Curse

Riotgear · Oct 29, 2007, 03:52 AM // 03:52

The 5v5 split-heavy format was indeed very attractive. I ran into several groups which sort of spontaneously developed a good group dynamic and effective tactics. Either the player quality was just higher, or the format encouraged people to play better, and it's nice having tactics and play quality ultimately shine through without lopsided gimmicks exploiting the format.

And while some of the bars are real pieces of shit, I think it was actually balanced pretty well in that nothing is really significantly outpaced. Well, except for Mesmers being gods. Balance is relative, after all. You could give a monk there ZB an otherwise-empty skillbar and they'd probably dominate the format.

Smurf Minions · Oct 29, 2007, 06:24 AM // 06:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drasu

Exactly! If this gametype were competitively released, it would be right up along there with GvG in terms of skill requirement and tactics execution eventually, IMO.

I'm not entirely sure if that would be possible. With the community choosing the templates, you could end up with some deep imbalances in the system, since some of the templates delve into one thing too deeply for counters to compensate. Example: players choose to take a Water ele, curses necro, and hex assassin, but the only copy of hex removal available is a single skill on the monk template. You see what I mean? It would be cool to have the community have a say (through having something like a "CB template suggestions thread" or something), but to have the community get direct control over direct balance would eventually turn the gametype into a balance nightmare.

I'm glad for your support, though, guys. 800+ views in less than 24 hours! Let's keep up the good work.

well if they make not just template for 1 profession but templates with 10 professions, like 5 of those and where to choose from, that would be nice

BlackSephir · Oct 29, 2007, 09:29 AM // 09:29

Give us perma CB with tweaks!
/signed

Alphabet · Oct 29, 2007, 07:45 PM // 19:45

I love the 5v5 setup. Permanent play like this would rock, especially since it'll require more skill. And I love how your partners are random.

Dr Strangelove · Oct 29, 2007, 07:51 PM // 19:51

Monthly sealed deck play would be pretty awesome.

As for the monk bar sucking, I'm pretty sure that's intended. First, it means things can actually die, which does make for a more exciting game. Second, the monk can actually function by himself, instead of chasing the team around praying someone scores a kill.

LifesRestorer · Oct 29, 2007, 07:58 PM // 19:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

Monthly sealed deck play would be pretty awesome.

As for the monk bar sucking, I'm pretty sure that's intended. First, it means things can actually die, which does make for a more exciting game. Second, the monk can actually function by himself, instead of chasing the team around praying someone scores a kill.

thing is it doesnt. the monk still fails against all of the other professions (apart from maybe necro, HB cancels the degen) but it still wouldnt be able to kill it!

DutchSmurf · Oct 29, 2007, 09:51 PM // 21:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifesRestorer

thing is it doesnt. the monk still fails against all of the other professions (apart from maybe necro, HB cancels the degen) but it still wouldnt be able to kill it!

A good player should be able to survive very well against any profession with that monkbar. It has anything you need to fight the other professions. And if you can't kill a necro with that bar then you are just bad.

Back to the topic, I saw a surprisingly amount of skilled players the last 2 days. Far more then in any format except maybe GvG. People actually hiding behind a tiny wall to escape an interrupt, fakecasting, etc, etc. Sounds like normal things, but they almost never happened anymore. And now I not only see people doing it all the time, often also more then 1 player per team. Considering the random format I think that is very surprising. And after a couple of days there are already certain tactics developing too. Same as in RA where everyone walks in the same direction from a certain start point, but then a little more complicated. Makes me believe there is still hope.

Drasu · Oct 29, 2007, 10:31 PM // 22:31

Let's try to stay on-topic, guys. The thread is for looking more at the big picture of the Costume Brawl gametype, rather than the discussion of this singular event (ie "monk bar sucks").

On a different note, however, I was wanting to know what you guys think about how skills should be implemented into the gametype. I think that the million dollar question in terms of skill selection is how they go about choosing them. Since this would be a global PvP format, and a sealed format, the first conundrum I think anet would face in terms of skill selection would be whether they would have to stick with core skills, or have access to the full library of skills.

Personally, I think that in order for the gametype to fully succeed, it needs to have access to the full library of skills for a variety of reasons- firstly, Coming up with builds would be a very limited process, in that you'd have access to only about a quarter of the material you'd have available. Secondly, I think that giving players access to skills from campaigns that they wouldn't normally have access to is another great way to get players into PvP. Another one of the greatest shortfalls of getting into competitive PvP in Guild Wars is that you need to spend upwards of $100 US getting all of the campaigns just to try it out, which ends up shying a lot of potential players away. Competitive Brawl would let those people get a real taste of the PvP experience from buying just one campaign by seeing the huge varieties of builds out there from Costume Brawl, and if they do enjoy it, will end up having to buy the rest of the campaigns anyway to get into any other larger PvP gametypes like GvG, HA, etc.

Thanks again for your support, everyone. Let's keep the ball rolling.

TheOneMephisto · Oct 29, 2007, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drasu

On a different note, however, I was wanting to know what you guys think about how skills should be implemented into the gametype. I think that the million dollar question in terms of skill selection is how they go about choosing them. Since this would be a global PvP format, and a sealed format, the first conundrum I think anet would face in terms of skill selection would be whether they would have to stick with core skills, or have access to the full library of skills.

Hire Ensign, o wait, that's my answer to almost everything balance-related in GW. Of course, there's almost always going to emerge a dominant teambuild built from the templates available, and that's mainly why I think that it would get boring. Without options, people are just going to pick the best combination, and every top-tier game would be mirror-matches. Not just profession mirror-matches like lots of other gametypes, but literally mirror-matches down to the skills and attributes.

And they already let anyone use any campaign's skills, why would they change that?

Drasu · Oct 30, 2007, 12:19 AM // 00:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Hire Ensign, o wait, that's my answer to almost everything balance-related in GW. Of course, there's almost always going to emerge a dominant teambuild built from the templates available, and that's mainly why I think that it would get boring. Without options, people are just going to pick the best combination, and every top-tier game would be mirror-matches. Not just profession mirror-matches like lots of other gametypes, but literally mirror-matches down to the skills and attributes.

I don't think it will boil down to that so easily. Each template brings their own strengths, so I personally think that you'll see the meta shifting constantly, and a ton of mainstream builds as a result. If anything sticks for a while, it's probably because there's an imbalance to the build in some aspect, and that can be adressed easily. Stagnation in the gametype can be avoided if presets undergo a complete revamp every AT season or so as well, IMO.

Quote:

And they already let anyone use any campaign's skills, why would they change that?

Just stray thoughts to change the direction of the topic, really. This is just one event after all, so I had a fear that if they were to fully implement it, they would think about limiting the skills, and I just wanted to share my thoughts on that, and even bring up another argument of why CB should be implemented competitively. :P

TheOneMephisto · Oct 30, 2007, 12:28 AM // 00:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drasu

I don't think it will boil down to that so easily. Each template brings their own strengths, so I personally think that you'll see the meta shifting constantly, and a ton of mainstream builds as a result. If anything sticks for a while, it's probably because there's an imbalance to the build in some aspect, and that can be adressed easily. Stagnation in the gametype can be avoided if presets undergo a complete revamp every AT season or so as well, IMO.

What would probably happen is that, using the templates, people would find the optimal combinations. I mean, currently it's a randomized system so this doesn't happen, but if it becomes organized and competitive people are going to be deciding the best teams to work at it. Considering how many shrines there are, people would probably settle on something like a 2-2-1/2-3 split system with a monk per team. This could also very easily go towards ultra-defensive gameplays, with any decent defensive templates quickly destroying the gameplay while not having any defensive templates would result in killfests at the center while the morale from the shrines is to slow to make splitting an effective counter and having offensive character groups running around in circles catching people in the fairly limited maps being the dominant strategy.

Ultimately, I believe that ANet would have to revamp the maps for anything remotely competitive to result from this. The maps are too small and there are too many easily exploited chokepoints while collapsing is fairly useless without teleports due to the size.

Living Parasite · Oct 30, 2007, 03:30 AM // 03:30

I like the shrine play in this gametype (promotes teamplay and individual play at the same time). The maps just need to be better and CB would be good to go. I really think each profession should have ONE bar that they could use to fully maximize the interactions between skills.

Really, playing with already locked skillbars could promote strategy and teamplay never seen in GW before.

Wish Swiftdeath · Oct 30, 2007, 10:06 AM // 10:06

/signed, im all for this

Washi · Oct 30, 2007, 12:25 PM // 12:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drasu

They are subpar, but the fact that they are ALL subpar makes them balanced, in my opinion.

One word: tree
Oh wait, the dervish didnt just get the most broken skill ever, he also got wearing to go with it. And a cheap 33% run skill which he can keep up all the time.... and an IAS... and chilling victory... WTF The only bad thing about this build is lack of energy but still its godlike compared to most of them.

Back to the topic, this mode COULD be fun if they made the bars ballanced and if you could choose your team mates. But as it is now it's a big failure imo. It just gets boring after few battles. Dealing with people who never played pvp before is just a nightmare. Seriously some people fail at using their brain.

Perfected Shadow · Oct 30, 2007, 12:52 PM // 12:52

I found that it was either a landslide victory or you get completely buried. I had no close matches whatsoever. But anyway it was fun.
/signed

Drasu · Oct 30, 2007, 09:58 PM // 21:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

What would probably happen is that, using the templates, people would find the optimal combinations. I mean, currently it's a randomized system so this doesn't happen, but if it becomes organized and competitive people are going to be deciding the best teams to work at it. Considering how many shrines there are, people would probably settle on something like a 2-2-1/2-3 split system with a monk per team. This could also very easily go towards ultra-defensive gameplays, with any decent defensive templates quickly destroying the gameplay while not having any defensive templates would result in killfests at the center.

The thing that would keep gameplay like that from springing up is that ideally, there's wouldn't be such a thing as a skillbar in this gametype that's pure offense or defense. I'll take an example from this current costume brawl- the burning arrow ranger. At one time, you have purely offensive abilities, like Burning Arrow, Apply, etc, and you also have purely defensive abilities, like Antidote signet, and Troll. However, you then have skills that can be used both ways- in this case, Savage Shot, D Shot, Pin Down, and arguably Natural Stride, all of which require skill to use to their full extent. These skills you can use both when you need to push or when you need to assist an ally. The same goes for the rest of the templates- they're all a mix of offense, defense, and in-between skills. Purely offensive, you shouldn't have much (Like the ranger having only Burning Arrow and Apply, the Dervish having only Chilling Victory and Wearying Strike, and so on). Purely defensive, you shouldn't that much (nor should it be as accessible or convenient as offense), via subpar self-healing skills like Troll Unguent, Healing Signet, and mediocre healing skills like Healing Breeze and Mend Body and Soul. However, it's by making players take these skills that are in-between that you avoid the black-and-white situation with taking heals that are too powerful or too weak; if you need to play defensively, you can do so by using your utility skills, but you would be throwing away part of your bar in the process, and probably not using those in-between skills to their full ability in the process. Meanwhile, the enemy, with all of the pressure off of them, can devote themselves fully to hammering you since they don't need to worry about focusing their utility on defense anymore, and since offensive skills are more easily accessible than defense, you get wiped. Thus, the key to pushing your bar to its fullest in Costume Brawl is with both offense and defense, and players won't be able to contest that since they're stuck with playing those types of skillbars.

In that same vein, there won't exactly be any "best skillbars" either, if Anet balances it right. Just different styles offenses, defenses, and utilities to choose from that ultimately add up to the same potential.

Giving an example, you predict we'll have a new meta of monks being a keystone in CB splits. The thing is, what if I used rending touch to repeatedly strip Healing Breezes, or if I ran a mesmer for edenial and complicating your signets and shattering your enchants? Then again, what if your split ran a ranger that could just d-shot rending touch, or if you faked out your signets against the complicates? Really, we could run around in circles with this. Every character has its utility, offense, and defense, which is why I think that the diversity of mainstream builds will be huge- because the success of these team builds will be determined by the strategy and skill of the players at pushing their builds to their fullest potential against their opponents; not if they did or didn't run X character or build.

Quote:

while the morale from the shrines is to slow to make splitting an effective counter and having offensive character groups running around in circles catching people in the fairly limited maps being the dominant strategy

I think you might be underestimating the power that the Battle Cry or Energy/Health Shrine- if you converge on a team camping the center with the Battle Cry and Energy/Health buffs, you're going to have a huge mobility and killing power increase- I count the morale arrow you get from them as a bonus.

Quote:

Ultimately, I believe that ANet would have to revamp the maps for anything remotely competitive to result from this. The maps are too small and there are too many easily exploited chokepoints while collapsing is fairly useless without teleports due to the size.

I don't see any problems with the map sizes- they're just the right size so that you can see what the enemy is doing from about any point on the map. However, I completely agree with you on the map without the portals in terms of chokepoints- once you're able to push the team to their spawn, there really isn't much they can do but resign. I'm not really sure what Anet could do to change the map without imbalancing it, though.

On the portal map though, I kind of see the portal as a good thing, as it still gives your team a small chance at making a comeback, even if you're pushed back to your base, and encourages the enemy team from just spawn camping you, which, IMO, is a major flaw in the other map.

Patccmoi · Oct 31, 2007, 01:35 PM // 13:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

What would probably happen is that, using the templates, people would find the optimal combinations. I mean, currently it's a randomized system so this doesn't happen, but if it becomes organized and competitive people are going to be deciding the best teams to work at it. Considering how many shrines there are, people would probably settle on something like a 2-2-1/2-3 split system with a monk per team. This could also very easily go towards ultra-defensive gameplays, with any decent defensive templates quickly destroying the gameplay while not having any defensive templates would result in killfests at the center while the morale from the shrines is to slow to make splitting an effective counter and having offensive character groups running around in circles catching people in the fairly limited maps being the dominant strategy.

They have control over the templates though, so it's easy to shake up the 'meta' often enough in there without screwing up anything else in the game.

As long as they implement decent, versatile bars, you can likely have some variety in what you encounter. It's possible for options to be existing without one being strictly superior. If you fit some hard counters somewhere in there, it can also force people to switch their chars around because if a build becomes too dominant, some people can fit a hard counter to it in their build that would make people want to switch a bit. Have to be careful with that though cause you really don't want it to turn into R/P/S so you can't make a bar purely designed for countering another.

And i wouldn't allow for any change to bars either. I understand why you'd want to, but it becomes too complex in a sense. People would always complain about why another option isn't there, etc. Optimally this would be better, but i'd start keeping it as simple as possible and implement this at a later time if it seems required.

I really love this system though, giving fixed templates to a particular arena. It can really make for great games. No setup time, no worry about the builds much, just worry about what's going on in the game and improving your tactics/gameplay. Seriously out of maybe top GvG teams, nearly everyone could improve a lot playing this kind of format because the lack of build 'advantage' and a potential limitation of 'mindless' bars/builds (stuff like spiritway in HA, Searing Flames spike before, Paraway, etc.) forcing people to use their stuff intelligently to win would just mean that the best players in the field win. This is really not true often enough in HA/GvG except for the top levels, because at low-mid level, people playing 'abusive' (let's say extremely easy and mindless to play) builds will nearly always beat people of the same, or even slightly better skill level trying to play balanced setups that require more coordination, etc.

It's a big lack for PvP in general that no such place exists and since it's coded it'd be a shame to let it go to waste. But it wouldn't surprise me much considering many cool 'event' arenas were made that could've been great if they just kept them in the game but they never did.

Considering they didn't add, well, anything except a few skills (most of them worthless) PvP-wise with GW:EN though, it'd really make a nice addition to the game.

The Meth · Oct 31, 2007, 02:41 PM // 14:41

Costume brawl is very fun. I agree that having predetermined builds shifts the focus off making the build that beats your opponent to having the skills to beat your opponent. Give everyone a decent offense/defense that lets them function well in both a group and a team, then set them loose. The gametype is also very good, even though I hate HvH having a 5v5 on a shrine map opens up lots of strategies for splits, mobbing, and 1v1 fights over shrines. Since builds are predetermined, every build is pretty capable in all of these situations.
My rating of the builds:
Warrior: Good, Cripslash is a great skill, shield bash makes the warrior more tactical by needing to use shield bash vs other wars attack skills, assassins, rangers, and to protect healing signet.

Ranger: Very good build, the only real counter to the condition spam is melandru, and if melandru comes you can run away easily. Interrupts pwn all.

Monk: Many people hate monk, but I feel it fits in pretty well. The fact is you don' need a perfect healing setup, 1 monk heal + 1 players self heals is easily enough to stay alive vs 2 other players for a long time. Since everything is random the game has to be balanced enough so a 5 monk team isn't invincible. This is done very well by making the heal Healing Breeze, which is actually a decent skill vs 1 target pressure, but doesn't stack so 5 healing breezes wont make you invincible. At the moment the problem isn't that the monk build sucks, its that the rit's build is strictly better.

Necro: Really, it just needs more damage. Right now faintheartedness is good shutdown and plague touch is good vs the conditions that most professions have, but alone it just doesn't have damage. It could use some kind of healing to make it more self sufficient.

Mesmer: Very good, Shatter enchant rocks a lot of builds (AoD sins lol). Much like the ranger, interrupts are king, and it can take on melee with empathy or e-deny casters. Only profession I can see that it outright fails against is ranger, who just need 1 shot to apply conditions, then wait around for the mes to die.

Elementalist: Like all fire ele's, good vs players that mob. In most matches I've been in it starts out with rampant capping but after capping is over it goes to mobbing for kills when you have a cap advantage. Good players will 'pull' other players (not a good term, maybe 'lure' is better?) so that multiple people are hit with fire aoe.

Assassin: Unfortunately assassins are going to have problems in this format, because for assassins its completely hit or miss: the target dies in 1 combo or it doesn't. Right now it doesn't, which means the assassin is pretty much forced to team up with another player who finishes the job. If they could get some kind of pressure skills that would help them a lot I think.

Ritualist: The real healer, preservation is very, very good in small 1v1 or 2v2 fights. Mend body and soul + spirits deal with conditions well, while nightmare combines healing and damage. Also carries aoe, so its decent vs mobbing, though adjacent isn't met too often.

Paragon: pretty much the fail build. Let's face it: paragons have been nerfed from pvp because they have incredible synergy together and in large groups. They are still very effective in large groups, but in 1v1 or 2v2, they are a disaster. The only time I could see them being useful is in small maps where you can force a 5v5, in which case they could do rather well, giving party wide speed buffs to run to new shrines and forcing crits and weakness. In large maps where you split, you are mostly useless.

Dervish: Very good build, it really requires you to manage your energy (something melee's don't experience as often) Has the best overall defence and offense, but you have to pick and choose what you want to be. My only problem about it is the Melandru + Vital Boon + Imbue health combo, which is pretty much the best healing right now. If the other team has multiple health shrines or an energy shrine Imbue is godly.

Overall the builds are for the most part all comparable. The best part is that even if the enemy team has all of the more overpowering characters the shrines are more then enough to tip the balance towards your favor. I think costume brawl is a really good experiment in how people will react to Guild Wars 2, where supposedly every profession will be designed to work well from 1v1 to small teams to large group formats. Knowing your own and your opponents skills well and knowing their capabilities leads to countless strategies for forcing desirable 1v1 or 2v2 matchups, distracting a powerful enemy while the rest of the team caps, or 'ganking' people (despite its usual negative use, 'ganking' is the ultimate victory of outwitting and tricking your opponent into a disadvantaged situation)

I very much support making a costume brawl-type gameplay a permanent pvp option, preferably with a 'shake up' of skills every few months. This gametype is probably the most casual pvp type yet but at the same time it forces an emphasis on player skill, teamwork and coordination upon the so-called 'casual pvp group' instead of forcing the current FotM scrub build down their throats.

Don Alosi · Oct 31, 2007, 02:54 PM // 14:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Meth

Monk: Many people hate monk, but I feel it fits in pretty well. The fact is you don' need a perfect healing setup, 1 monk heal + 1 players self heals is easily enough to stay alive vs 2 other players for a long time. Since everything is random the game has to be balanced enough so a 5 monk team isn't invincible. This is done very well by making the heal Healing Breeze, which is actually a decent skill vs 1 target pressure, but doesn't stack so 5 healing breezes wont make you invincible. At the moment the problem isn't that the monk build sucks, its that the rit's build is strictly better.

QFT. It makes a team that gets a monk Slightly better than one that doesn't, still letting some chances to the monkless team.

And i second the petition, we want a costume brawl gametype into GW! o/

Lorekeeper · Oct 31, 2007, 03:21 PM // 15:21

the pvp community has been asking for a sealed deck format in pvp for years... Anet just said they didnt have the time to make it. All they do is direct you to the sealed deck page on their website.

it would be absolutely awesome, though many people have wanted this for a long time and its probably a bad thing for anet that they allowed even more people to see how fun it can be...

so i wonder if enough people come here to support it as a permanent game type and i wonder if Anet even bother to respond.