Curse

Reverend Dr · Nov 21, 2009, 11:00 PM // 23:00

CA was the best.

Before factions, before titles, when it was filled with bad players with bad builds and good players with bad builds. That was actually fun.

IninefingersI · Nov 22, 2009, 04:25 AM // 04:25

TA had some problems, HB had even more problems, but I don't think trashing them was a good decision. Especially with Codex as a replacement. Its horrific.

Nirconus Otreum · Nov 22, 2009, 04:51 AM // 04:51

Hey there, Ninefingers. I see you in RA quite a bit.

I must admit that I didn't do TA... Like, ever. Now that it's gone, though, I'm kind of wishing I had for glad points. Oh well.

IninefingersI · Nov 23, 2009, 05:39 PM // 17:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nirconus Otreum

Hey there, Ninefingers. I see you in RA quite a bit.

I must admit that I didn't do TA... Like, ever. Now that it's gone, though, I'm kind of wishing I had for glad points. Oh well.

Hi, yeah, I've been in RA a time or 2.

My thoughts on the matter are that Codex is pretty much a flop. All removing TA did was take an important link out of the GW PvP chain. GW has always had something for everyone. The ease and instant gratification of RA to the more structured and drawn out HA. TA was a nice fit right in the middle. You could coordinate your builds and use voice comm, but didn't have to deal with the logistical hassle of HA. That chain is broken now, and Codex doesn't even come close to filling the void.

I also don't know how much they really saved by getting rid of TA. Most of the people that used to play it are just syncing RA now and complaining about not having TA anyway.

I say bring it back with the same 25 win format and Glad point progression that RA currently has and keep RA and TA separate.

Keep Codex if you want but, personally, I would reduce it to a smoldering hole on the map screen and deny it ever existed.

Just my 2¢, take it for what its worth.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Nov 23, 2009, 06:54 PM // 18:54

CA is essentially the same format as TA except you can't run gimmicks like shove spike and you have to make your own build or wait till other people make a good build rather than copy pvxwiki.

People that liked TA but dislike CA are either bad or lazy or a combination of the 2.

IninefingersI · Nov 23, 2009, 07:20 PM // 19:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

CA is essentially the same format as TA except you can't run gimmicks like shove spike and you have to make your own build or wait till other people make a good build rather than copy pvxwiki.

People that liked TA but dislike CA are either bad or lazy or a combination of the 2.

Thats a broad and inaccurate statement. CA is more of a logistical nightmare than HA is. The day starts out with people stewing over the GWW skill list to put something together, play, refine, play, refine, play, refine, until by the end of the day the entire arena has been homogenized down to running pretty much the same shit. To say that CA is TA for people who don't suck and aren't lazy is ludicrous. Its balancing the arena by making everyone suck and you win by trying to suck just a little less than the other guy.

Aera · Nov 23, 2009, 09:38 PM // 21:38

I enjoy CA, but I still miss TA.

Thamior Shamus · Nov 23, 2009, 10:54 PM // 22:54

I miss TA in the sense that was the arena where I could practice/tune up my rupts. RA just doesn't give the same environment as TA did, and I need a tune-up.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Nov 23, 2009, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by IninefingersI

Thats a broad and inaccurate statement. CA is more of a logistical nightmare than HA is. The day starts out with people stewing over the GWW skill list to put something together, play, refine, play, refine, play, refine, until by the end of the day the entire arena has been homogenized down to running pretty much the same shit. To say that CA is TA for people who don't suck and aren't lazy is ludicrous. Its balancing the arena by making everyone suck and you win by trying to suck just a little less than the other guy.

Better/smarter players will have to do a lot less refining, it happens occassionally that I theorycraft wrong and my team needs to make a lot of changes but in general there's only 1 or 2 things that we would change if we'd go back in (usually it's more of a 'if we would lose we would change this and that thing and then we end up not losing anyway) it's not perfect, I didn't say that, Anet should make a list available in-game or on the wiki when the deck changes.

It's a little harder to pug because there won't be any 'r5 warrior lf iway' spam, at least not right after the reset.

The amount of viable builds differs greatly from day to day as do obviously the actual builds themselves, it happens very rarely that there is an 'ultimate build'.

The skill bars may suck when you compare them to the finetuned bars people ran in TA but you have to see the bars in relation to the other bars and skills that are available in the codex to support/counter other skills. (e.g. a good hex skill might be next to useless when there's a lot of hex removal available and a few weaker hexes might be very strong when there's next to no hex removal).

The beauty of the format is that there's no waiting 6 months on a skill update that could potentially change the meta but usually has little to no effect, the meta changes every 24 hours and several times during these 24 hours as people usually start off running a pretty wide variety of different builds.

The biggest problem CA has atm is the lack of a playerbase at 'dead hours' which isn't really different from TA except TA had an influx of RA teams to mask this problem.

Some of the buils I played in CA the last 2 weeks really made me reminisce about times where you weren't forced to run set in stone bars on every character template like in TA/HA/GvG nowadays.

Anyway to go back on-topic:

I miss TA like it was before the glad title, before factions release, before nightfall release.

Ever since everyone's running the same gimmicky crap (balanced does not contain necros people!) I didn't enjoy it anymore and I don't miss it being removed from the game.

Although I did greatly enjoy the hero battle maps being incorporated in the TA map pool, removing them again was a stupid move on Anets part.

valence · Nov 24, 2009, 12:11 AM // 00:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Ever since everyone's running the same gimmicky crap (balanced does not contain necros people!) I didn't enjoy it anymore and I don't miss it being removed from the game.

a balanced build has no need to reflect a balance in skills.

Cammy · Nov 24, 2009, 12:34 AM // 00:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by IninefingersI

Most of the people that used to play it are just syncing RA now and complaining about not having TA anyway.

SPEAKING OF SYNCING RA

Since I'm so bad I always sink the 3 other people carrying me, I've decided having a one strong swimmer jump into the (cess)pool that is RA with me to be my lifeguard is better for everyone.

So what is the best 2-person team you can get?

I was debating between

Mo/N: Great condi removal, rapes physicals. Dies to casters.

Mo/R: Great hex removal, good against most things if ranger can interrupt. Loses to physical monkstomp. Monk is gimped by carrying condi removal.

Mo/W: Kills fast. Putting all the condi and hex removal on the monk is bad news.

Derv Healer/any: Great power heals. Loses against condis and hexes.

So far I'm thinking Mo/VoR with a hex removal or a Mo/IoP WoH might work best.

Of course, success is still highly dependent on the other two people on your team. What I'm wondering, though, is given any 2 random people on your team, which synced duo provides the greatest chance to pull a Michael Phelps in the greatest number of situations.

YOUR THOUGHTS (+bonus points for swimming references)?

inb4lolsync (I'm bad and dishonorable, k?)

Krill · Nov 24, 2009, 07:26 AM // 07:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

(balanced does not contain necros people!)

Hmm I guess anet didn't get the message since they made all those insane buffs to curses and foul feast.

urania · Nov 24, 2009, 08:12 AM // 08:12

I miss TA from before Prage, Wod+ff+ps, Mb/BA turret and Woh setup became the "balanced" meta.
So much.
But since it'd never come back, no, I don't miss TA anymore. The last few months/year were horrible.

at Mitch, you mention the relation between bars in CA and then give hexes as an example of when they can be powerful and when not, but you're forgetting that in TA, necs (in a "balanced" setup) usually carried 2-3 hexes (Woh or CE, dd and faint) against major hex removal on every monk's bar (deny+veil/deny+spotless/cure+deny) - so a lot depended on the ranger's disruption of the hex removal for the nec's hexes to be strong. My point is that TA bars were just as interrelated as the bars u make in CA...but their relation was on a significantly higher level as that in CA, because the punishment for making a mistake there was often a lost match.
Also, adding hero battle maps to TA was a dreadful decision.

Foe · Nov 24, 2009, 08:58 PM // 20:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

My point is that TA bars were just as interrelated as the bars u make in CA...but their relation was on a significantly higher level as that in CA, because the punishment for making a mistake there was often a lost match.

This is why i personally enjoyed TA. Balanced matches were generally mirror builds so it came down to how you played your skill bar as opposed to which skills you did or didn't have. Balanced play also encouraged players to learn about all the little things to gain competitive advantage when skill bars are taken out of the equation. Proper use of weapon sets, armor sets, positioning, offensive to defensive transitions, canceling etc..etc

Sure the power creep hurt ta and the blk out/wail chains meta pretty much negated everything i mentioned in the above paragraph. It was however for the majority of its history a highly competitive format. It took me years to get bored with TA, CA took about a week.

CA just feels like RA as in its something to do when your bored. Slap together a bad skill bar and have some fun and a few lols for half an hour. Maybe the level of competition will pick up when AT's are introduced and the playerbase will increase.

I don't understand why there cant be TA and CA. Same 4v4 maps but CA and TA are not even close to the same experience. TA was micro/meta play and CA is mostly about team builds, which is really fun in itself. The 1st 10 mins of a New Deck rekindles part of what was so fun about early guild wars.

Bring back TA, fix like 5 retarded skills, add an AT. Do the same for CA.

Sankt Hallvard · Nov 24, 2009, 11:27 PM // 23:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cammy

YOUR THOUGHTS (+bonus points for swimming references)?

inb4lolsync (I'm bad and dishonorable, k?)

Teach me to sync.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Nov 25, 2009, 11:12 AM // 11:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

at Mitch, you mention the relation between bars in CA and then give hexes as an example of when they can be powerful and when not

Hexes was the example as it's the easiest to explain without going into huge detail over specific skills on bars.

It could have been the relative strength of warriors compared to other physicals, physicals to physical defense, casters to caster defense/interrupts, conditions to condition removal.

Of course it's like this in TA too (and in any other organized PvP format for that matter) the difference is that in CA this 'power equilibrium' changes every day and the point I was trying to make that a subpar skill bar in CA can be a really good skillbar relative to the other bars available.

Quote:

the punishment for making a mistake there was often a lost match.

The same can apply to CA, due to offense being relatively stronger than defense in a certain codex, ofc TA had much better/optimised bars but this also means the safety net is a lot bigger having skills like Patient Spirit to compensate for WoH being dshot for example.

In CA getting a key skill DShot can be just as if not more devastating.
Also, adding hero battle maps to TA was a dreadful decision.

Quote:

Also, adding hero battle maps to TA was a dreadful decision.

I still haven't heard any arguments to support this.

urania · Nov 25, 2009, 07:13 PM // 19:13

the point is most of the time you'll be gambling with skill choices and skill counters - no d shot or any hard shutdown and everyone can spam away at will.
sometimes even that barely matters because most of the spells suck ass, but then again, sometimes it does. and i suppose this random part of CA (basicaly, the daily skill change) has its pros as well as cons.

as for the hero maps, i think ive written about the reasons as to why it was a bad decision a while ago, and since im too lazy to repeat myself we can always chat about it ig.

I Jonas I · Nov 25, 2009, 08:28 PM // 20:28

Before they deleted TA I just started getting good enough at the game where I could play TA with a few of my friends and actually string some streaks together. And that was pretty fun, I have to say. While I never got to experience the TA of a few years ago that everyone seems to think was so amazing, what I do know is that the TA that I got to know and love, the TA that was deleted, was the most fun I've ever had in PvP. For a player that's been playing this dying game for 46 months that should mean something.