Curse

Battle of Evermore · Jul 20, 2007, 03:05 PM // 15:05

I've read some here. I have a little experience in Heroes Ascent myself.

I think these comprehensive changes would solve a lot of the current problems.

1. More, and different, maps before halls.

Before you get to halls, we never see a capture points map. We also see no king of the hill map. This needs fixing. Current maps:

Underworld: 1v1 slaughter
Burial Mounds: 1v1 slaugher (with a priest)
Broken Tower: 1v1v1 kill count
Unholy Temples: relic runs
Dark Chambers: 1v1 slaughter (with a priest) (again)
Courtyard: 1v1v1 kill count (again)
Sacred Temples: relic runs (again)
The vault: ...
HoH which consists of:
Capture points
King of the hill
Relic runs

The order should be:
Underworld: 1v1
Burial Mounds: 1v1 v 1v1 (like the old one. I'll get to this in a moment)
Broken Tower: Capture points
Unholy Temples: Relic Run
Dark Chambers: King of the Hill
Courtyard: Suicide Ghostly (new idea, I'll explain)
Sacred Temples: 1v1

The courtyard map would have this: two ghostly's leroy to the central altar and begin fighting. Last ghostly to die wins. Quick fights here.

We also need NO MORE SKIPS!! The allowance of skips has been a large problem. If we did this my way, half the teams are eliminated in battle one. A fourth of them are eliminated on map two. This means the serious, decentish teams are left for the rest of the maps. This makes it more fun for the rest of us who look forward to good well-played matches.

Also, with everything incorporated, players are ready for all the halls maps. In addition, no gimmick build has an exceeding number of strong points with ALL the maps....it will take a talented team with a well-thought build to make it all the way.

I know a lot of people dislike map a...others dislike map b. On the other hand, some people enjoy map a and like map b. There's something here for everyone.

Oh...and on suicide ghostly (which would be an awesome map)...ghostly needs pious haste with no points in mysticism. This rids pre-protting and gives a speed buff

Thoughts?

-Those

Randomway Ftw · Jul 20, 2007, 03:28 PM // 15:28

An alternate way to screw up halls, gj.

This is the good setup.

Underworld: 1v1
Burial: 1v1
Broken: 3 way altar or king of the hill.
Scarred:1v1
Unholy:Relics
Dark: 1v1
Courtyard: 3 way altar or king of the hill
Sacred: Relics
Vault:Something to do
Halls: 3 way altar or king of the hill.

Battle of Evermore · Jul 20, 2007, 03:46 PM // 15:46

4/9 is 1v1
3/9 is altar/king hill
2/9 is relics

I ask this most earnestly: are you trying to narrow down the meta even more? You breakdown encourages nothing but gimmick builds. Mine discourages them.

HA would be more fun if my build and my opponent's build were well thought. Otherwise, HA is just routine.

Hoppervalley · Jul 20, 2007, 03:46 PM // 15:46

The suicide ghostly while very humorous seems to give coordinated spike teams a distinct advantage don't you think? Or is the plan that they will get hated out in other maps? Assuming spike teams do not make it to that map somehow i think it would be a load of fun. It forces players to think fast and get into the battle quickly and react well to whatever they may be facing. I think it will quickly separate experienced players who can think on their feet from less experienced players who need some more work.

Do you have a proposal for what the team currently holding halls will be doing while they await a new opponent? Do we just make them wait the 30mins+ while new teams come down the pipes? Do we start having a 1v1 halls map? Perhaps after a team wins halls they move back down to the map before halls and have to compete for the right to play in halls again? Perhaps we just give them a win every so often?

-Theo

Randomway Ftw · Jul 20, 2007, 04:08 PM // 16:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Battle of Evermore

4/9 is 1v1
3/9 is altar/king hill
2/9 is relics

I ask this most earnestly: are you trying to narrow down the meta even more? You breakdown encourages nothing but gimmick builds. Mine discourages them.

HA would be more fun if my build and my opponent's build were well thought. Otherwise, HA is just routine.

are you dumb? It worked very well in the past. There is no need for halls to be 100 minigames.

Kyp Jade · Jul 20, 2007, 04:11 PM // 16:11

Noooo, dont change sacred temples away from relic run. Thats my favorite map.

Dont change the halls map unless your going to edit the Cap Points mechanic, otherwise HoH is great.

Not sure how dark chambers would work as a king of the hill, KoTH is a 3 way mechanic, in the 1v1, with decent teams (or vs rt spike). Cap first means win.

Not enough teams play the game imo to make the 4 way burial mounds a good option. Plus, a 4 way annihilation map really promotes ganking the best teams. In kill count, 90% of the time theres a way to pull out of a gank. (only tactic I havent figured out yet is when both the other teams are friends, ignore each other, and only attack you) However, in an annihlation type map, your screwed, especially on burial mounds, because your base is a dead end, you have no where to run. A map like this would probably promote a spirit spam type character, as ranger global spirits can hose everyone.

I like broken for cap points, however its incredibly hard to defend your base on that, as you dont have a straight run from center altar to your base, you have to take a curved path up the stairs. However it makes ganking a base easier. Would see some interesting plays made here, not sure how it would work out.

Not sure I like the suicide ghostly mechanic, I never like a match being determined by a NPC. And AoE (and spirit rift) will be king here. In fact it may even be auto win for rt spike, since thier first enchant strip that gets thru is game. Same for massive AoE teams. (im assuming this is 3 way, if its 2 way then aoe teams dont get that edge)

Btw, dont touch the rotation idea of the HoH map. ALthough Cap Points is not the type of objective that HA type teams are built to play, it would be an ok mechanic if a gank on someone didnt cause match loss most of the time.

Gimme Money Plzkthx · Jul 20, 2007, 04:57 PM // 16:57

Or we could just remove murderball, (or whatever the hell it's called) cap points, and killcount, and revert to old HA with altars or the new koth mechanic (although I think if maps were 1v1, it would have to be altars, otherwise, as someone already said, cap first=win on koth).

Lorekeeper · Jul 20, 2007, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Underworld: 1v1
Burial Mounds: 1v1 with priest
Broken Tower: King of the Hill v2 with tweaked point system*
Unholy Temples: Relic Run
Dark Chambers: 1v1 with priest
Courtyard: King of the Hill v2 with priest
Sacred Temples: Relic Run
Hall of Heroes: a) King of the Hill v2
b) Relic Run v2 with bonus for fast running rather than slow running**

* King of the Hill v2 tweaked point system*

To allow unlucky teams a better chance than currently to catch up in the later stages of the match. This will force Blue team to hold the altar for longer in order to prevent any team from catching up. No longer will blue be able to 'gift' the altar to the team with the lowest score in order to prevent the team with a chance of winning from capping and scoring enough points to overtake them. Of course if one team in HoH has scored 0 points with 2-3min remaining on the timer this new points system should not allow them to win easily, possible but not easy.

assuming 8min length match

8-3min: holding altar awards 1 point every 30 seconds
3-1min: holding altar awards 2 points every 30 seconds
1-0min: holding altar awards 3 points every 30 seconds

total points possible: 10+8+6= 24 points

assuming blue team has all points so far, it is still possible for a team with 0 points to win the match as long as they cap and hold the altar by 2:30min. At this time blue team will have made 10+2 points... meaning there are still 12 points left to win. If they cap 1 second after 2:30 it will be too late. But at least with this system it is possible... in the current system it is not possible to catch up in this situation.

although the precise points distribution might be wrong or could be better i think the idea behind it is sound... might take a few tries before a good points system is found but i dont think it would take that much coding would it?

**HoH relic run v2 encouraging fast running**

Atm if all scores are equal the match is decided on who capped last. This, coupled with the fact that it is extremely hard to pull in front of the other teams and maintain a 2-3 relic lead... means that the whole idea of the relic run is not working.
The reason why its so hard to pull 2-3 relics ahead of opposing teams is because you attract a 16vs8 situation in which no amount of speedbuffs, hex removals, interrupts, prot/heal etc etc will allow you to keep your runner alive/snarefree/speedbuffed. Currently, any team that tries to speed run the relics get ganked and either gets wiped or is forced 2-3 relics behind opposing teams instead of achieving the aim of being in front by 2-3 relics. Something needs to be done to make it more attractive rather than less attractive to speed run relics and to maintain a healthy lead.

My suggestion... and anyone else is free to add or change or make their own suggestions if they agree with the above sentiments is the following:

A) for every relic you are ahead of the enemy team your party members gain the following bonuses:

+10% speed buff
-33% duration hexes and conditions
+25% faster skill recharge

B) for every relic you fall behind the enemy team your team suffers the following debuffs:

-10% speed buff
-25% slower skill recharge

# reinstate death penalty to discourage reckless play.

# if all scores are equal the team who scored first wins the match.

i forsee teams actually trying to run faster than anyone else... teams without significant speed boosts will fall behind other teams who have prepared for running relics fast. In a match where all teams have equal amounts of speed buffs the deciding factor becomes snares and bodyblocking. If a team carries no snares it will not be able to prevent enemy teams from keeping up with them in running relics. So a team with little to no snares will be at the mercy of the enemies snarers and would have to rely on physically blocking their runners to slow them down. In situations where all teams have speed buffs and snares the team who pulls ahead will be the team who keeps their runners free from snares/blocks and is able to slow down the opposing teams runners.

This is what relic runs was always meant to be about... however the way it is now the above happens only in the closing stages of the match because the rest of the time there is no point in running faster than the other teams. I think with this system the whole match will matter instead of only the last 1min or so.

Again the exact buffs and debuff figures could be changed and tweaked... perhaps having debuffs is a bad idea but i think buffs for the leading team is a good idea and will encourage the type of match relic run was always meant to be.

i think this HA rotation makes the most sense... since i think of the maps leading up to HoH as preparation. With 2 relic runs and 2 king of the hills in the lead up to HoH it makes much more sense that HoH includes these modes. Otherwise there is no point in learning how to run relics if relic run wasnt part of the HoH rotation. I also believe that having a narrow set of maps artificially narrows the build meta, if i only need to succeed in 3 different types of game mode my build will be able to be far more focused than if i needed to be successful on 4-5 different game modes. Of course having 20 different game modes makes builds far too diluted to be any good at any one of them so a compromise needs to be made between diversity and specialisation.

Capture points has no place in HoH... not because its a bad idea... its a good idea with bad implementation on the HoH map. It currently has no logical place in HoH because noone actually is prepared for it in the maps leading to HoH. Its the black sheep of the family as far as im concerned.

it would be great if capture points occured on a map suited for it... but HoH map is not. And since release of the game Anet have not made new maps for Tombs/HA and never displayed any intention to so unless capture points gets put on broken tower or courtyard just remove it from the rotation totally.

There you have it... all my ideas on what could make HA much better in one handy non-compact post.

Battle of Evermore · Jul 20, 2007, 06:13 PM // 18:13

Randomway Ftw -- I guess that's it...I must be dumb. Thanks for pointing it out

...*adjusts list of people who do not prove capable of an intellectual discussion*

As for the others...it seems people here simply dislike change. I'm not sure it is the change itself, though. I think it's because the more complex the pre-halls, the more difficult to get there. Some people (myself included) enjoy said challenge. Others do not. I'm not sure what the compromise is.

Lorekeeper -- I really appreciated your post. I said cap points should be a map before it so that it could exist.

Your point scheme for KoTH is brilliant. Also, I loved the DP re-instated on relic runs. That even affects the diplomacy value...how bad do you really want to upset team A by snaring them...

Again, my reasoning for the various maps is to force people to find an all-encompassing build: not just an aggro build or a holding build. If the build can do a little of everything, and everybody is playing well, they should be rewarded. They shouldn't constantly be at a disadvantage because someone has a build that is dominant only on one of the 3 basic maps (1v1, 1v1v1, or relic runs). There's too much variety in my idea for anyone to get far if they design a build for only one type of combat.

Also, in my system, there's something for everyone. As I said, some people will like maps A, B, D, and F...others will like B, C, E, and G...everyone is happy

Though I think your notions about the mods of the maps that you want in HoH should be considered. I think relic runs with DP would be enough, honestly. My favorite part about that map IS the unspoken diplomacy, we don't want to disregard that completely with powerful buffs.

-Those

danilovic · Jul 21, 2007, 02:01 AM // 02:01

Make Sacred Temples the first map!

Div · Jul 21, 2007, 09:44 AM // 09:44

I really like Lorekeeper's king of the hill idea, where you get more points near the end.

The relic run idea is nice, but the numbers have to be greatly worked out or else falling behind 2-3 relics makes it pretty much impossible to catch up (-30% slower movement, -75% slower recharge when the leading team has +30% faster movement, 75% faster recharge and shorter hex duration which I assume would cap).

TheZens · Jul 21, 2007, 11:30 AM // 11:30

Lorekeepers ideas are good and what i hope HA will become in the future but they are ideas from a thread from around 2-3 months ago that he has refined even futher. The ideas for improvement have been around these forums for a long time now, anet have been told time and time again how to make the game better for serious pvp and its always taken them 6+ months longer than it should have to implement some of those changes. Nothing much will happen in the end because nobody from the dev team come to forums and have a decent conversation with the community EVER they debate nothing with us at all they just make changes as they see fit. Posting a few times as andrew patrick did a month or so ago in these forums doesnt cut it for any game wanting to seriously please its community.

infymys · Jul 21, 2007, 12:07 PM // 12:07

Renaming Dark Chambers to Golden Gates. Wow.

masta_yoda · Jul 21, 2007, 01:41 PM // 13:41

what lore keeper says

except for relic, just remove it as a whole(halls).

relic first map seems logical in the sense, heroways, spike teams would probably be disadvantaged......and we would see less
my conscience tells me its crap though

Despozblehero · Jul 21, 2007, 03:42 PM // 15:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

I think some of you need a swift kick in the... excuse me, I believe some of you need a reality check.

How could you even suggest that we don't play, don't care, don't read, don't give you anything, whatever the current beef of the day is?

Consider:

Party Search
Expanded storage
Observer Mode
Reconnects
The Festival Hat NPC
Domain of Anguish
The title system
Hard Mode
Festivals -- modified and new
A bloomin' $100,000 Tournament

The list is darn near endless!

I understand you want more characters in the PS window. Sorry, that is simply not possible with the programming in Guild Wars. It's something we can look at with the new programming and the new engine for Guild Wars 2, but from all that I know, we cannot modify it for the current game.

However, I'd like you to look at the Big Picture, and realize how small that issue is, and how comments like "We never get what we want" are utterly inaccurate, inappropriate, and unfair.

I advocate for fans every day. But I really hope that the other dev team members don't see this thread because, today, I'm totally embarrassed by a few of you and your petulant comments.

just cut out the PS sentence and substitute it for "We cannot fix HA." thats probably 100% the response anet will give anyone for coming up with these intelligent PvP ideas (that ive seen being thrown around for MONTHS here in the PvP forum). but awesome ideas, i can only hope that they see and listen. Not much hope...

Death_From_Above · Jul 21, 2007, 09:17 PM // 21:17

Can you give me a link to that thread please i think i would like to raise HA up to Galie.

shoogi · Jul 21, 2007, 09:45 PM // 21:45

another "fix ha suggestions" thread... the only thing needed is to actually balance the skills. and not once in 4 months, twice a month, as it used to be in the first months of the game.

as to the thread, u think that by doing this u will expand the variety of builds cuz more types of matches = more ideas, advantages/disadvantages, more strategy, more things to take in consideration. ur wrong.
imo more types of matches will only decrease the variety of builds and narrow the meta even more, cuz there would be a very low number of builds which will be effective in all types of games.

omg that gaile gray quote is just an outrage. can som1 plz give a link to the thread, so i tell her what i think about this?

Lorekeeper · Jul 21, 2007, 11:21 PM // 23:21

Your point is irrelevant. I am not advocating that many different types of game modes in HA.

1vs1 annihilation
relic run
king of the hill

if you cannot design a build that has utility enough to be effective at these 3 very simple game modes you need you go play TA i think.

and please if the level of constructive debate you provided in your post is any indication of your ability to engage in a mature discussion i would prefer if you didnt direct any posts at Gaile Gray.

You wont be doing the pvp community any favours at all.

to the rest of you, thank you for the positive comments. If anyone has any ideas feel free to post them, and if anyone can think of better numbers for the bonuses i suggested above please feel free to post them.

Despozblehero · Jul 21, 2007, 11:46 PM // 23:46

Yeah like my post will be the reason to not update/fix/balance PvP cause that 1 guy on guru pointed out that we (ANET) fail at listening or understanding that particular selection of our players and the "PR" IGNORES THEM. Not my fault if the truth hurts anet and ideas like yours (which are VERY good) have been talked about for a LONG time (what is it now 8 months?)... Theyve said nothing to us and done almost nothing. Actions speak louder than words to me. Its hard not to think that way when what you see leads to no other conclusions. TOO MANY THREADS WITH THE SAME SENTIMENT AT FIXING HA HAVE GONE UNANSWERED OR UNNOTICED IF ALL GOES AS IT HAS THIS ONE WILL TOO... I dont want good ideas like some i see here to keep going to waste.

If my thoughts were truly out of line though, I appoloigze. I can only see things from my ( a player) perspective. Im human, and prone to making mistakes. I dont feel like the way I feel now though is a mistake, but if it is once again my sincere appologies.

Hoppervalley · Jul 22, 2007, 03:23 AM // 03:23

*Looks at most of the above posts* MATURITY! Holy hell i was beginning to think it didn't exist.

What about instead of staking bonuses in the relic run you had a set duration you received the bonus lets say if you return a relic and it puts you in the lead you receive a set bonus of +15% movement speed and -10% hex duration, maybe something else, for 20 seconds so if you return another relic and again take the lead or increase your lead with that relic you gain another plus 20seconds. Therefore if you returned that next relic in 10seconds you now have 30seconds of the boost.
This style has the advantage of if the other teams gank you, you have time "saved up" to either recover or perserver through the bombardment, and if you fall behind because of the gank you can still make a comeback with the stowed up time.

Another thought for relic runs (Zones of control)-

Each team is given a zone of control- If an opponent steps within another teams zone of control every three seconds they are hit with invoke lightning. Now obviously hitting a single target with invoke is not going to kill them, but if a team decides to gank then they will all get hit with invoke which severly increases the damage output. Because of Invokes mechanic of hitting an adjacent team mate. If you send a solo snare he takes 120+ every 3 sec. You send two guys up there and hey are too close together they will get hit with each others invoke, so 240+ damage each every 3sec, obviously a full on gank will still be able to severely hinder a team, but it can not have the soul crushing power it once had.

*note might wanna make players lose the life instead of having them hit with invoke otherwise Spirit Bond could get nutty

Obviously the zones of control would need some timing and damage tweaking but i thought i'd throw it out their for thought.

I've got nothing to add/say about Koth i think your idea is absolutely spot on keeper.