Curse

Randomway Ftw · Mar 28, 2007, 01:13 AM // 01:13

So far what we've had 8 months of a very sad version of halls of which people have rapidly left, resulting in instead of an arena with a stable player base, but small amounts of new blood, a dying arena in which most of the old top players have left.

We’ve had to put up with 6v6, hero ways, Nightfall imbalanced skills, and, objectives changes. 6v6 and hero ways have now been corrected, imbalanced nightfall skills are a different issue that is being discussed elsewhere. The most pressing issue affecting halls is the objectives changes.

What can ANET do to fix halls?

It’s really simple, change the objectives back to the way they were.

It is apparent that the general consensus in the HA community is that kill count is flawed and must be removed.

What about new objective halls?

The old system of halls, king of the hill altar holding was working fine, the new type of king of the hill would be better than multi objective halls, but feels too arcade like, with the one minute reses and no DP, as well as the point system. It would not work as the only objective of Halls because of how all the alternate ways of holding an altar are less effective, body blocking, interrupts, recapping at end. Not to mention the fact that holding the altar for a certain amount of time can make it impossible for the other teams to win. It would lead to scenarios where the holding to has amassed enough points to clinch the victory, in old halls the battle intensified at the end as teams frantically tried to bring down the ghost and claim the altar.

What about the problems with old objective halls, holding builds? Interrupt wars?

There has been only two occasions in about a year where overpowered holding builds were prominent, we have soul reaping abuse in the past with pre-nerf bloodspike, and more recently, which had its holding power severely reduced with the soul reaping from spirits nerf, it was hit again with the ritualist nerf, and to a lesser extent the nerf to the recharge of Oath Shot. Holding Blood Spike was almost completely gone at the end of 8v8 having been replaced by the highly offensive minion powered Oppressive Gaze spike. Blood spike will likely completely die when the upcoming rumored soul reaping nerf hits. Paragon holding builds also made an appearance during 6v6, able to give there team unremovable defensive buffs with shouts such as watch yourself, incoming and stand your ground, as well as provide unlimited energy to monks with energizing finale, leading to many 30+ consecutive runs for the first time in 6v6. The holding power of paragon holding builds was increased because most of the time these teams were facing AI bots. This was not restricted to halls as paragon shouts were used to increase defenses in early eurospikes as well as prolong GvG matches.

The anti-holding build complaints on forums occurred at the same time as ANET was asking for ways to change halls, and as a result we got killcount, and the halls objectives changes. If you go back a dozen pages on these forums you’ll see that there have been complaints about things that are supposedly the most important issue facing, the major complaint changing over time, popular complaints in the past include the fame system and IWAY. These complaints usually died down over time as the community found a new thing to hate on.

Interrupt wars?

Pre-song of concentration, a very effective way of holding halls was to either use practiced stance and seeking arrows and/or psychic distraction. While running 2 x Practiced + Seeking, and one Pd might have been a bit lame, it made it very difficult for gimmick builds without utility to capture an altar, if you are running a gimmick build you shouldn’t expect to be able to win every map. The fact is that a balanced build with a bit of shutdown and utility can easily cap against these kind of teams. If the meta changed to include 2x dom mesmers no one would run these interrupt based builds because they would not be able to interrupt the ghost while they were diverted, humiliated even blacked out.

However interrupt wars are now irrelevant because of the wonderful skilled skill introduced by nightfall known as song of concentration, which is dumb imo but that’s for another thread. Please don’t mention knock downs if you don’t want me to laugh at you.

What about using bad skills like Spellbreaker, and Healing Seed?

Halls is a unique game mode, with different objectives from GvG, even though these skills are bad they are effective at keeping a Ghostly hero alive, Spell breaker is not really needed but makes things a lot easier when capping, as well as having other uses against caster spikes, or on relic runs. Just because a game mode encourages the use of skills that are bad in other game modes that are considered more “skilled” by players, whether or not these skills are good in other game modes is irrelevant to the enjoyability of halls.

With the changes to halls, based on superficial complaints, Anet has essentialy removed a mode from the game that was fun for a large number of players, and had a loyal player base. I urge Anet to reconsider thechanges.

Im In A Build · Mar 28, 2007, 01:40 AM // 01:40

i dont get the point of this post but hey if its here i might as well respond.

6v6 wasent even close to the reason why people left ha the truly good players left ha for gvg because thats where the real competition is at.. the player loss was only felt at 6v6 because iway was dimolished at that point and all the pvers that played iway and inflated the ha population count disapered.

the old ha holding system promoted trash hyperdefensive builds that would depend of skipping to ha in dead zone times and holding. the king of the hill play style also promotes no strategic play what so ever it was just " stack as much defensive ench and shouts and weps and wards on our ghost and camp in our wards with our 3 monk build with mass defense and just ride it out for X mins" thee was no movement and minimal cordination and if there was a team runnng a holding build that had grabbed the alter and had semi awake players you count kick them of without the other team in ha being halfway intelegent and if you didnt get the skip to halls with your hypedefensive build and played a team that was awake in say underworld the match would take forever and it wasent because ethire of the teams were good . it was just both teams had packed so much defense and so little offense . thats all the old king of the hill promoted , shitty hyperdefensive builds that sucked of a dead ha player base for skips

the new ha objectives at the very least make you think and move and cordinate and is more of a training ground for gvg then old king of the hill and ha is really just that a sorta small training place to get you a friendslist and get you into gvg

Blame the Monks · Mar 28, 2007, 01:48 AM // 01:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Im In A Build

i dont get the point of this post but hey if its here i might as well respond.

6v6 wasent even close to the reason why people left ha the truly good players left ha for gvg because thats where the real competition is at.. the player loss was only felt at 6v6 because iway was dimolished at that point and all the pvers that played iway and inflated the ha population count disapered.

the old ha holding system promoted trash hyperdefensive builds that would depend of skipping to ha in dead zone times and holding. the king of the hill play style also promotes no strategic play what so ever it was just " stack as much defensive ench and shouts and weps and wards on our ghost and camp in our wards with our 3 monk build with mass defense and just ride it out for X mins" thee was no movement and minimal cordination and if there was a team runnng a holding build that had grabbed the alter and had semi awake players you count kick them of without the other team in ha being halfway intelegent and if you didnt get the skip to halls with your hypedefensive build and played a team that was awake in say underworld the match would take forever and it wasent because ethire of the teams were good . it was just both teams had packed so much defense and so little offense . thats all the old king of the hill promoted , shitty hyperdefensive builds that sucked of a dead ha player base for skips

the new ha objectives at the very least make you think and move and cordinate and is more of a training ground for gvg then old king of the hill and ha is really just that a sorta small training place to get you a friendslist and get you into gvg

QFT. The improvements to HA were very much needed and very better.

Randomway Ftw · Mar 28, 2007, 01:49 AM // 01:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Im In A Build

i dont get the point of this post but hey if its here i might as well respond.

6v6 wasent even close to the reason why people left ha the truly good players left ha for gvg because thats where the real competition is at.. the player loss was only felt at 6v6 because iway was dimolished at that point and all the pvers that played iway and inflated the ha population count disapered.

the old ha holding system promoted trash hyperdefensive builds that would depend of skipping to ha in dead zone times and holding. the king of the hill play style also promotes no strategic play what so ever it was just " stack as much defensive ench and shouts and weps and wards on our ghost and camp in our wards with our 3 monk build with mass defense and just ride it out for X mins" thee was no movement and minimal cordination and if there was a team runnng a holding build that had grabbed the alter and had semi awake players you count kick them of without the other team in ha being halfway intelegent and if you didnt get the skip to halls with your hypedefensive build and played a team that was awake in say underworld the match would take forever and it wasent because ethire of the teams were good . it was just both teams had packed so much defense and so little offense . thats all the old king of the hill promoted , shitty hyperdefensive builds that sucked of a dead ha player base for skips

the new ha objectives at the very least make you think and move and cordinate and is more of a training ground for gvg then old king of the hill and ha is really just that a sorta small training place to get you a friendslist and get you into gvg

Did you completely ignore my post? You can still hold at dead hours because the teams playing at the time suck.

I don't know about you about you but in 8v8 it was really easy to destroy defensive builds in underworld because I know that they can't disrupt my offense but I can disrupt there defense, or shut it down instead of just bashing buttons.

You know you shouldn't attack the ghost for the entire match in halls, healing seed = most overpowered skill in the entire game, lol jk.

I'm sorry but I almost never had problems with holding builds in 8v8, maybe if you were bad at the game you would.

Your post is clearly based on lies because holding in 8v8 was based on interupts, not defense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

QFT. The improvements to HA were very much needed and very better.

That viewpoint is to be expected knowing your guild's playstyle.

Blame the Monks · Mar 28, 2007, 01:59 AM // 01:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Randomway Ftw

I'm sorry but I almost never had problems with holding builds in 8v8, maybe if you were bad at the game you would. ... That viewpoint is to be expected knowing your guild's playstyle.

So since you called out Tyr, I will clue you in. He was a member of some of the most prestigious tombs guilds in the game before moving into top 20 gvg. Not sure what his guild is placed atm, but it is up there anyhow. I know for a fact he is at least rank 11, champ 3, glad 2, has well over 3 million faction, and a shiny cape.

How about you? I hear Koss is pretty godly...

Im In A Build · Mar 28, 2007, 02:08 AM // 02:08

Did you completely ignore my post?

yes because i still have no clue why you made your post

I don't know about you about you but in 8v8 it was really easy to destroy defensive builds in underworld because I know that they can't disrupt my offense but I can disrupt there defense, or shut it down instead of just bashing buttons. yeah but the matchs would still take forever and not really proves anything

You know you shouldn't attack the ghost for the entire match in halls, healing seed = most overpowered skill in the entire game, lol jk. i never said u should but guess what halls has 3 teams and you cant control 1 of them

I'm sorry but I almost never had problems with holding builds in 8v8, maybe if you were bad at the game you would.

i never said i had problems with holding builds did i?
and why do i have the feeling im much higher ranked then you Oo

Your post is clearly based on lies because holding in 8v8 was based on interupts, not defense.

interupts were only present when factions came out to when nf was realeased halls was around longer that that?

Randomway Ftw · Mar 28, 2007, 02:09 AM // 02:09

I'm not going to engage in this epeen wagging competition. If you want to respond please post something constructive with regards to my post.

Blame the Monks · Mar 28, 2007, 02:19 AM // 02:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Randomway Ftw

I'm not going to engage in this epeen wagging competition. If you want to respond please post something constructive with regards to my post.

Here is something constructive -- don't say someone who disagrees with you is a bad player when you are an unknown loser on a rank 700 guild.

Im In A Build · Mar 28, 2007, 02:24 AM // 02:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Randomway Ftw

I'm not going to engage in this epeen wagging competition. If you want to respond please post something constructive with regards to my post.

i would but i still dont know why u posted this?

I Brother Bloood I · Mar 28, 2007, 02:30 AM // 02:30

Not to break into ur riveting conversation... but dont bother gw 2/eye of north only thing on anets mind for the next year or so. And before u say i didnt read ur post or some shit just leave it they made their desicion and they will not change there minds which is a 100% gurantee from me a noob with r4 that doesnt know what hes talking about...

flame pls...

EDIT - Might as well make my nickname the topic ender cuz within 5 minutes i stopped posting in 2 topics with 1 post each... but someone will probably flame me call me noob r4 and basicly prove my point thus showing how much of a "noob" said flamer is.

Patccmoi · Mar 28, 2007, 03:39 AM // 03:39

You know some people just found holding/holding meta hella boring. I know i did. Not cause i couldn't win, interrupt or stay alive. Cause it was overall brainless for me to do and i felt it incredibly repetitive. When people consider something like 'interrupting a NPC' or 'protting a NPC' a tactical fight with a lot of depth, there's not much else i can argue cause i can't really think any point will ever get across.

Imo, every single HoH game now has more tactical depth than the old holding. And any kind of team setup can work in capture points and murder ball as long as you have 2-3 utility skills and you use your brain. People saying 'capture points is AB PvE newbish and all you do is run in circle' obviously have no clue how it's played.

Hell, honestly i find even kill count to have more tactical depth because good movement and team coordination is CRUCIAL there. One guy lags behind 1s too long, it's bad. You make a bad move and get sandwiched, it's very very bad. You have to stay aware of 2 teams all the time while trying to score kills, not just watch a NPC's bar and keep it up (though that matters too) while your offense looks at NPCs activation bar and interrupt. Sure some people just don't have much of a clue and throw AOEs around and try to SP people down, but most of those in the end are actually quite bad and end up losing to positioning. We won multiple kill counts tonight with a team that was condition pressure with a Tainted Warder and a Cripshot in there (which isn't anything close to high direct damage). Why? Cause we moved well and scored kills when it was the time, with Disease adding some pressure to both teams around. The point of kill count is to force a team in a bad position through feints, snares and good positioning and then take them out. Just throwing mass damage doesn't actually work against good teams cause they can heal it unless they have 2 teams fully on them, and that shouldn't happen unless they screwed up with positioning beforehand. The more it goes the less i dislike 3 ways kill count. The only thing that screws it up in general is that so many teams are bad at them and move stupidly that they will often give the game to one team or another by being dumb and that sucks. Happened sometimes in 3 ways holding too though, when one team was stupid enough to not hit the team that's holding and was hitting your backline instead.

Against good teams, these game types can be extremely fun cause there is a pretty good tactical fight going on. The main problem i see atm is that there is very little good teams, and when you take the fact that the 3 end game types can't be experienced ANYWHERE before HoH, it's very hard for a good part of the player base to develop strong strategies on these game types cause if they try something and it doesn't work out, it takes a while to get back there. If there was a capture points map and king of the hill map BEFORE HoH, people would likely improve at them and it'd make the games more interesting.

isis avaris · Mar 28, 2007, 05:24 AM // 05:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Im In A Build

i dont get the point of this post but hey if its here i might as well respond.

6v6 wasent even close to the reason why people left ha the truly good players left ha for gvg because thats where the real competition is at.. the player loss was only felt at 6v6 because iway was dimolished at that point and all the pvers that played iway and inflated the ha population count disapered.

the old ha holding system promoted trash hyperdefensive builds that would depend of skipping to ha in dead zone times and holding. the king of the hill play style also promotes no strategic play what so ever it was just " stack as much defensive ench and shouts and weps and wards on our ghost and camp in our wards with our 3 monk build with mass defense and just ride it out for X mins" thee was no movement and minimal cordination and if there was a team runnng a holding build that had grabbed the alter and had semi awake players you count kick them of without the other team in ha being halfway intelegent and if you didnt get the skip to halls with your hypedefensive build and played a team that was awake in say underworld the match would take forever and it wasent because ethire of the teams were good . it was just both teams had packed so much defense and so little offense . thats all the old king of the hill promoted , shitty hyperdefensive builds that sucked of a dead ha player base for skips

the new ha objectives at the very least make you think and move and cordinate and is more of a training ground for gvg then old king of the hill and ha is really just that a sorta small training place to get you a friendslist and get you into gvg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

QFT. The improvements to HA were very much needed and very better.

QFTWx2
I also find the "improvements" made were a definite step in the right direction... HA was becoming stale, now I actually find I enjoy each run - and the game more thought provoking

Divineshadows · Mar 28, 2007, 05:35 AM // 05:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by isis avaris

QFTWx2
I also find the "improvements" made were a definite step in the right direction... HA was becoming stale, now I actually find I enjoy each run - and the game more thought provoking

I agree. Some players that browse our forums though, like Randomway and Death From Above being the most vocal among some others, disagree with you. They cannot see the improvements when they get slapped in the face with them. These are the type of people that approach change with much fear, confusion, and hand-wringing. These are the type of people who like to stand outside on a windy day and piss into the direction from which the wind is coming and cry foul at the laws of physics.

Randomway Ftw · Mar 28, 2007, 12:09 PM // 12:09

Wow, you completely fail at refuting my post, sorry but Anet should not be listening to a buch of GvG players who think that halls should always be secondary to GvG, it had unique objectives, and a unique player base, but Anet destoyed that, and most people raged.

I'm sorry but removing the arena from the game, (what the changes amount to) do not solve anything, and the decline in the halls population has proven that, despite anything that you say.

qvtkc · Mar 28, 2007, 12:15 PM // 12:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

They cannot see the improvements when they get slapped in the face with them. These are the type of people that approach change with much fear, confusion, and hand-wringing. These are the type of people who like to stand outside on a windy day and piss into the direction from which the wind is coming and cry foul at the laws of physics.

Ummmm

"somewhere other than logged into GW; my passion for this great game has died"

So why are you talking about improvements?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Im In A Build

interupts were only present when factions came out to when nf was realeased halls was around longer that that?

Yes, and therefore it was more recent, so that's what should be discussed. If not, we could say that it was a bad move to go back to 8v8 just because I Will Avenge You once stacked with Frenzy.

Declining halls population is a result of old players getting bored and new players not being able to play because cookie cutter templated builds isn't enough to win anymore. And that is partly because of weird game modes such as kill count.

Tiyuri · Mar 28, 2007, 12:15 PM // 12:15

you guys can't discuss a topic without e-penis fighting, then you go and complain that the devs don't update anything.

You're all morons.

elektra_lucia · Mar 28, 2007, 12:46 PM // 12:46

Quote:

So far what we've had 8 months of a very sad version of halls of which people have rapidly left, resulting in instead of an arena with a stable player base, but small amounts of new blood, a dying arena in which most of the old top players have left.

In another thread you made it sound like you do not HA much - so I can't see how you'd know what HA was really like. Granted you could have left for the very reason it was bad but it wasn't all bad.

Quote:

We’ve had to put up with 6v6, hero ways, Nightfall imbalanced skills, and, objectives changes. 6v6 and hero ways have now been corrected, imbalanced nightfall skills are a different issue that is being discussed elsewhere. The most pressing issue affecting halls is the objectives changes.

I had no difficulty winning halls the other night with hero. I don't see that it has been fully corrected. In my opinion it's not my fault if a hero is better than a player... It wasn't that heros were gods and over balanced at winning. Then again I don't really play PVP to fight a whole team of heros - so I don't mind the nerf.

Quote:

It’s really simple, change the objectives back to the way they were.

There are new skills since then though.

I'm not trying to piss on anyones bonfire, but you talk about song of concentration... Maybe I am retarded but I'm looking at the skill right now -it's a two second cast. What's up with interupting song, then interupting the ghost? Or - interupting ward of stability, then gailing the ghost?

I don't understand why people have made such a big deal over song, and please don't reply like I'm a noob. I'm curious to know , what makes the ghostly uninteruptable? From my eyes, song can be interupted; therefore, you can interupt the ghost. Ward of stability can be interupted; therefore, you can knock down the ghost.

Quote:

What about using bad skills like Spellbreaker, and Healing Seed?

Ugh, if you think they are bad then I think you need your dick cut off

. This makes me a sad panda.

Now personally I always considered bloodspike, iway a build for people who can't think. I don't want this to turn into an IWAY thread (lol) but take away all the IWAY players from HA when it was quite active and tell me, just how full was HA?

I remember back then I was one of the few new players who did not play some lame build, be it ranger spike, bloodspike or IWAY.

Quote:

Halls is a unique game mode, with different objectives from GvG, even though these skills are bad they are effective at keeping a Ghostly hero alive, Spell breaker is not really needed but makes things a lot easier when capping, as well as having other uses against caster spikes, or on relic runs. Just because a game mode encourages the use of skills that are bad in other game modes that are considered more “skilled” by players, whether or not these skills are good in other game modes is irrelevant to the enjoyability of halls.

There is other uses for spellbreaker; in addition, elite isn't everything.

Quote:

However interrupt wars are now irrelevant

Ah, now I know why people are bad. Players attitude, they think interupting is not important. No wonder aegis is always up, no wonder wards are always up etc etc.

Quote:

Please don’t mention knock downs if you don’t want me to laugh at you.

You can laugh that's fine by me. I mean I'm pretty clueless on this - I honestly have not worked out why one could not interupt song - then the ghostly.

Quote:

Declining halls population is a result of old players getting bored

And I suppose IWAY being nerfed didn't remove many players? <sarcasm>.

Tiyuri - You're right xD.

Alleji · Mar 28, 2007, 02:00 PM // 14:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Brother Bloood I

Not to break into ur riveting conversation... but dont bother gw 2/eye of north only thing on anets mind for the next year or so. And before u say i didnt read ur post or some shit just leave it they made their desicion and they will not change there minds which is a 100% gurantee from me a noob with r4 that doesnt know what hes talking about...

flame pls...

EDIT - Might as well make my nickname the topic ender cuz within 5 minutes i stopped posting in 2 topics with 1 post each... but someone will probably flame me call me noob r4 and basicly prove my point thus showing how much of a "noob" said flamer is.

GW2 is coming out in at least two years. TWO YEARS. That's longer than you've been playing. Go post this GW2 crap in PvE forums where everyone is whining that their titles will becoming meaningless (eventually).

Death_From_Above · Mar 28, 2007, 03:49 PM // 15:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

I agree. Some players that browse our forums though, like Randomway and Death From Above being the most vocal among some others, disagree with you. They cannot see the improvements when they get slapped in the face with them. These are the type of people that approach change with much fear, confusion, and hand-wringing. These are the type of people who like to stand outside on a windy day and piss into the direction from which the wind is coming and cry foul at the laws of physics.

Rofl copter. Let me quickly clear a few things up because some of you guys are obviously lost before i comment on divineshades post. If HA population declined drastically because pro players suddenly got board. Why is it then of the many people who have quit and many people on the forms who have commented on the situation many have said its a result of 6v6. That is absolute nonsence to say such a thing, its common sence. The decline came from the change in 6v6. I wouldnt count it down to coinsidence that HA is alive and then 6v6 comes and wam bam thank you mam theres a steep decline in the number of players. It strikes me as odd that a large marjority of players would just randomly say ok gw is boaring and hence stop playing all at once. Therefore i urge you, research this point. Now back to divine,

They cannot see the improvements when they get slapped in the face with them. These are the type of people that approach change with much fear, confusion, and hand-wringing.

Improvements? Improvements? So whys HA going back to 8v8 may i ask. It obviously was not an improvement. I dont approach change with fear confusion or hand wringling. It depends how good the change is and in this case they suck. You seem like a political guy, if your goverment decide to bump ur tax up 10 fold. Just because a minority who benefit from it like it or say it has some areas where its an improvement it dosent make that change good. You seem to have adapted the persona that all change is good when it clearly is now. Randomway and i are only voicing our oppinions because they are completely valid ones. If it were us two who saw these changes as rubbish i believe HA would not have had such a steep decline in the number of players playing when 6v6 came abouts. If this were so infact i would not voice my oppinion.

Fact of the matter is a majority of you appear to be living in denial, its like a communist ragen or ragien however you say it. These changes are bad yet there trying to be forced upon people and it is for that reason we are not satisfyed. Basically, this is what i have gathered from you through observation and what you say. HA was good everyone knows that. Then you now want to make it better so you try making changes which dont work. But because you want to make HA better because you want it 2 be even elite than it was before. You start using it as a gineei pig forgeting in your quest to do this you have actually made it worse. But to you its still the testing proccess so although people are suffering its no biggy.

Lastly, divine you seem to have taken psycology or something im not sure thats just what i happen to feel. Hence this is were you base these assumptions from. Therefore i would just like to say, your psycology does not appear to work so you cant use it to read me or the other players like random on the forms because it only makes you look like your some dude whos read the wrong text book or something. You claim we are the opposite to what we are lol as if you know what goes on in our head. To that i must say LAME with a capital L

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

Here is something constructive -- don't say someone who disagrees with you is a bad player when you are an unknown loser on a rank 700 guild.

Low blow and a very shallow remark. Maybe you didnt happen to notice, but a guild can be pro at HA and yet have a lame gvg rank. This is because HA and gvg are totaly dif and how do you know they dont HA once in a while. Please think before you speak, i know its hard but it will help you through life, i promise =..= Also the idea that you can identify if someones a good player by what they say is partly true. Therefore if what you have said is cheep and lame dont expect people to say oh ye cool just because its the forms, expect a stupid replie for a stupid post. Its like you give you take my friend.

samcobra · Mar 28, 2007, 04:08 PM // 16:08

wow, I love this drama. Thank you Garbad and Tyr for enlightening my day!

Edit: BTW, tyr, when'd you get ur champ 3? I thought u were sitting at a few points away for like EVER!