Curse

superraptors · Mar 02, 2010, 12:00 AM // 00:00

what we gotta do is drop a map in the rotation by 1 and change 1 of the maps for sacred temples.

As much as i hated it at the start, objected the first change to 6v6(maybe one of the reason why hoh is dead ) we need to make ha back to 6v6 again. Only reason 6v6 was taken out was because of op paragon skills and jagged way. I actually started to like it once incoming and motivation shouts were nerfed.

Reason it is literally impossible to form any group of 8v8 in the last half year or so during early euro(late american) and even in prime time you are skipping like crazy. People dont want to skip from uw to hoh and lose because you get ganked or the other retarded team doesnt know how to play, people want to play the maps and play for fun.

By reducing the amount of players needed to form a team and removing a map from rotation means that we will get more teams for the same amount of people who still play(This will greatly benefit the low ranks) and less skips.

I dont know if players will quit because of this. But it is already dead mayaswell try something or its going to get worse.

Also now because of the shitway nerf. The population will even reduce more since gimmicks are usually ran by lower ranks. They wont be able to adapt to a balance meta since they will get shit rolled by all the 11+ balance teams out there. New players cant play any gimmicks to get their rank up.

A-net needs to target pve players and bring them into ha its the only way.

I would like to add, I read something on page 2 where someguy was like its dead after they removed playing for favor.
This is entirely true, there is even less incentive to play halls now. If we bring back favour decided by halls wins, it will force the pve scrubs to play ha and try get favour if they want to do their stuff.

Removing favour dropped ecto prices and also UW/FOW gold items. If we bring back favour it will be more of an incentive for not only pvpers but even pvers to play halls. I dont know about you guys but when i got favour back for the americans it felt like a pretty good accomplishment especially given the competition back then

Grj · Mar 02, 2010, 12:12 AM // 00:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winterclaw

But most people would rather get to the next rank than to help keep the format alive so I think that HA dying is a necessary thing.

And due to this whatever Anet do will never be enough... its partly anet and the playerbase that caused the demise of HA.

The whole format hinges on the title/emote track, taking the pretty emote away and there's no desire to play there.

Having a title track in an arena may make it more popular but it brings out the worst of the playerbase.

I remember random arena being fun place to play, once a title track got tacked onto it, yes it got a whole lot more popular but it also brought leeching, syncing, leaving on a non-optimial build, abuse, etc...

Look at PvE after all the titles came out, some people are so fixated with maxing titles and for what? Nobody knows 100% the rewards for these titles are in guildwars 2 but people are willing to sink 100's or even 1000's of hours and countless amount of in game money

AlsPals · Mar 02, 2010, 02:58 AM // 02:58

Gonna agree with Winterclaw. HA needed to die so hopefully GW2 wont suffer from the same issues. Nothing gets the point across better than a dead format. Before titles, gaining entry to the realms for your continent in addition to money rares was incentive. Now...winning the numbers game.

Nimble Night · Mar 02, 2010, 04:09 PM // 16:09

HA is about social networking, if you can't make friends, you won't rank up. Rank discrimination has nothing to do with it.

If all you are doing is going to the outpost and trying to join r9+ pugs, you are doing it wrong. You should be looking for, (or starting your own), entry level HA guilds and starting your own groups.

You have a friend list, use it.

HA died due to terrible game balance that left stale gimmick builds around for months, the addition of heroes, 6v6, stupid objectives in halls (relic run, capture points) and splitting PvP and PvE.

shadows of hob · Mar 02, 2010, 05:19 PM // 17:19

There are a couple of alliances, I would say 2, that pretty much dominate HA atm, not counting the dead hours. This is very logical, as with nimble said, people like to be in some kind of group and people of the same skilllevel tend to group together in guilds/allies.

6vs6 was a nice format, but some broken builds killed it. I think it would be nice for a while, but 8vs8 just has more variation. (yes, there is some variation left)

OblivionDanny · Mar 02, 2010, 05:23 PM // 17:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadows of hob

6vs6 was a nice format, but some broken builds killed it. I think it would be nice for a while, but 8vs8 just has more variation. (yes, there is some variation left)

Sure 8v8 has more variation build wise, however, when some teams play against the same teams over and over again every couple of maps or so, that build variation no longer matters.

Reverend Dr · Mar 02, 2010, 08:52 PM // 20:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nimble Night

HA is about social networking, if you can't make friends, you won't rank up. Rank discrimination has nothing to do with it.

If all you are doing is going to the outpost and trying to join r9+ pugs, you are doing it wrong. You should be looking for, (or starting your own), entry level HA guilds and starting your own groups.

You have a friend list, use it.

HA died due to terrible game balance that left stale gimmick builds around for months, the addition of heroes, 6v6, stupid objectives in halls (relic run, capture points) and splitting PvP and PvE.

This, exactly

vinoth · Mar 03, 2010, 12:44 AM // 00:44

My suggestion would be to keep 8v8.

My suggestions are under the following assumptions:

Highranked players: They want HOH holds and no waiting between matches.
Low ranked people : Need fame, need networking, and once they can show leadership, sooner or later they will form their own cores. They want a place to start off.

Impliment the following changes.

1. Perhaps control favour according to hoh wins. This gives more incentive for pers to play Ha.

2. The main Ha player base right now is typically r11+. The lower ranks have no way of ranking up against such opponents when they face every other game. I suggest make it double fame for upto r9. The r11 + teams are tightly knit. They only play with people they know. If you have an established HA flist, I am sure it wont matter if lower tier players are given double fame opportunity.

More low ranks = More low rank networks = Low ranks with potential and leadership will rise up.

3. Anet should only tweak simple builds rather than destroy them completely. Shattering assault was op but it could have been better if it was like enchantments lasted 50% less.

4. Remove the zaishen heros. What are they there for? I am sure most of us will agree that they waste time. Ill be happy to wait from HA. It will remove ALOT of grief for low rank players cuz they belive if you set timer by accident , you should resign (Belive me). When the poor folk set timer off by accident, its usually grp disband. = 1 less team in Ha.

5. Remove factions and just give a zkey for every win in HA. This will get u pve players in storm. If you are proper PVP player, i am sure you would not mind because, hey, who cares if the price of keys go low? We just want a healthy player base in HA.

6.Anet should send an email to everyone saying if they have not logged in for more than 6 months, they get the chance of double fame for a month.

7.Anet should send an email to everyone during the next HA weekend.

(No one will take legal action over 1 email! - if they had requested privacy)

General updates

1. If you are facing 1v1 in HoH, the holding team should not be blue.

2. Reintroduce sacrad temples.

Hypothetical event.

In the HA (9k faction weekends), ,if none of the r11 + players play, i am sure new blood will automatically come into HA. This is because the low ranks might feel they are actually winning. And may linger around HA for longer. Just try that.

Master Ketsu · Mar 03, 2010, 01:41 AM // 01:41

HA was doomed to die from the start because of the badly designed rank system.

Guild Wars has a hardcore skill based gameplay design. Unlike other MMO's where you must grind endless hours for gear and such to even think about competing in high end PvP, a player who just starts Guild Wars could theoretically be one of the most highly skilled players in a matter of days.

Then comes in the rank system. Instead of a rank system that is equally hardcore allowing for players to rise and fall like rocks based on their performance and actual skill, Anet for whatever insane reason decided to implement an extremely casual ranking system that is based almost exclusively on grind. People still discriminate based on this because while it is a horseshit system when it comes down to things it's better than nothing. An unranked player may be good, but they are much more likely to be bad than one with rank.

So while it's possible for a player to become godly good in a short amount of time, it doesn't really matter because it would still take that player a few months of reputation/flist building to actually get into teams. While some people are fine with this, a lot of players I have talked to who almost never HA cite it as their main reason for never HA'ing. This is why HA is dying. The system inevitably leads to more players leaving the HA community than players coming into it.

Personally I would like to see the hero title completely removed or revamped and emotes relegated to a simple unlock by winning a certain number of HoH matches that could be obtained by a good player in one go, and the friends list doubled with a PvE friend list and a PvP friend list. This would hopefully make PuG's more based around individual merit and community reputation. Technically it already is based on community, as getting a good friends list is the real secret to winning HA, but IMO it would be better if it was the ONLY way to do it so that way new players don't make the mistake of wasting their time Grinding with random retards which will almost always discourage them.

Moloch Vein · Mar 03, 2010, 02:13 AM // 02:13

How about just creating something new altogether, since this game is dying anyway?

I'd love to see 12v12 organized pvp. Hell, make it 16v16.

superraptors · Mar 03, 2010, 10:20 AM // 10:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Short anwser: No

Long anwser: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

6v6 and Heroes are what destroyed HA in the first place. If you want to make HA active again, start with removing these shitconditions in HoH, and reintroduce the old, fun, maps.

Secondly, elitism didn't kill HA. When I first joined HA, though I was in the first wave, there was just as much discrimination as there is now. Heck, there was ALOT MORE because there was alot more players people could choose from.

If all those PvE'ers got off their lazy asses, and stopped pretending that getting carried by other players/heroes is a viable way of playing a competitive game, they wouldn't be here bitchin about discrimation. It's been told a hundred times before, and I will be for atleast another hundred more: if you can't someone to farm HA for you, do it yourself. You have the wiki, you have a brain and you, hopefully, have 2 hands.

Lastly a personal, curious question towards the OP:

Why do you even post this? By playing nothing but sway all day, you make people leave aswell, because it simply isn't fun to play against.
"Were too bad to play balanced, and these R/A's keep steamrolling us, so we run it all day ourselves" simply isn't a valid excuse to be running it.
Not to get into a flamewar any further, I felt it had to be said. I myself, and ALOT of other people left HA, because it's one shitmeta after the other one, getting abused by every PvE'er and their mom.

And it's not even a question of people not beating it, because sway, aswell as hexway, can be beaten by applying simple strategies (there gimmicks after all), it's just that facing the same build, playing the exact same strategy over and over again simply isn't fun. (Same reason why bspam killed GvG ladder)

But yeah, you raised a "valid" question, and I gave you a valid anwser that noone who has got a clue about HA will argue with:

Don't bring heroes back to HA.
Don't revert HA back to 6v6.

Both are large culprits in killing HA in the first place, embracing them now would be plain retarded. (But I gues there's nostalgic reasons for you Anna, cuz you started playing during 6v6, so I understand why you would want 6v6 back, but no, it was plain shit compared to old school 8v8)

I dunno 6v6 was shit when there was op nightfall skills. People couldnt be RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed playing this is what killed it, making it seem like shit compared to the dual gas meta(Balanced ha meta).

If it was 8v8 old school holding with those OP NF skills you would probably feel the same. Yea 6v6 & nf and heroes killed ha. But now that the skills are balanced it is not going to hurt to revert back to 6v6, to make forming easier, more groups, thus making it active again.

We need to get pvers into ha cause they are they are pretty much the population of gw. Only way to work is to make getting into groups easier, making more teams and competition, so noobs can play noobs instead of playing the remaining 11+ balanced teams.

Those who played ha during late 05 and 06 would remember that there were so many lower ranked teams in comparison to high ranked. Now there are so many high ranked in comparison to low rank. Which i guess is only logical given how long the game has been out also the fact that the pvers arent making the transition into HA because of too many high ranked teams, and they just get raped if they play. Borat these pvers arent lazy its just the fact there arent enough noobs out there so they can put together groups and play each other in UW. And once again i state because it is FORMING GROUPS, and no incentives for these pvers to play.

It is better to have 50 noobs and 10 good teams rather than 10 noob teams and 50 good teams.
Making ha more fun by fixing objectives isnt going to bring new bloods in, it will only make it more fun for the already rank 11+ teams.

But if we make it 6v6 to make forming easier, drop 1 map from rotation, bring back sacred(fun map) and also fix objectives(relic mainly), and also make it that in order for UW/FOW to work is make it only accessible by favour.

OblivionDanny · Mar 03, 2010, 05:01 PM // 17:01

List of Ideas so far:

Reintroducing 6v6
Possibility of more teams as less time and effort is required to find people for a team
Reintroducing Heroes
Less time required spamming for people more time playing the game.
More incentives needed to play HA
Update HoH chest with some new items?
Increase faction gain?
Get rid of faction altogether and replace with zkeys?
Removing/Adding objectives in halls
Removal of relic run and cap points.
Maybe time for some different objectives? (give ideas)
A complete remake
12vs12 or 16vs16 teams?
New format altogether?
Rank system/Emotes
Removal of the Hero title
Revamp the Hero title - Make it easier to get?
Allow rank 9 and below to always have double fame wins?
Allow emotes to be unlocked instead of having just 1 emote for the rank range your in?
Control favour
Bring back favour in HA.
Allow controlling favour to do something for PvErs? (Rather then for different areas of the world)
Permanent double fame
Therefore wouldnt a Revamp of the Hero title be better?
1v1 in HoH
The holding team should not be blue, its unfair.
The blue team should be the same as red/yellow team when 1v1v1.

Otello · Mar 08, 2010, 12:25 PM // 12:25

Want to bring pvers in HA? Make Fow, UW, and the other elite area unlocked for a pve character, only if you have won once HoH. You have to do it for each character you want to go in an elite area.

In any case, group forming should be faster. I take lower ranked people in my group when I cant find someone better at the moment. A part from monks.

Sethellington · Mar 08, 2010, 12:41 PM // 12:41

Dying? Dead long ago IMO. I used to love HA, but I took a long break and everything's changed and I never got used to playing the new maps and game types so I'm stuck at R4 forever by the looks of it. 6 vs. 6 was fun, but then 8 vs. 8 used to be fun. Not sure if it's already been changed beyond fun.

Garet1337 · Mar 11, 2010, 09:10 AM // 09:10

i've read thru a lot of this thread and see people complaining and then people trolling the complainers and etc etc and i'd just like to point out what should be obvious

HA and GvG r made so that the BEST will win... DUH!!!
Does Rank Matter, OFC!! Should it matter? YES. Is rank everything, no

Rank descrimination has been around since less than 2 days after Prof came out, so EVERYONE had been through it, so dont complain that it is against only u.

I agree it may be harder for the lower ranks to find groups now days, and even harder to win so i will be nice and offer u soloutions, which most players had to do.

Find a HA guild, yesss low rank guilds exist u just need to know where and when to look. Be kind to others, noone wants a troll in their group. Try to befriend people (ecspecaily the high ranked people ;]) Basicaly just get ur name out there!!! If u lose, dont flame just try again, try sticking with certain builds instead of constantly moving around (everyone loves to have monks in their group!!) If u dont know anyone, and dont like random ways, then dont play dead hours (i'ma get yelled at for saying that)

Probably the best peice of advice i can give is.... TAKE CHARGE, form ur own groups, start ur own HA Guild, etc etc etc, belive me it's mostly easier to look for players than it is for groups u r actually able to join. Play with the same people, get to know everyone.

Okay there is lots more i can add but i'm tired, just dont give up!!!

Ace_000 · Mar 12, 2010, 02:02 AM // 02:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nimble Night

HA is about social networking, if you can't make friends, you won't rank up. Rank discrimination has nothing to do with it.

If all you are doing is going to the outpost and trying to join r9+ pugs, you are doing it wrong. You should be looking for, (or starting your own), entry level HA guilds and starting your own groups.

You have a friend list, use it.

HA died due to terrible game balance that left stale gimmick builds around for months, the addition of heroes, 6v6, stupid objectives in halls (relic run, capture points) and splitting PvP and PvE.

all wat my lil nimble friend said

iTzF3aR · Mar 15, 2010, 02:12 PM // 14:12

Bring back 1v1v1v1v1v1

Nadia Roark · Mar 15, 2010, 04:57 PM // 16:57

I just came back to Guild Wars maybe a week or so ago, and I've been gone so long everything about it amounts to a blast from the past, "HA is dead?" threads included.

I don't really disagree with very much that has been said, but I think some of the HA decay has been just entropy; all things break down (especially when most people seem quit HA after they get their r9) and I doubt ANet can or will do much about it.

One thing that has always irritated me though (and some other people have mentioned this but I'll go ahead and add my voice to the din) was their game balance protocol. Pretty much any build I used that was successful at all was nerfed within days, and anything I didn't like/enjoy/play either stayed the same or got stronger. Sometimes it was deserved (blame me and 6 other guys for the Sandstorm nerf, we held for 120ish minutes with 6 SS eles, a monk and an archer hench once; SS was nerfed practically the next day), but sometimes it wasn't.

When they nerfed Dual Smite, for example, they didn't nerf just one or two skills, they took a baseball bat to the entire line, rendering not only Air of Enchantment, but Zealot's fire and Aura of Balthazar mostly useless. Necros got soul reaping from spirits for years when they should have removed it the instant Factions was released. ANet seems to love some classes (Necro) with nearly every skill update, while periodically menacing/marginalizing others (Monk, Dervish); and seem to prefer stale 8v8 metas over diverse ones.

I think the problem is one that can't really be fixed at this point, as it has to do with ANet's meta philosophy and general game design. Even if a new HA format parted the clouds and descended upon us from Heaven, I doubt things will ever be (even close to) how they were. Most people I've played with started hating HA around r7 or r8, and stopped playing entirely once they got their tigers. Considering the game's age, I think the people who routinely play HA these days will be one of our last crops of regulars. If I was an ANet dev and had it all to do over again (assuming preserving the HA community was a priority--for all we know, it isn't), I'd probably advocate more rewards for HA play, or possibly faster fame gain or a different algorithm for determining rank. But right now? I'm not sure what they can really do.

RespectMe · Mar 19, 2010, 08:15 AM // 08:15

Well, bringing back heroes to HA would obviously make more teams so it would be a rational choice. And no, heroes wouldnt own HA dont even say this kind of things. Heroway was dead way before anet removed heroes from pvp and the reason is IWAY. IWAY teams farmed and will farm any heroways and gimmicks. So removing heroes was senseless, it couldnt be played anyway as before, WoW got nerfed so only human players could use it properly. Moreover heroway fails in hoh so any balanced would beat it 1v1 or even 3 way.
And to the guys who are giving advices about changing rank system or pvp system: Stop wasting ur time by writing this, anet wont make a radical change in an about 5 years existing scheme.
All in all bring back heroes and dont even try bitching with ranks or new maps.

Killed u man · Mar 19, 2010, 12:57 PM // 12:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by RespectMe

Well, bringing back heroes to HA would obviously make more teams so it would be a rational choice. And no, heroes wouldnt own HA dont even say this kind of things. Heroway was dead way before anet removed heroes from pvp and the reason is IWAY. IWAY teams farmed and will farm any heroways and gimmicks. So removing heroes was senseless, it couldnt be played anyway as before, WoW got nerfed so only human players could use it properly. Moreover heroway fails in hoh so any balanced would beat it 1v1 or even 3 way.
And to the guys who are giving advices about changing rank system or pvp system: Stop wasting ur time by writing this, anet wont make a radical change in an about 5 years existing scheme.
All in all bring back heroes and dont even try bitching with ranks or new maps.

No. HA doesn't need to get reverted to PvE again. MAYBE if Heroes are incapable of using Hexes, Interrupts, Weapon spells and AoE spells, than yes.

Anyone who says he wants heroes back isn't saying he wants heroes back, he's saying he wants his PvE friends which carried him in PvE back. They're no good bots, only causing grief amongst real PvP'ers because half the time heroes suck hard and get farmed in under a minute (Which isn't fun), and the other half your heal monk got infuse health (Or your prot spirit bond) interrupted 3 times in a row and you loose.

The same goes for their weapon spells and AoE spells. Though those generally have a 100% dead-on effectiveness. Heroes with Smite Hex + Smite Condition will always use it on the guy surrounded by most enemies. Not even top GvG'ers (in GW's glory days) had the skill to check every spell for AoE impact, whereas these bots do.

With heroes (bots), you're always going to have an big advantages, and a big disadvantages.
All these known HA builds made sure there was next to no disadvantages left (they didnd't have to run, snare, put up song, but where a pure skill abuse bar), but filled the bar with skills the heroes could use to a redicilous extend. (Weapon spells -prots in general-, Interupts, AoE spells)