage/nothealer/nothealer. (That last bit would be good for increasing the team variety while avoiding the double monk situation.)

As people click the auto-join button, they will be distributed to fill the empty slots in the current group requests. (If for some reason there are no group requests, which is unlikely, it would end up being RA-style random, I guess.) As a group owner, your game will start when your group request is filled, but as I said earlier you won't be able to see the player names and professions until the game starts; this is critical to avoiding the predictable meta aspect of the game. You might have a lot of similar group requests, but the role definitions will general enough that you will see plenty of variety in the team makeups.

That's it in a nutshell. You'll want to be honest with your role declaration, because you'll want to get put on a well-balanced team.

So this is what we have:

Alleviates a lot of the meta degradation seen in TA
Almost entirely alleviates the "crap team" problem of RA
Maintains the quick join capability of RA

To reduce sync abuse (this also applies to RA, btw), a random join delay would be inserted when you chose to join a group. When you click to join, it would delay you somewhere between 1 and 10 seconds, randomly chosen (the range could vary based on the number of people in the districts). So as you try to sync with your buddies, a few of you will be bound to end up on a different team. This is not bullet-proof of course, but it's easy to implement and would definitely have an effect.

FoxBat · Jan 21, 2010, 11:44 PM // 23:44

Costume battle or some variant thereof. Maybe just slap set builds into JQ/FA, these are A) supposed to be beginner arenas and B) filled with npc farming gimmicks.

Breakfast Mc Rit · Jan 22, 2010, 02:02 AM // 02:02

Why fragment an already thinning player-base? CA is the TA replacement. Yes, some people don't like CA, but the same could have been said about TA.

Elon's Rose · Jan 22, 2010, 02:25 AM // 02:25

I just want HB brought back, still don't understand why it was taken out in the first place.

Costume Battles would be interesting as a permanent fixture, just change the builds every week, maybe? Anything that provides a year-long opportunity to get Gamer points would be appreciated by me, though. Weekly changing builds would prevent the meta from getting stale because it'd change the next week anyway.

Pony Slaystation · Jan 22, 2010, 02:46 AM // 02:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breakfast Mc Rit

Yes, some people don't like CA, but the same could have been said about TA.

Well, barely anybody really played TA, which made ANet believe nobody liked it, even though many people did.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elon's Rose

I just want HB brought back, still don't understand why it was taken out in the first place.

The playerbase was corrupt. Fair battles were barely played, as people just /rolled.

Eragon Zarroc · Jan 22, 2010, 02:52 AM // 02:52

rotating gamer arena in which u play already pre-existing gamer title arenas. switch every week or so

or, a gamer arena in which u can acquire gamer points; but a new, much more difficult arena than the seasonal gamer title arenas that already exist

Karate Jesus · Jan 22, 2010, 03:40 AM // 03:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breakfast Mc Rit

Why fragment an already thinning player-base? CA is the TA replacement. Yes, some people don't like CA, but the same could have been said about TA.

By "some people" I'll assume you mean most people. It's a fcking ghost town in that arena.

On topic, I'd like another HB or at least some form of PvP with heroes again.

Shayne Hawke · Jan 22, 2010, 03:47 AM // 03:47

CA is your TA replacement, like it or not.

MasterSasori · Jan 22, 2010, 03:57 AM // 03:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karate Jesus

By "some people" I'll assume you mean most people. It's a fcking ghost town in that arena.

On topic, I'd like another HB or at least some form of PvP with heroes again.

It's not as if TA wasn't bare at times. There may also be a loyal fan base for CA.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Jan 22, 2010, 09:26 AM // 09:26

The only reason TA was more alive was because of the influx of RA teams.

C4RB1N3 · Jan 22, 2010, 11:09 AM // 11:09

I say bring back Hero Battles, it had its own leader board and tournaments, and to fix the problems it had just remove that Z-Quest and find a way to get rid of RR, and I'm sure the players have plenty of ideas on how to fix that, and as for any meta thats simple just don't play the meta, make something new, but hey I guess I'm typing out of wishful thinking, ArenaNet is trying to make Guild Wars so that it runs on Auto Pilot in a sense.

Windf0rce · Jan 22, 2010, 12:21 PM // 12:21

Not sure if TA needs a replacement; CA already did, and introducing another arena would probably split the player base again - although I think TA could return in place of HB, somehow. Only HB deserved removal, not TA imho.

If they want CA to live, they should change the title requirements and make people earn points every win, just like fame. It will draw more of the lower-end pvp playerbase to try the arena and earn some points while experimenting - people like immediate results, no team will withstand 'training' for weeks, losing before 5 wins and leaving with 0 reward.

Something I'd really love to see is HA and GvG becoming more accessible, they are interesting game modes but they don't see enough play because most people don't bother with organized/competitive PvP. I remember in the past HA was changed to 6v6 at some point - can anyone who was around tell me how good or bad it was? Perhaps a 6 player HA today would increase the number of teams, due to lower setup time and player requirement? Just wondering - please tell me what was bad about 6 man HA that it was changed to 8, I wasn't around then. :P

kedde · Jan 22, 2010, 02:21 PM // 14:21

6v6 in a format where you are forced to pack several skills from several different proffessions simply for the different map objectives simply doesn't work.

Revelations · Jan 22, 2010, 04:23 PM // 16:23

Random GvG Arena.

It'd be RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing terrible, but it might inspire some people to play real GvG.

Karate Jesus · Jan 22, 2010, 05:10 PM // 17:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterSasori

It's not as if TA wasn't bare at times. There may also be a loyal fan base for CA.

iirc there are only two moderately sized guilds that are dedicated to CA. Compare that to other PvP formats, and you have a very small minority.

TA was a ghost town at times, but I've never seen an arena as empty as CA before (not even in other games).

Divinus Stella · Jan 22, 2010, 05:23 PM // 17:23

I would like an arena with pre-set skillbars that are chosen at random every week, like the old pre-made pvp bars.

Perhaps even make it like random arenas but when you enter the battle you are assigned a profession and the pre-made skillbar of the week for that profession, new players would have immunity from elitism and wouldn't need to mess around making a build.

Also teams could be structured to contain a good balance of professions rather than ending up with 3 monks and a shadow form ele like in RA.

J1000 · Jan 22, 2010, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divinus Stella

Perhaps even make it like random arenas but when you enter the battle you are assigned a profession and the pre-made skillbar of the week for that profession, new players would have immunity from elitism and wouldn't need to mess around making a build.

See, maybe it's just personal preference, but I don't like game types where you can't "mess around making a build". If the arena involves pre-defined skillsets, I'm out.

urania · Jan 22, 2010, 05:57 PM // 17:57

yet the first ever costume brawl was amazing.

Ghost Dog · Jan 23, 2010, 03:41 AM // 03:41

Why no random codex anet?

Revelations · Jan 23, 2010, 06:46 AM // 06:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

yet the first ever costume brawl was amazing.

Except for Melandru dervish against BA, SF, Cripslash and a bunch of other conditions scattered all over the place. On top of that it had enchant removal, decent IAS, crazy strong IMS, DW, and 10r infuse.

More on topic, a Costume Brawl style arena with bars that changed once in a while would be pretty amazing.