Curse

Killed u man · Feb 14, 2008, 03:39 PM // 15:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cass

Wow just wow.

HA is dead because of clowns like you Borat. You're not an oldtimer by any stretch of the imagination, your first appearance there dates from the relatively recent ritspike days, which you RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOd to no end like the next farmer. Original builds my ass. Players that farm simple one-trick builds like you and others before you have simply killed all the hope of ever an playing interesting game in HA. HA is (and always has been) flooded with seas of farmers. The difference today is that most of the non-farmers have now finally given up.

Priceless though to see someone like you bemoan the demise of HA. Irony FTW.

What are you saying? I was there since 2-3 weeks (Even sooner) after the beginning man...

I lived to see Gale Warriors, Eprod, NR/Tranq, Spirit Spam (Renewal => Pain thingy), IWAY with Evi/Tiger's Fury, VimWay, Bspike, Bspike With Rt/R and R/Rt, Airspike, ...

My Name wasn't Borat untill beginning 6v6, I simply was a "unknown" bloodspiker uptill 6v6. Yes, bloodspike, which was one of the 20 ways to get fame back then...

If you complain about Elitism, you simply do NOT deserve to be in such High-Ranked teams, because you simply do NOT have the experience required to be competitive...

I like to look at myself as the perfect example. The first 2 weeks in HA (R6 +was what R10+ is today) I joined TONS of unranked Dual Smite, IWAY, Bloodspike, ... I LEARNED the maps, I LISTENED to the caller, because gues what, a CALLER knows best (Back then anyways). I got experienced with multiple weaponsets, etc...
When the 2 weeks were over, I was in a "unranked" HA-guild, and My guild needed a caller, so I tried calling myself, USING THE EXPERIENCE I had accumulated. Gues what, I did just fine. Ever since then, I've called/made more builds than anyone else in HA. There is alot of people here that will agree with me.

What do we have now? Unranked people that REFUSE to ATLEAST play for a couple of weeks, "learning" the business... They ONLY want fame, so they can show their PvE friends how 1337 they are. They don't care about playing good, they simply want FAME.
LISTENING TO THE CALLER? That simply doesn't exist anymore... I regularly form some crazy R6+ teams, for fun, and to give some R6+ people some non-Retardedway experience... Half the team rages when I tell them to do something "different". This is because they SKIPPED the learning part. They simply played brainless thumper, NOT EVEN paying attention to maps/movement/weaponswithing. I'm talking about R6+ people here...

Elitism didn't kill HA, PvE farmers did... (I hope it sticks this time)

You can CLEARLY see the mentality change over the past 2-3 years, people went from having fun/trying stuff to farming fame. What ever happened crativity, experience, learning process, innovativity? Strangly enough, It died along with Old-School holding, 6v6, various nerfs/buffs, pretty much everything Anet did wrong in HA...

Kyp Jade · Feb 14, 2008, 04:59 PM // 16:59

The grouping issues are horrible. And I dont mean just on the low end, I sometimes dont get to play due to 7/8, but go in anyway with some random r6 to fill the last spot. Thats great because its hard for that r6 to fail on the first 3 maps, but as soon as we get to unholy temples we find that our unknown teamate has never been on this map before, and doesnt know what body blocking means.

At low end it is worse, the players are simply both unwilling AND uncapable of trying something new. They play the builds they do because its the build doing all of the work for them. The only scrub build around right now that is good in the hands of crappy players, but incredible in the hands of good players is rangerspike, and that build has more utility and options than balanced builds do.

Ka Tet · Feb 14, 2008, 09:07 PM // 21:07

As a retired HA'er who still has some interest in the game, I may be able to shed a little light on the situation. The main reason that i retired was that HA consumes a large amount of time, if you want to do anything other than play the standard meta or abuse broken skills. And when I began to weigh the amount of time involved with the game versus the pleasure of playing it, things just weren't adding up anymore. You spend alot of time coming up with and tweaking builds, then finding the appropriate players for those roles. You wait for everyone to get their shit together and be ready to play. You spend time running down the usage and team strat......only to go in and face the same button mashers playing the same garbage meta builds on map after map. Most nights, we'd only get to fight maybe 1 or 2 other good teams that were running good builds. Then get ganked out of halls by 2 Iways or 2 heroways.

Now, I'm not trying to point fingers, start a flamewar or be a dick, because I do respect your intellect and creativity........but Borat you are personally responsible for some of the trash builds that made HA unfun. There are a few times that I can remember telling you to use your genius for good and not evil. Perhaps now you see why.

Randvek · Feb 14, 2008, 09:55 PM // 21:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nero_Fayth

New players will have to grind just like everyone did back in the day, and complaining about it is a result of ignorance.

Ah, yes, because grinding now is exactly the same as grinding in the past. Isn't assuming that nothing changes ignorant?

Killed u man · Feb 14, 2008, 10:08 PM // 22:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by tha walkin dude

There are a few times that I can remember telling you to use your genius for good and not evil. Perhaps now you see why.

I made TONS of good balanced builds... I'm just a fan of spikes...

However, I NEVER wanted people to copy it such bad... Like my SoMW or SoTS-spike...

But yeah, I can be blamed for some shit-builds.However, that can be said from ANY meta-build. Even Legoway is shitway...

/kill observe for starters... Or atleast remove the ability to see activating skills/emotes...

Kyp Jade · Feb 15, 2008, 02:30 PM // 14:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by tha walkin dude

Now, I'm not trying to point fingers, start a flamewar or be a dick, because I do respect your intellect and creativity........but Borat you are personally responsible for some of the trash builds that made HA unfun. There are a few times that I can remember telling you to use your genius for good and not evil. Perhaps now you see why.

Yea I blame borat too, its his fault everyone in HA ganks each other, because we all know that its the build you play that makes you decide to gank someone else. Scrub builds ganking ppl ftl.
/end sarcasm

Wish Swiftdeath · Feb 15, 2008, 02:51 PM // 14:51

I never really played HA but i can tell you that the reason i didn't keep doing it was because of the time... It was incredibly frustrating to spend ages getting a group and sorting everything out just so that they could all to ragequit after one loss.

I didn't only try HA for fame, i also wanted to have some fun but pugging HA is no fun, especially infusing.

Then again i didn't HA much so... more focused on gvg

milan · Feb 15, 2008, 03:27 PM // 15:27

This is what I love.

District full of people rank 0-5.

LFG R6+....No one joining my group, HA must be dead.

Killed u man · Feb 15, 2008, 06:31 PM // 18:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by milan

This is what I love.

District full of people rank 0-5 WHO REFUSE TO PLAY ANYTHING BUT R/W, N/Rt AND W/R (Whatever requires no skill and nets free fame).
LFG R6+....No one joining my group, HA must be dead.

I edited it for you so it fits reality...

wuzzman · Feb 15, 2008, 06:32 PM // 18:32

Ignorance of this subject is great. It's amazing that people refuse to think that HA didn't have a future to begin with. It was flawed from the very beginning, degenerating slowly since it's "golden age".

What happened was that HA was new, and everyone was at the same level. Players ran whatever they want, good players made names for themselves joined or started many of the "great" HA guilds of the past. The game didn't have a meta, randomway was considered balance if it had 2 monks in it.

Eventually, like all good pvp games, the game matures, it develops a meta, pushing puggers away from randomway and into to organized builds made by the players who managed to organize themselves during HA's infancy. The game was still good, multiple versions of fotms littered the scene before Observe Mode and a generally smarter community stamped out what did and did not work.

People would naturally point to this period, where iway/bspike/rspike started to gain popularity to where HA stopped being HA. They are wrong, for the main reason that, it was during this time that a true puggers community was formed. Finally pugs stood a chance at UW, which inherently kept the system from falling apart in the way most games that have no hope of maturing do. Everyone was playing the same HA, not 8 man random arenas for puggers and simplified gvg for everyone who had a guild/friend list. Fury died, because of that parallel that it couldn't fix.

But then what was killing HA? Guild Wars was next gen as far as pve is concerned. And nex gen as far as mmorpgs in general are concerned, because it actually designed a game from pvp from conception. But it was not nex gen as far as pvp games in general are concerned. Which is why the fame system proves that in the most fundemental way. It's as if Anet looked at WoW and said "I make a pvp system better then that", but looked at every other pvp game and went " I take the reasons why some of those games failed and put it in my game too".

So HA has a meta, eventually the players in games like this prove their maturity or immaturity very quickly. Inherently rpg games are notorious for having barriers of entry. Usually game developers facilitate that by installing ways to identify how "leet" someone is. Pvp games take it as a rule to show how good someone is, but also segregate the community before the community segregates itself, to limit the tension and obviously to allow new players to come on their own.

What Guild Wars did, which is really funny, is allow players to create barriers of entry, and not only do that, but so with a system that has more resemblance to how pve'ers identify themselves then how pvp'ers do. Suddenly builds like IWAY required r3, or even (I still lol when I remember the local chat spam 2 years ago) r12. So not only are players segregating themselves, but doing so under a basis that has more in common with how pve'ers judge themselves (how many times did you do X objective) then how pvp'ers do (wins/lose ratio or statistic ).

Now you have 12 district worth of players "farming" in an attempt to get into a decent group. The game was in a state of degeneration since then, slowly but surely dieing. Kinda like climate change. Climate change doesn't happen suddenly, it happens slowly till it reaches a tipping point where all hell breaks loose shortly after.

Since the dominance of the fame system to determine group placement, HA has delved deeper into immaturity that usually wipes out a good portion pvp games. r0 scrubs vs ranked elitist, "Your build is shitway" vs "But your build is tardway", "omg you scrub ass c+spacer" vs "you leetest 1,2,3'er". And it gets "better" once you scanned through some HA centric forums for a good 30 minutes.

When I started HA'ing 2 years ago around February, you could lose a match, discuss what you did wrong, and go in 5 minutes later encounter the same build and do much better then you did last time. Hell you could win most matches that way without even touching the teams skill bars. People called tactics, adjusted tactics depending on the build they fought, and had counter strategies. And that was a PUG(half of them didn't even have r3..). 2 month later, you form a pug, go in, lose, come back, and if half the team haven't left the ones that stay, end up leaving any way when you attempt tell them to adjust their play style. What happened in 2 months?

A good portion of players still played HA, as HA. They played HA one map at the time, playing the game for the good matches, funny wins and hell even the loses. 2 months later, more of the community stopped playing HA. Well they do, but they aren't playing HA for the matches, they play HA for the sole purpose of getting as many wins as possible so that they can earn their last bit of fame. When their team loses, they do not pay attention to why they lose and most likely they don't give a damn. They blame their lose on their team and rage quits or "put up" with it depending on how confident they are in their ability to find a new group. Funny I usually notice no difference between low ranked players and high ranked players as far as r8-9 as far as listening skills are concerned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

I edited it for you so it fits reality...

your under the assumption that those r6 or above will invite a lower ranked player to do their legoway.

Ka Tet · Feb 15, 2008, 08:36 PM // 20:36

At the end of the day, GW is a game. And, what do you do when a game or one aspect of a game stops being fun, you stop playing it.
Kyp, I didn't blame Borat for bringing the unexperienced, fame-farming gankmeisters to the party. I merely pointed out that he was the creator of some very popular builds that were very unfun to play against 15 times a night. Thus making the game less enjoyable and by consequence less playable.

Kyp Jade · Feb 15, 2008, 08:37 PM // 20:37

Yea, i know what you meant to say, i didnt mean to call you out on your statement, i just wanted to point out that most of the reason the game is less playable is because of the decision people make to gank someone, no because they choose to play a garbage build.

Small wonder so few people play when you get ganked on every 3 way map.

Akaraxle · Feb 18, 2008, 08:51 AM // 08:51

So the wrap-up in this thread is "titles are bad". Definitely not fresh news...

vinoth · Feb 18, 2008, 04:58 PM // 16:58

As an experienced Ha player, i agree with what borat is trying to induce. his view of HA was to promote fun. Although there was the fame system, it did not take the fun aspect away from HA. he created his spikes which he was a fan of. He did not enjoy balanced as much as he liked his spikes which is fair enough. now ask the question why? some people like spikes because of the way its played, the way the build works. he makes his funky builds because they are fun, they are fresh, and at the end of the day it makes a bit of fame. there are a lot of people in HA who are happy to play a 'fun' build regardless of whats being run. i personally like iway. i have played it since the first dual orders,ooa orders through all variations till today. i have a few people who dont care about win/lose and are interested in the way the build operates. i have made various modifications to it- doesent mean to say it works great- but we have a great time doing it.

right now i usually get 4-5 people off my friends list. we usually play w/o vent. usually get 4-5 consecs before we lose. i spam in all chat- lf 3 more iwayers- no fame guarentee, r9+... i gotta wait for ever till i get my player. i usually then make do with a r7/8 person who is keen.

personally i feel that any build that requires no vent. and just requires trappers as team prots, and warriors who observe map more than running behind a monk as fun.

i have played balcned and spike. i prefer my iway more than anything else. same with borat he prefers his spikes more than anything else. Ha today is 'a fame farm fest'. No one enjoys the game for the way its played rather- they play to ease their addiction for fame.

Something needs to be done to HA.

if Anet wants the current players to move to guild wars 2 ( which i most likely wont)- they need to find a way to boost player activity in HA. this can be done by.

1. para as people say are a heavy armoured ass with their chants that cant be removed. they sould either remove the para from PvP or make their shouts removed.

in the original plan for the game, the devs had drawn up enchantments as a buff to a player- therefore they balcned the buffs with buff removals. when A-net made the para- why did they not balance it?. Atleast in HA, a A/D can pump out more dmg than a W/E in the same time interval. a A/D- has to wait for skills to recharge, telport and use his 'imba' derv skills. at the same time playing a shock war is 'more fun'. u choose a non-enchanted target, gain adrelin, took for a suitable target and spike. - if you are playing the game for the mechanical fun, which one would you rather be?. A counter argument to my statement would be that people consider gaining fame as fun- but deep down you and i both know that they dont really have fun.

2. again all those rit weapon spells, needs to be turned into enchantments or totally removed from the game.

3. Assasins and Dervishes are genuine proffesions which have their drawbacks. (personally i dont like the teleportation ability).

4. Anet needs to bring back maps that require utilitys - these maps are more fun than 1v1 killing maps. ok scarred earth was removed due to the lack of players - fair enough. sacred temples needs to be back. and stick cap point maps for people who think hero vs hero games are fun. eoe needs to be brought back to its original functionality ( i might be biased on that statement because i like iway). certain teams with poor healing relied on forcing edge bombs to win the central altar.(~more build variation will be encouraged w/o monks). changing the game mechanics in courtyatrd to capping will encourage a bit more change in build style. hoh objectives should be either to 'ghost that capped last(old holding style)'. or a relic running style.
50/50.

remember you cant change HOH by skill balances because the objectives of the maps will only promote insanely offencive builds. its the maps that determine the win.

eg. move utility maps such as relic runs to the front. most 'gimmicks' will lose and weed out the incapable teams. then 1v1 survival map. where the strogest goes forward. then another utility map. where any lucky ones get weeded out. then 1v1 , then courtyard, where the team with more offence or most defence fight it out. then another 1v1 dark chambers b4 you go to HOH. (At the current state 6 maps are fine for HA.)

if 'gimmicks' do get past against good teams, then they are not gimmicks but viable teams. you will have plenty of opportunity to do pressure builds, spike builds, hex stackers, balanced etc.

I apologise in advance for spelling/grammatical errors as english is not my first language.

Kyp Jade · Feb 18, 2008, 05:09 PM // 17:09

Personally, HA is bad because there is far to much emphasis on 1v1 maps. Skill balance makes this somewhat of an issue since if you pressure overload with damage everywhere, 9 out of 10 of your spikes will always go through, there simply is nothing around to help mop up pressure like LoD did.

Borat might hate fire eles for this, but I've recently found physicals much much better at pumping out pressure that fire eles are, even in HA where people ball up most of the time.

With so much emphasis on 1v1, strategy and knowledge of the game mean less, and wins are decided more on build wars.

Second, ganking is so gay. Its really a no brainer as to why so few people play. Why bother trying to hold HoH if you will just get ganked.

Third, grouping sucks. I try to join a pug in the afternoon when my friends are not online yet. It is impossible to find a group. I am sorry, I do not know how to play in Sway teams. Every time ive tried a R/W or trapper or N/Rt, I have fallen asleep almost, or died becaue im watching youtube on my other monitor. Migraine mesmers are worse to play. O yay look at me I can interupt all of your spells weee.

Borat is right, the only pugs forming are farming pugs, seeing a team play something non meta for fun (and maybe a little bit of fame) just doesnt happen all that often anymore.

(Although its really easy to take advantage of everyone else since the meta is stable ^.^, physical pressure build ftw)

Killed u man · Feb 18, 2008, 08:25 PM // 20:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyp Jade

I've recently found physicals much much better at pumping out pressure that fire eles are, even in HA where people ball up most of the time.

The only reason why you could call Physical Dmg so "overpowered", is because there arn't any layers of protection as compared to GvG...

You CAN'T run Aegis because of the Split-Maps.. (Cap Points and HoH) You can't run WvMelee because Fire AoE is so redicilously overpowered it just whipes you trough Ward Against Harm... You CAN however run DA, but with the recent nerfs, Mesmer > Para...

On top of that, Paragons are still the same Turrets they always were... Something needs to be done about the insane DPS a Para has... (Warrior with Aegis)

Dervishes: 9-41, HOW can that be balanced? Ow wait, what did you say they can ALSO hit up to 3 targets, so in theory, if they hit a ball of people, there AoE base-dmg9-41x3? Nice...

Splinter still is the "Force people to spread out and free party-whipe in HoH" spell...

Meh, so many things...

Kyp Jade · Feb 18, 2008, 09:01 PM // 21:01

Actually there are layers of defense in HA, ward melee, water ele, aegis chains. I see them in almost every team i face thats not spirit way. But they are much much easier to take down in HA i think, because you KNOW it is going to be a forced 8v8 fight.

Paragon dps wouldnt be so bad if LoD didnt get nerfed so hard.

Dervishes are pretty imbalanced right now, the only reason im using one atm is because my grenths aura bar is so much win. Dervishes rarely get used for thier 'AoE' damage, and teams that rely on dervishes + splinter for aoe are just bad and generally dont get very far.

I've changed my stance on aoe recently, to that its only good in HoH cap pts, otherwise its safer and more effecient to take other forms of pressure. Most teams I face just arent quite dumb enough to ball up in my aoe.

Btw I dont call physical pressure overpowered, I think it completly balanced. It is far far more difficult to take a warrior/dervish/paragon, and achieve the same pressure a fire ele has vs balled up idiots. Physical pressure is just amazing, the game essentially comes down to your phyicals vs thier prot. Eventually you win out because the heals cant keep up with it forever. (wtb LoD buff)

joze · Feb 19, 2008, 11:14 AM // 11:14

Hilarious how HA just fades out more and more.

HA was kind of 100% doomed when ritspike came (even though I have to admit I gained some Ranks with it).

Although since I quit playing GW, I did notice that the PvP was amazing, in general (whilst HA being the less attractive part).

Ado · Feb 19, 2008, 12:12 PM // 12:12

Vinoth's post gave me a feeling of irony. With the disappearence of iway (and bspike) a lot of players disappeared as well and never returned.

Although those two builds were among the most hated ever, one should also realise that there were tons of players playing those builds not for the fame, but for the fun they had with it.

In short, the famefarmers continued playing the gimmicks which came after it, and the guys who truely loved iway and bspike simply left the game. Add to that to oldskool balancedplayers (me among them) who didn't even recognize HA anymore and therefor left as well, and you go from 6 international districts to 2.

Now I know that there are ppl who say "iwayers should learned to play something else", but it's not that black and white. There have to be builds around which, in their point of view, equal the fun of iway (or every other nerfed build for that matter). Fact is, that for many oldskoolers, such a build simply doesn't excist anymore. And even if they do, 90% of the battles you face are nonchallenging whatsoever nowadays.

ZenRgy · Feb 19, 2008, 12:49 PM // 12:49

Oh yes, how I wish I could join groups advertising as a tainted necro on my PvE which didn't have max armor again.

I'm not too sure why you people complain about the lack of pugs, because pugging is usually a one way ticket to failtown, you could just form some decent cores / health friends list etc.

A lot of games lose their playerbase over time.