Curse

Divine Xan · Aug 16, 2008, 07:49 PM // 19:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rico Ric

Pressure builds are out, splits are out if your a good "button" masher youll have a gold cape in no time.

Then go do it, see who wins august monthly...

DarkNecrid · Aug 16, 2008, 08:16 PM // 20:16

Quote:

Sorry-if the purpose of nerfing GvG is to "test" things out for GW2- find a different way, or start beta for that.

The purpose of "nerfing GvG" is to see how the game plays at its utmost basic level amongst the 3 different tiers of players, so that he can build a new GvG. Izzy can be dumb sometimes, but he isn't dumb enough to permanently remove all strategic elements from the game forever. C'mon.

Bowstring Badass · Aug 16, 2008, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkNecrid

The purpose of "nerfing GvG" is to see how the game plays at its utmost basic level amongst the 3 different tiers of players, so that he can build a new GvG. Izzy can be dumb sometimes, but he isn't dumb enough to permanently remove all strategic elements from the game forever. C'mon.

Then why did they remove VoD?

DutchSmurf · Aug 16, 2008, 09:57 PM // 21:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkNecrid

The purpose of "nerfing GvG" is to see how the game plays at its utmost basic level amongst the 3 different tiers of players, so that he can build a new GvG. Izzy can be dumb sometimes, but he isn't dumb enough to permanently remove all strategic elements from the game forever. C'mon.

Seeing his record over the past years, I don't see why he can't be that dumb. If you see how slow some bugs, even important ones, are fixed, if you see how long certain problem skills were/are allowed to exist, if you see which skills he added into the game, etc, etc. Then how can one possible argue that he isn't dumb enough for that?
People are complaining about boring gameplay, too important npcs and problems with VoD. Instead of making things more excited, he made it even more boring. Instead of 4 exciting minutes out of 22, we now have 2 out of 28. And even if he isn't this stupid and there is a plan, then what is it? Can I find it on some secret forum? Is it only known to a small group of people (read: rawr members)? Does Izzy actually know?
Anet, and Izzy's department most of all, really need to do a week long communication course once. Just give us an idea of what is happening. "We are trying A to see how it turns out and depending on that we are going to do either B or C". There you go, happy community. Now we are in a dark tunnel and have no idea if there is light at the end.

DarkNecrid · Aug 16, 2008, 10:11 PM // 22:11

Well I am only guessing but it makes sense. Granted I'm giving Izzy a lot of slack here, but it isn't Izzy's fault if bugs take forever to be fixed etc. There is a chain of command and Izzy doesn't have anything to do with bugs.

He can't just go "okay guys, today I'm nerfing X and that is all there is to it."

Quote:

Then why did they remove VoD?

You can't really take HA as a serious 8v8 only fight because of the maps and format so a lot of stuff that wins there doesn't really win in GvG even if you remove all the strategic elements because GvG is strictly 2 teams of 8 and no 3rd teams and there is pretty much no maps where you can roll face with Searing Flames spike or whatever they run now in HA like you can in GvG, or not nearly as well anyways. I think it's nice that Izzy is at least willing to say "VoD had its problems, let's try to rework this", rather than just changing skills and keeping the mechanic the same. You can change the skills all you want but people would still farm VoD somehow.

erk · Aug 17, 2008, 01:50 AM // 01:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bowstring Badass

Then why did they remove VoD?

I would guess that they were fed up with all the crying that NPC's are too important, and their attempts to make GvG more interesting generally resulted in complaints on forums.

So now by removing VoD altogether they let us know "You don't know what you got till it's gone".

InfernalSuffering · Aug 17, 2008, 05:43 AM // 05:43

I dont know how many of you still play this game, but the game at the moment is a lot better then it has been recently. NPC significance as a game winning factor is over, the game has at least mostly returned to strategy. Not that there arent problems with the way things are set up currently (damage done to guild lord is a bad way to decide matches), but its an attempt to make the game more offensive and fast paced. It seems as if izzy is at least trying to tweak things now, as opposed to letting things fly for a month or two until its changed. As long as each tweak makes the game better or prevents him from making the same mistake in GW2, I'm all for it.

tnyp · Aug 17, 2008, 10:42 AM // 10:42

yes, GvG was the stupidest when the lords where walking alone. Because it threw out split. Now you can split decently at least.

wolfy3455 · Aug 17, 2008, 09:23 PM // 21:23

WALL OF TEXT:

Lords walking was better than the way it is now. With lords walking, there was a mechanic that forced 8v8 and allowed you to take advantage of another team being completely unprepared for 8v8 play. It made the other team have to be able to deal with the other team at some point in the game. The obvious problem was that with the effect that forced 8v8 being static, people could take advantage of it pretty easily on any map without a cat by running something to wipe the other team and just waiting until the lord walked.

There needed to be some objective outside of the lord, though I disagree with most people that it should've been increasing the value of outside archers. In my mind the type of splitting that rewards skill is playing for numbers/players/templates advantages on both sides of the split. I don't think that charging the other team's base with an illusion mesmer and killing a random archer should be game changing. At the same time, you can never really force mismatches unless you can do something in the base worth accomplishing. I'd say do something to make consecutive boosts more rewarding, but if the advantage was large enough to matter, you'd go back to defensive teams that can stall at both ends to eventually use the advantage. For that type of bonus to be viable it would have to be even easier to access the GL than it is now so it would take a build that can't output much damage at all (and would lose the tiebreaker) to stall both places. I don't really have a good solution for it.

However, the current system is really really bad. There is nothing in the encouraged gameplay that prevents you from exploiting the tiebreaker. The old vod was as bad as it was because at 18 (or whenever vod hit at the given time) the rules of the game up to then completely changed. People who built to play under the pre-vod rules would get dominated by people who played for the vod/endgame rules. Vod players just needed to stall up till that point (and I believe the last few months should have convinced everyone that if you want to stall a game, you can stall it) and they won.

The same thing is starting to happen with the combo of the current "vod" system and the tiebreaker. Under the current system, you never actually have to deal with the other team in a pvp sense. All that you need to do is damage the other lord and stall the other team from doing it as well as you. In a match between two teams playing to exploit the tiebreaker, it ends up playing more like pve with player obstacles than a pvp game. Right now the only way to force 8v8 is to fight the other team in your base, but if they have the ability to hold there, they win by default.

They don't need to kill anything the entire game. They just need to have enough healing to survive under the much reduced NPC pressure (which was a very good change, it just meshes horribly with the most recent change), enough splittable defense/snares (everyone loves smite monks and illusion mesmers) to stop you from accomplishing anything, and something capable of threatening to do damage if you decide to try completely ignoring them. The same style builds that dominated last monthly are just as strong this month.

TLDR version: rawr ownzz.

Riotgear · Aug 17, 2008, 10:11 PM // 22:11

Tiebreaker should be changed to:
Guild Lords are no longer affected by any friendly abilities.

tnyp · Aug 18, 2008, 12:02 AM // 00:02

I see your point wolfy, before you couldn't split and now you can't 8v8 so it is just as bad.

What about something like this:

- Lord walks again at vod
- And 5 consecutive moral boost makes you win.

That way you prevent turtling for more than 10 minutes thus forcing at least one occasion to split. And you force 8v8 at vod with the lord walking to the flag stand.

DutchSmurf · Aug 18, 2008, 10:40 AM // 10:40

The problem is far bigger then just walking lord or not tho. In my opinion, the main problem is that 2 equal skilled guilds can play 8vs8 for 25 minutes without getting anywhere. And even if one is slightly better, they still need the tiebreaker. There needs to be something to keep things moving. To actually make pressure possible again. I think a lot can be done with skillbuffs (buff edenial most of all) and maybe a few nerfs (RC and WoH maybe), but it needs more I think. Things like maximum health, a standard +% damage (VoD all the time), things like that.

fowlero · Aug 18, 2008, 11:52 AM // 11:52

I kinda like this new setup, it's just the tiebreaker that's RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing retarded.

If it stays like this please at least give us a meter of the damage so we don't have to play a guessing game after standing around for 25 minutes. Something like the morale chart on O.

Imo though, npc's should possibly count toward this tiebreaker, per kill not on damage. That way you can actually make progress during the match instead of having to send bloody suicide missions to not fail on tiebreak.

Shendaar · Aug 18, 2008, 04:17 PM // 16:17

Yeah, the tiebreaker is really stupid. You can play defensive for most of the game and still win because you sent an assassin to kamikaze their GL around the 27 minutes mark.

Something needs to happen around the 18/20 minutes mark that makes people more likely to die. Maybe bring back VoD with a small damage boost(probably no more than 10%) and make the npcs move to the stand but keep the bodyguard and lord at the base so that splitting at VoD is actually viable. Basically, the stand could be ignored entirely at VoD since the GL doesn't walk, but whoever has the advantage there would be able to secure and hold the flag stand.

I haven't really put much thoughts into it so it could fail pretty bad too lol.

suiraCLAW · Aug 18, 2008, 05:21 PM // 17:21

Quote:

Yeah, the tiebreaker is really stupid. You can play defensive for most of the game and still win because you sent an assassin to kamikaze their GL around the 27 minutes mark.

If the opponents lets you do that you deserve the win.

I find observer mode 5 times more interesting with the new VoD. I have seen 8v8, 4-4 splits, 6-2 splits, ganks, etc and just a lot of interesting movement and team strategy.

Great update! Maybe not the best tiebreaker, but better then the NPC farming...

Shendaar · Aug 18, 2008, 06:59 PM // 18:59

It is better than the npc farming, but still retarded and I still think it can and will be abused once people figure out the best way to do it. Killing the other team is essentially irrelevant as you the only thing that really matters is that you hit their GL before 28 and they don't.

DutchSmurf · Aug 18, 2008, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by suiraCLAW

I find observer mode 5 times more interesting with the new VoD. I have seen 8v8, 4-4 splits, 6-2 splits, ganks, etc and just a lot of interesting movement and team strategy.

You have seen different matches then me then. I only watch matches between high ranked guilds and those were all 8vs8, even on Frozen. So far I've only seen 1 guild trying to split and those weren't really successful against good guilds. With the npc farming (most of all with the mesmers) there was far more movement then now. Of course in both cases nothing happens, but still.

Iko · Aug 18, 2008, 09:06 PM // 21:06

The good thing about guildwars pvp is that you need dmg to keep a position on the battlefield. Otherwise the enemy can just move at will without any harm.

Therefore if someone is playing superdefensive it should be possible to deal more dmg on the lord because you should be right in their base in castrange of the lord. One esurge every other minute is 1000+ dmg, you won't be able to deal that dmg with one assassin at 27.

Burning Isle should be a really awesome split map now btw. You have to kill just the sentinels and one archer to get in castrange of the lord. Other notable maps are uncharted (the doors are open and there is only one knight and an archer between you and the lord) and Druids (2 archers and you are in bowrange of the lord).

A problem a lot of guilds will probably face is that the purpose for splitting is not vod anymore but getting a lot of dmg on the lord and delaying flagrunning. A lot of archers don't have any value now (archers on uncharted for example), players have to get used to that.

suiraCLAW · Aug 18, 2008, 09:29 PM // 21:29

Quote:

You have seen different matches then me then.

Yup, I can say exactly the same thing.

Indeed, a lot of matches are 8v8. However, there are also plenty of guilds that split extremely often. Prime exemples I can think of now are [gg] and [rezz], [vOD] also split occasionly (they did versus [FaiL]), just like [ SoL] (versus [ BoS]). I also just saw [DnF] ganking the runner of [WIMP] (while the rest of the fight was some where else).

I'm certain I'm forgetting big names now, like that guild that ran 3 escape R/D's a while back and those guilds running 2 ineptitude mesmers or 2 shatterstone E/Mo's.

There are also guilds that only split as a reaction, like [KMD] and [StS]. So you have both worlds...

Like I said, it's not perfect, but better then NPC farming. Besides, there aren't that much better alternatives - but I do really like Riotgears porposition.

Iko · Aug 18, 2008, 09:42 PM // 21:42

At least you noticed that your "that's the way it should be" is the usual dfhonor bubbling and edited your post. Splitting is the most complicated strategic element of guildwars and should definately be an option. Of course you could say that 8vs8 is an important and interesting part of he game and that the fact that you can force splits against an 8vs8 teambuil is "unbalanced". The thing is just that splitplay usually emphasizes playerskill just as well and is usually more risky (that is if anyone wants to actually achieve something).