the radical, counter-intuitive revive HA thread

[dr love]

So there was a 'strike' in great temple ID1 today against heroes in pvp. It was funny to watch, but it got me thinking. Heroes aren't a problem in pvp, lack of players is.

So i exercised some rational thought.

In order to gain more players in HA or any aspect of the game, there are 3 things I believe can be done

1. Increase the fun
2. Increase the rewards (for some that = fun)
3. Increase the accessibilty to play

1. Increase the fun
this is subjective but here's some ideas.
In order to attract the old player base back, HA needs to be changed in a major way. Minor skill 'balancing' won't do it. A new expansion would, but that won't happen. Also unlikely to happen is a major skill update. What I can think of, is changing the maps, ways to win in maps, and amount of players in a party. Changing parties back to 6 (or pick a different number, higher than 8 even) will get the gears grinding again for the vets. Smaller parties also makes it easier to form a party. Sometimes I think I spend more time in ID1 forming a party than I do playing in HA. That isn't fun.

2. Increase the rewards (for some that = fun)
Not everyone wins halls. Not everyone will win halls. Some get lots of fame, some get a little, some get none. I can't think of anything constructive at the moment, but just for example, if you got 100k every win, alot of people would be playing HA.

3. Increase the accessibilty to play
This is the biggest factor. There are loads of players that have never played HA, or briefly tried, failed and never came back.

Why don't new players often come to HA?
They do, but they don't have rank, experience and have a slim chance of getting a group. They sit in ID1 saying 'tank lfg' for a while get bored and they never come back.

Why don't they just recruit 5-7 more newbie friends so they can get experience and maybe a bambi?
Because they want to play the game when they login, not struggle to form a party with others that have had the same bad experience in HA.

Here's a crazy idea.
Heroes are good for pvp. They make forming a party easier. They are equivalent to decent players (let me remind you the best GvGers and HAers don't use heroes). In fact, if anything, more heroes should be allowed to play. This will make it easier to form a group. Allowing a team of 1 player and 7 heroes and hench allows anybody to play. Yes they will get rolled, but they will be able to play right away, have fun and gain experience.

The best part is, more players brings more players. If anybody and everybody can participate in HA as soon as they login by just forming a group of henchies, there will be more players in HA. Then it will be easier to form groups of players. Weird eh? Allowing more heroes/hench will allow for more full parties of players.

Let's hear it. what do you think?

[Liam016]

I see where your coming from and i like your idea of allowing more heros into a party, i was more of a RA/PvE person untill 2 weeks ago. I tryed HA for the first time in 27 months and i enjoyed it. My first battle was randomway and the leader was a r8 hero with two heros. worked pretty well to say we only 1 monk in the whole party. I curently only have 49 fame, thats all through randomway and i usually play LC or SH. I'm finding it fairly hard to find a group that has a chance of actually gaining some fame. And the fact i have no rank don't help.

So recently ive been looking for a HA guild that recruites any rank for HA daily, but ive still not come across such thing, you have to be like R4+ in some cases for you to be recruited.

better rewards and the use of more heros will make it more fun, and might actually be more enjoyable getting a group.

Like ou sai about newbies coming to HA trying it out and failing is true, i have actually gave up on HA for the time being and gone back to RA, as i spend more time waiting for a group to form then actually playing HA.

[Eragon Zarroc]

mmmm, increasing rewards could get out of hand and having 1 man 7 heros is like a giant HB battle. I don't prefer 6-man but in the current state of HA, it would prolly help out some. Bringing back some of the old-school maps would be awesome too =). it would be cool to see the maps that allow like 6 teams in to be put back into running, although with the low amount of teams, unfortunately not a good idea =(

[Sea of sins]

8vs8 -> 6vs6 = Yes please. Makes it much easier to form a party, so less making the group, more actual gaming. = Increasing fun.

100k/win? = No. Don't think it's needed. I do it just to get higher rank, and nicer emote. What could be a better reward than " /emote " : giant dragon flying above me !


All heroes/henchie's party? = Please no. Maximum 2 heroes/henchies if you play 6v6 is more than enough. So if you & 2 heroes, means that you only have to find 3 other players to join. That's imho no problem, even without rank.




Just my humble opinion.

Greetings.

[Lykan]

Originally Posted by dbulger

...
if you got 100k every win
...
Allowing a team of 1 player and 7 heroes and hench allows anybody to play.
...
Let's hear it. what do you think?

.....
What do I think? Im not going to type what I think as it wont be very nice...
100k a hoh win? you realise some people can win hoh 10-15 times a night?
Thats 7 -10mil a week lol. Nice joke.

And as for 1 human in a team? You must being freaking kidding. Heroes are the biggest pox Pvp ever. Idk wtf they were thinking when they allowed it to happen. PvP should be player vs player and nothing else.

Something needs to be done yes but dont hold your breath for it. Anet gave up on HA a long time ago. Its way too late in the game now. The players who actually played for fun have left the game and no changes will bring them back, all thats left are people who want shiny emotes and something for their HoM and they dont care how they get it, they will farm with the easiest and lamest crap till their eyes bleed, they dont play HA for fun, its like pve to them all they see is the end goal just to get the shinyness.

All anet will do is throw in a double fame weekend here and there just to make people think its not forgotten.
Hopefully the next big update will include a blanket ban on all heroes in Pvp and it will shake things up for about a week until someones find a new way to lame, but it wont bring people back.

[Krill]

@ OP

Sorry to be so hard but if you think the answer to fixing is HA is more heroes, you're a dumbass. The overwhelming majority of players that are "turned off" by HA do a it few times and rage quit out if they don't win, never to come back because they have such little commitment or desire to be successful. You don't need to change anything for that crowd, you need to keep the players that actually like the format interested and more heroes makes that more difficult.

Not to mention HA is already as new player accessible as ever, any player of any skill level can jump in in a teaseway pug and have a decent chance of winning a few. If that's too complicated (I can't imagine how...) jump in a mathway fame farm.

[Tharg]

Try to get some PvE players into PvP. I am one of those PvE players that would like to try PvP but have not tried (yet). I guess I am a bit anxious about playing with experienced PvP players - I just don't want to get flamed for screwing up or something.

If you would put me in RA / HA I would have no idea what to do. I know I can read up on the maps and strategies etc. on Wiki but still reading about it or doing it are two different things. Don't know but I can imagine that there are others out there like me.

I would feel more comfortable if there would be a beginner's level (low / no rank) RA / HA separate from the higher rank level that would allow me to play against others of similar level first to get the experience to play against better players.

[Jenn]

I don't agree with increasing the reward for winning. Not only is it already reasonably simple to win, the reward isn't half-bad. A successful PvPer's income can far outweigh the income of someone who is good at PvE. I quite like PvP (though don't play anymore), but those people don't need to be making more money. If it's a question of rewarding people who can't win, maybe they should get better =P.

I think for making it easier on people, it might be a good idea to reduce party size, although I'm not well-informed on the current meta. For some people, though, heroes are the only way they'll ever get enough fame to eventually get into groups that won't take them right now.

[Ariena Najea]

In theory I like all of your points, however, there are practically some real problems with your suggestions.

Changing the party size to 6 sounds nice, however, this encourages stalemates and longer matches when teams are running 2 Monks and an additional support character. This happened previously when the team size was changed, as was seen overall as a negative change for HA.

For increased rewards, giving gold or items by match would cause major problems. Instead, simply increasing the amount of Faction gained per kill/match would help newer players get the skills and equipment they need, or let older players get more Zkeys. Creating wealth by generating gold in PvP is a bad idea.

As for heroes, I used to be a semi-active HA player, and now I refuse to go there. Heroway builds have taken over, and an inexperienced PUG can easily overcome more experienced groups. Heroes in PvP do not have as many of the downsides as their PvE counterparts, and some of their unique abilities (ie interrupt skill) shine in PvP. [[Tease]way in particular takes advantage of the hero's better-than-player abilities, such as putting [[Weapon of Warding] on an ally before the attack lands but after the attack begins. Heroes make forming a party easier sure, but at the cost of ruining gameplay.

In my opinion, the best move to fix HA is to remove heroes, double or triple the amount of Faction, and see how things go from there.

[Sadchaos]

I think that heroes are causing the decrease in the HA player base.

I don't think that the problem is that new players aren't coming into the game, it's just that old, experienced ones are leaving.

The fact that a Teaseway team can roll a standard balanced that might be 3 ranks ahead of them without much trouble is saying that something is unbalanced. I think it's that skills that are powerful without much actual thought going into the use of them. LC is an example. Good players of course will use this much more effectively than the not as good players, but it's still powerful in the hands of a button mashing noob.

The Hero AI is much too quick. I shouldn't be getting interrupted on Reversal of Fortune. No Human player could do that without a lucky spam. The fact that it happens more than once in a game is simply absurd. This is a tough one for Arena Net though. They want to fix this but I don't think it could be done without upsetting the HB player base. Also that player base is dropping as well so this really is up to the developers on which one is more important.

Basically this is a tough one for Arena Net and no matter what they do they're going to disappoint somebody.

[dr love]

the 100k a win thing wasn't a solution. it was just an absurd example, that if rewards were increased, more people would flock over. Increasing faction would be nice, but then it should be done across the board for pvp.

A lot of the old player base isn't coming back to HA, regardless. Thus the way I see to get more players is concentrate on attracting the new guys. Yes they can run mathway. There's a few "math teachers" out there that will take new guys and show them the ropes. But I'd say even for teaseway, most groups are still ranked. And those that aren't, typically are bad and will lose. and when they lose, a player often rage quits, and then some other guy will follow suit. and then the team is suddenly at 4/8 back in ID1.

[Reverend Dr]

Remove the Zaishen. They (well ghosts) were introduced to prevent pure defensive teams from just waiting to enter underworld (either that or EoE bombs). That worked until someone figured out putting obsidion flame on monks can get an otherwise full defensive team through (and EoE has long since been been changed).

What the zaishen do now is make losing even more unfun. With the few exceptions aside, losing is already not fun. Want to go again, well go fight these NPC's first. This makes a bad night even worse. Sometimes you don't get a chance to settle into a bar or playstyle as every other match is against NPC opponents. It doesn't take many zaishen -> underworld failures to end a group.

I know, the obvious answer is l2p. Well that's the answer if I was complaining that HA was too hard. No matter what someone is going to lose every match. No matter what there are going to be bad people and bad groups in HA. The more painful the losing process (the longer it takes to get back into the game) the less total people are going to be playing HA.

Build wise, I can hardly think of a build that cannot already get past the zaishen. Only other way to exploit it that I can think of offhand would be halls skips. I've gotten plenty of skips from underworld, but I haven't gotten a zaishen skip since they were ghosts; simply just don't allow a halls skip from entering mission.

Okay we'll lose the 8-10% morale boost in Underworld, but that will effect only the first match.

EDIT: Posted in another thread, not specifically aimed at HA, more at PvP in general, but still applies to promoting PvP playerbase in general.

[FoxBat]

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Remove the Zaishen.

Totally out of left field, but a compelling argument, dirt-cheap to implement, and zero downsides. I concur.

If we really need it, copy some timebreaker mechanics used in RA to stop ridiculously long matches/ greifing. (Oh Hai Eleball...)

[Edwards]

The problem with implementing 6v6 is that you're already forced to bring so many gimmicky, mostly useless utility skills in order to be able to win all the different map objectives that reducing the overall number of skill slots a team has (from 64 to 48) will only make this problem worse and lead to more stale gameplay. The metagame will suck even more than it does now if you have to fit the standard SoC, "MH", WoW, Snares, AoS, AoE skills like SH for cap points and altars, etc.

I think one big step towards making HA more fun would be to deal with those skills. Nerf them into line with the alternatives, buff the alternatives, or change the maps, and all of a sudden people have a lot more build options.

[TheHaxor]

Originally Posted by Lykan

And as for 1 human in a team? You must being freaking kidding. Heroes are the biggest pox Pvp ever. Idk wtf they were thinking when they allowed it to happen. PvP should be player vs player and nothing else.

Something needs to be done yes but dont hold your breath for it. Anet gave up on HA a long time ago. Its way too late in the game now. The players who actually played for fun have left the game and no changes will bring them back, all thats left are people who want shiny emotes and something for their HoM and they dont care how they get it, they will farm with the easiest and lamest crap till their eyes bleed, they dont play HA for fun, its like pve to them all they see is the end goal just to get the shinyness.

All anet will do is throw in a double fame weekend here and there just to make people think its not forgotten.
Hopefully the next big update will include a blanket ban on all heroes in Pvp and it will shake things up for about a week until someones find a new way to lame, but it wont bring people back.

Not everyone wants to wait around forever to get to the magic number of 8. Also, do you realize how pathetic you look when you complain about things that don't have rational thought? The Me/Rt will weapon anything taking physical damage, interrupt random useless shit, and stand in AoE. Why do you complain about something so stupid?

[Our Lady Of Sorrow]

if 6v6 came back i would quit for good.. im on a current gw holiday.. i play wow occasionally checking gw for HA updates.. until that happens, im WoWing out..

what would make me come back? more variety.. before eotn, and the HA changes (mid 6v6) it was quite a decent variety, not the best mind you.. the best was before nightfall.. in 8v8, where you could run anything, have fun, and win.. you could run an iway, bloodspike, balance, smite.. and then piss about.. pokeway anyone?!
where as what have you got now? 2 assassins, necro, ele, 2heroes 2 monks.. EVERYONE runs it.. apart from people that try to break the meta..
but bless ther souls. they fail, apart from dead hours

we need a BIG map/objective change
we need a BIGGER skill change
we NEED heroes to f*ck off! what fun if every spell interupted by a hero?
its not.. RC, interupted, fair enough..
guardian interupted, ok, any idiot can do that..
RoF interupted 5 times in a row.. now that is taking it.

if it was a PD mes i would laugh and call him a lucky person, but with a hero multitasking like that.. its boring as hell

i thought hero battles is where heroes belong.. if you want to be in a team of AI, then go there please, why should they ruin the PLAYER vs PLAYER side..


i will not HA properly again until this bull is fixed..
until then WoW is more fun.
byebye

[Lykan]

Originally Posted by TheHaxor

Not everyone wants to wait around forever to get to the magic number of 8. Also, do you realize how pathetic you look when you complain about things that don't have rational thought? The Me/Rt will weapon anything taking physical damage, interrupt random useless shit, and stand in AoE. Why do you complain about something so stupid?

Tough doodies some of us have friends.

We complain because it IS stupid and shouldnt be in the game.

[TheHaxor]

Originally Posted by Lykan

Tough doodies some of us have friends.

We complain because it IS stupid and shouldnt be in the game.

It sounds like you're upset that you can't beat something that can't think for itself.

[Arya Nibelrund]

Mhhh no; complaining about heroes in pvp doesn't necessarily mean that you can't beat them. Also, I'm pretty sure he's better than 90% of all those mr. noone that post in here.

[TheHaxor]

Originally Posted by Arya Nibelrund

Mhhh no; complaining about heroes in pvp doesn't necessarily mean that you can't beat them. Also, I'm pretty sure he's better than 90% of all those mr. noone that post in here.

It doesn't matter if he's "good" because he shows as much understanding of how the game works as almost every other poster in this section.

People fail to understand that heroes are not the problem. It's the skills that people are putting on the heroes bar that are the problem. In fact, it's only a select few skills. WoW and PwK are the main problems with the bar (the smite monk bar is much less problematic in comparison). The mesmer skills are only there to power the use of these skills. The heroes are not particularly efficient at using their interrupts (they will simply interrupt anything). In fact you have to micro the tease against a caster spike because the hero can't reason and therefore will not always use it on spike. The inspiration skills are taken because they can power the weapons and party heals on the bar because the hero will simply use these skills on recharge most of the time and run out of energy if there is no energy management.

The problem with WoW is that it lasts forever, can't be ripped, and isn't easy to interrupt when placed on that hero. Balancing the game isn't as simple as just nerfing a skill or making a skill counter it at this point. If you change a skill to make it able to rip weapons, the only thing you succeed in doing is killing build variety by having another skill that everyone has to take to be successful (such as SoC, "Make Haste," etc.). If you nerf warding, then something else will take its place and become overpowered. It might not be as simple as a skill, but it could be that a certain style of play becomes dominant as a result of the nerf.

PwK is a problem because it is way too effective at soaking up pressure and it is difficult to shut down (I will be brief here). Due to the fact that you can precast it and drop it whenever you like, there really isn't a casting pattern that the caster is locked into. If you don't see the problem with that, then you aren't thinking hard enough. Again, it is not as simple as nerfing this skill in order to create balance. Something else will take its place.

The real problem is that there are too many skills and too many skill types in this game. You would think that more skills = more build variety, right? This has been disproved in every game I have ever played. My observations are that once you add more classes and more skills to the game, it drifts further from balance and becomes impossible to balance. The result is that there are a bunch of skills that are simply better than everything else that you have to take in order to be successful. Nerfing one skill will cause something else to take its place. It is impossible to balance all the skills with respect to each other. The only thing skill updates will be successful in doing is causing a meta shift. However, another stale meta will result because other skills or play types will take the place of the nerfed skills. This will cause people to complain once again.

The only way to balance the game is to have fewer skills and skill types (a less complicated game!). Another thing I haven't touched on is that there needs to be smaller variance between PvP areas in the game. AB, HA, RA, TA, GvG, and HvH have drastic variance between them and contribute to skill balancing difficulty. It is much easier to balance everything with respect to one another if there is less to balance. Sadly, once you have released the skills into the game you can't turn back. Removing skills from the game will do more damage to the player base than allowing them to remain in the game.

The point is that if you can't find a way to have fun in this game at this point, then you should probably quit because the game will not and can not be improved. You are better off finding another game to play before you become part of the never-ending QQ cycle.