Curse

wassup1444465 · Feb 22, 2007, 12:27 AM // 00:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chief

I do not like forum polls because the accuracy is flawed and SHOULD NOT be used in determining the party size of Heroes’ Ascent. There are ZERO controls for this poll and a number questions are rolling around in my head.

Who is responsible for measuring this polls accuracy?
How are you going to determine that everyone who has voted in this poll plays Heroes’ Ascent?
How are you going to separate the ‘hard-core’ HAer, casual HAer or PvE voters?

There is no standard metric for gauging this polls accuracy. This poll is not necessarily the problem, but it is those players who are incapable of making an informed decision, those who vote blindly and those who vote toward the majority. I seriously hope that ArenaNet is not going to make a decision based on this poll.

I have to agree with this completely. How can you separate the rank three's from the rank nines, from which there is a difference of four thousand fame, and then the rank nines from the rank tens, elevens, and twelves, where between each there is as wide a gap, if not in some cases larger (eleven to twelve)? On top of that, who should hold the power in the first place? The higher ranked players are by far the better players, but if there are ten times as many lower ranked players, should the majority rule?

Honestly, and this is going to offend some people, but the people like those who are in the GotWs recently that mention that they are proud to have their deer's or they are halfway towards rank four probably shouldn't have that much value. There are higher ranked players who have gotten that much fame in a single run or series of runs. Yet if they are the majority, how democratic are we willing to get?

The other issue is that most people don't even view the forums, let alone vote in these polls. If ArenaNet is going to brag about the size of its userbase, then it should compare the number of voters in these forums to that userbase and realize that this poll is about as accurate as an exit poll during the presidential elections. Helpful, gives you possible insight towards the voter trends, but not all that accurate. There are thousands of people who either won't vote or don't know that these polls exist, and they are probably the ones who have something either constructive or informed to say. I can only hope instead that the admins who are actually involved in PvP if not HA be the ones who look at the arguments, look at the ingame data, and be given the power to decide which arguments really have merit. Basically, it means I would prefer that Lulu, Michael, and Izzy be doing these sorts of surveys and discussions and even contributing, instead of Gaile and Alex. It's not that I have any personal issue with the last two, but Alex is too busy and for Gaile this is way too far out of your field for either of you to really bring about the best results, and that's what I really think we are aiming for: Not a solution that can satisfy all, because that will always be impossible in these circumstances, but a solution that will answer most of the calls of the players in a reasonable manner.

walmart_player · Feb 22, 2007, 12:31 AM // 00:31

im sure this was already said in this forum somewhere, i didnt read them all but here is my view on this. i voted for the 6v6, i like it better because it is easy to get a group started, and why not 6v6. GW has 4v4 in TA, 8v8 in gvg, and 12v12 in AB. i see no reason to have 2 forums of 8v8, this would make it HA, as it is now, a whole differnt meta. also i think the thing that is making people stop HA is the kill count system. this make it very hard to run build this is not a spike. pressure builds will never beat a halfway good spike. plus with the 8v8 in HA some of these spike builds can put out 1500+ damage in 1 spike, making it very hard to catch with infuse or anything for that matter.

Henchnem · Feb 22, 2007, 12:48 AM // 00:48

######
why bother 8v8 is clearly the awnser even the non ranked people can get on wiki and get a rit spike team together and theyll get theyre fame either way.

Gaile were TIRED of these LONG battles. like on broken tower, courtyard, halls. the teams just sit around for 4 minutes then decide to sandwich a team and farm counts off them because its nearly impossible to keep up the healing.

and we had to wait 24 MINUTES in halls once because there was no opposing party COME ON! 24!

alter map is just fine enough! they were fast paced and people could play to the end not leave in the middle and its pointless to keep playing after that.

IDEA: move halls back to 4 minute alter cap and move that chest back to the middle its POINTLESS to have to walk all far over there!!!

->If you want to make halls more competive have the heros respawn every 30 seconds along with players but INCLUDE DP and and rit attack skill should be a type of damage not direct! holy fire lightning or something direct damage is over powered!

Quote:

Originally Posted by walmart_player

i voted for the 6v6, i like it better because it is easy to get a group started, and why not 6v6. GW has 4v4 in TA, 8v8 in gvg, and 12v12 in AB. i see no reason to have 2 forums of 8v8,

no no no no IWAYER, 8 is where teams can become very balanced and strategic and AB isn't 12v12 its 4 teams of 3 running around picking off stragglers. with teams of 6 there is no balance between offense and defense its just a matter of who can bring more offense or defense. 8v8.

Eria · Feb 22, 2007, 02:17 AM // 02:17

Of course I would choose to have 8v8 back just because it's the original format of Heros' Ascent. When 6v6 came into effect, I bet everyone and even ANet should have noticed the dramatic drop of people playing in Heros' Ascent, the number of International Districts dropped a lot also including many people choosing to quit Guild Wars forever just because of this change. I'm unsure why the final decision of have 6v6 was even brought up but it did not work very well. 6v6 in my opinion is just too restricting when it comes to trying to play many builds. There is either not enough output of damage to kill an opponent or there isn't enough defence to keep your own team up. There are also many other reasons why 8v8 is a much better choice. I Strongly Prefer 8v8!

Sword · Feb 22, 2007, 02:38 AM // 02:38

I will make this as short as possible in hopes taht gaile will read it:

It is not just a matter of 6v6 or 8v8, true 8v8 is better (more diverse builds, 6v6 limits build diversity immensly-basically you are going to either be running a purely offensive build or soemthing to counter the meta that comes from that), but 8v8 or 6v6 is not the big issue.... the current mechanics of heroes ascent SUCKS.
There was no problem with hereos ascent - if skills are overpowered to the point that people are holding hoh with gimmick builds (ie mystic wrath old paragons) then fix the skills, tell anet to suck it up and admit they made a skill imbalance and fix it.
With the current changes there are a great amount of things that need to be fixed atm, ie water ele hexes and water trident, assassin hexes like siphon speed. Capture points and capturing relics in 3-way is really the most lame thing i have ever witnessed - it promotes ganking and weak play in HA.

Guild wars is an 8v8 game - there was no reason to change to 6v6 - it limits builds, period. Think of hoh as any other "game" if you go around changing the rules of the game people are going to get angry.
Personally I would rather have 6v6 with hoh rules than any team number with the current system, yet 8v8 is unquestionably the best for diversity and fun factor in the game. I mean look at the current ha system every damn team is sins and fire eles - if you bring back old mechanics and 8v8 you are going to see ALOT more diversity and people returning to a rapidily dying hoh.

Honeslty I could go on for pages about the limitations that 6v6, capturing relics, "AB cap pts", and "kill count" cause, yet I dont care to waste my time and dont think any1 would care to read it all.

...
...
...
Fix skills if they are overpowered
8v8, old mechanics... Bring back the real Hall of Heroes plz

LifesRestorer · Feb 22, 2007, 02:41 AM // 02:41

i would say strongly for 8v8, but due to the stupidity of kill count matches, i'm gonna go with somewhat like 8v8 more.

if this rule wasnt in place, and courtyard and broken are reverted back to altar caps, it will be fine.

5 second altar cap was fine, especially with the introduction of song of contcentration.

keltik · Feb 22, 2007, 02:53 AM // 02:53

One other point about 8v8...8v8 led to better ability for different areas of the world to go to UW or FOW, seems like with 6v6 only Europe ever had favor.

Operations · Feb 22, 2007, 03:44 AM // 03:44

I may have started with the 6v6 double fame weekend, but I actually started getting good (and most of my fame) in 8v8, so I'm for 8v8.

Lord-UWR · Feb 22, 2007, 06:18 AM // 06:18

Why not make it 7 v 7 ?
Then both sides are happy.

*" and I can put a tainted warder along with the monks and spikers "*

Why do people like even numbers anyways?

Mystic- · Feb 22, 2007, 07:58 AM // 07:58

lol nice idea Oo

CassiusDrehyg · Feb 22, 2007, 08:51 AM // 08:51

Okay Gaile, I'm going to be honest with you here:

If 6v6 stays, I'm uninstalling Guild Wars from my computer. I vote for eight vs eight, and I hope others do the same.

bhavv · Feb 22, 2007, 09:57 AM // 09:57

Heres what I have to say.

The thing I hate about 8v8 is IWAY and spike builds. When the 8v8 test came back, yes there were a lot more districts and more people playing HA, but the majority were running IWAY and spike because it gets fame so easilly. There are gimmick builds in 6v6 as well like spirit spam, zergway, and spikes can still work, howevever the abilty to include one or two more spikers in 8v8 furthur imbalances and overpowers the spikes.

Skill balances and changes would make 8v8 a good viable option, but untill then I still prefer 6v6 because there is no IWAY and there are less effective spike teams.

Balances that need to be made are nerfing energy gain from spirits and minions, and to counter spikes in 8v8, I think the following:

Xinraes weapon: Reduce cost and recharge to 5 each

Make a new elite mesmer interupt like powerblock (possibly in chapter 4) that disables the interupted skill on all foes, with perhaps a 15 cost, 10 sec recharge, 10 sec disable.

Buff shields up to make it last longer and so its spammable to counter Ranger and Paragon spikes, and introduce a new similar shout that works against melee so it cant be removed like aegis, and maybe buff aegis to 10 cost, 20 recharge, reduce max duration to 10 secs, or even make a spammable ward like melee that affects projectiles.

Nerf Rit spikes.

Then 8v8 would be fine.

jasonjrf · Feb 22, 2007, 10:05 AM // 10:05

Ok 8v8 is better imo. People like to whine about spike builds and whatnot. But if your a good team there are counters to every build. I like the 8v8 it gives teams a chance to play spike builds and balance alike. It seems like everyone wants every team to run a balance build. Why should we have to all run a balance build that is similar to what everyone else runs. 8v8 gives you more options to come up with more variety of builds. I for one quit gw when it went 6v6 and you lost a lot of other seasoned players also and anyone that was experieced in pvp thaught that 6v6 tombs was a joke. 8v8 would at least bring some fun back into tombs. Also for the people who are whining about IWAY there really was no iway in tombs on the 8v8 weekend and it probably wont be a problem IWAY is not as powerfull as it used to be so that is really not a concearn at the moment. As far as spike builds bring an infuser and some interupts.

And for god sakes quit nerfing every skill and build that works. Just cause a build works doesnt mean its overpowered. How many times can you nerf energy surge seriously???

God Apprentice · Feb 22, 2007, 11:52 AM // 11:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

Heres what I have to say.

The thing I hate about 8v8 is IWAY and spike builds. When the 8v8 test came back, yes there were a lot more districts and more people playing HA, but the majority were running IWAY and spike because it gets fame so easilly. There are gimmick builds in 6v6 as well like spirit spam, zergway, and spikes can still work, howevever the abilty to include one or two more spikers in 8v8 furthur imbalances and overpowers the spikes.

Skill balances and changes would make 8v8 a good viable option, but untill then I still prefer 6v6 because there is no IWAY and there are less effective spike teams.

Balances that need to be made are nerfing energy gain from spirits and minions, and to counter spikes in 8v8, I think the following:

Xinraes weapon: Reduce cost and recharge to 5 each

Make a new elite mesmer interupt like powerblock (possibly in chapter 4) that disables the interupted skill on all foes, with perhaps a 15 cost, 10 sec recharge, 10 sec disable.

Buff shields up to make it last longer and so its spammable to counter Ranger and Paragon spikes, and introduce a new similar shout that works against melee so it cant be removed like aegis, and maybe buff aegis to 10 cost, 20 recharge, reduce max duration to 10 secs, or even make a spammable ward like melee that affects projectiles.

Nerf Rit spikes.

Then 8v8 would be fine.

The thing I like about 8v8 is people who mention 8v8 and IWAY

You like 6 cause it has no IWAY and less effective spikes, well current Rit spike actually was in 6v6 a little bit before the test weekend, though there was a Rit build The Spearman ran a long time ago..

Know how to counter Ranger and Paragon spikes? Stand behind a wall

Rey Lentless · Feb 22, 2007, 02:27 PM // 14:27

Keeping 6v6 because of Rit spike is just plain stupidity. That's backwards thinking.

If skills are overpowered, then they need to be tweaked. Building pvp areas around broken skills is not how you make the game better. Not that I think they are doing that, but I see a lot of people suggesting that's why they would vote 6v6. That's retarded.

Vapor - I think ANET's initial vision did involve too much connectivity between pvp and pve and the first summer was pretty horrid as far needing one for the other. The UW and FoW were the only real high level areas and I can see why a lot of pve people switched to non-natural districts simply for this reason, when america used to hold favor a huge % of the time. ANET addressed that by adding many more areas that were not related to favor, but did want to retain some synergy (I don't see it, but that's what they consider it) w/ pve and pvp in that way.

Faction wasn't even in the works when the game came out, but the pvp community screamed that they were forced to pve to play pvp (which was entirely true). Since then ANET added faction and increased it immensely. While RA would make any normal person insane after a while, it does allow for faction gain quick enough IMO to allow people, even new people to completely skip pve if they choose. The faction gain in HA also allows most people to retain a surplus of faction to play any new build required and can gain most of it back through a standard run w/ that build. It isn't UAX right out the door, but it is a huge upgrade over what was initially there and I do think it has largely removed the 'need' to pve to play pvp. There's still a bonus for doing so, which I think is ok.

I personally think if they would have listened to UAX, it would have been a huge mistake. Removing the idea of advancement through unlocking (even in pvp) would have removed a large element of this as a mmorpg that attract people. While increasing titles and unlocking more content may be a bit frustrating at first, having it all handed to you on install would have done much more harm than good and removed a lot of interest from a lot of people and would have moved too far from the genre to be successful.

ANET does obviously listen and has continued to make changes to remove the dependency on each game type respectively.

The issue w/ kill count still needs to be addressed, but I think it can be done. The mechanic is new and will probably get improved. Something like having deaths subtract your total, and having a lose condition where -10 pts would kick that team out (so it isn't just a race to farm the weak team, which is what mainly promotes spike). Having the 3rd team in there is important (otherwise the kill count is mainly worthless), but it's also important to remove them once it's clear one team isn't going to win as well to even the balance between pressure and spike in this format.

I also think the varied win conditions have to stay. Preventing skipping isn't viable, so having the win conditions from the maps leading up to it randomized I do think is the best way to force teams run more balanced builds that can strive in more map types. That was one of the lamest aspects of HA, when teams simply tried to skip relic runs and even standard maps and I'm glad it's been addressed (even if running relics in hoh seems a little lame too, I do believe it's necessary). Teams that packed as much holding power as possible, and then just played to skip was entirely lame to me and I'm glad it's no longer a real option.

The Silver Star · Feb 22, 2007, 02:50 PM // 14:50

Well i persoanlly went for the "8v8 is teh leetsauce" however, the party size clearly sint the problem now. The problem people are faced with is mainly due to the fact that most people that play HA now only play to farm fame therefore the state of HA istself not the party sixe is the problem, this seemed to be mainly caused when Anet decided to "mess-around" with HA to gain more players. This has actually ended up doing the opposite effect. Trying to save HA now well.. its plainly to late to save it in the current circumstances the way i see it and it will NEVER be as good/populated as it was pre 6v6.

King Kong Monkey · Feb 22, 2007, 02:53 PM // 14:53

I prefer 8 vs. 8 since you can run a real balanced build. You got 3 slots for your backline, 2 AoE Presure slots, 1 solo spike like an Sadow Prison or Shock War. I agree that this is possible in 6 vs. 6 but the real power of an balanced build are the 2 empty slots used to counter the current meta. That just wasn't possible in 6 vs. 6 that's why ''gimmick'' builds where played so much like RaO Dazed Presure or Hex Presure Spiritway and Zergway.

Owh and can the skill balance team take a look at Ritualist Spike? That spike is more than 1000 damage every 5 to 10 seconds. Really to strong..

I am really happy about the way the last skill and gameplay changes were made. Anet, continue like this!!

Dione Davore · Feb 22, 2007, 03:14 PM // 15:14

8vs8 plz, back to the days that HA was fun

I really enjoyed last week. Much more options for your Builds.

And the counter to spikes will be there fast enough. But since many people are not creative and can only copy-paste Observermode... it will take a bit of time... so don't listen to whiners that whine about spikes

vapor311 · Feb 22, 2007, 03:16 PM // 15:16

I agree with you Rey, 100% in fact that A-net does listen and makes great strides in listening to their fans and implementing solutions to try to appeal to as many of them as possible. I would say better than any other game company that I've seen.

The problem lies in the timing. Imagine how things would be if the features that we have now had been implemented at Prophecies release. Built-in party search, skill unlocks through faction or purchase through the in-game store, non-favor based high level PvE content, skill and equipment templates, all the various UI enhancements, the list goes on. The problem is that the players who've left, have left. They're not coming back because the enhancements have been made after the fact. Nobody is dropping what they're playing now to come back to GW because there's a party search feature now, but they might have been retained as a customer if something like that was around when they did play.
So my advice is to stop wasting development time flip flopping about HA party sizes, don't bother putting out a Chapter 4 which builds on a fundamentally flawed game and instead work on Guild Wars 2.0. I would toss out my 3000 hours of "work" in a heartbeat if they released a new game which fixed the baser problems that we have now. Conversely I would also question my own sanity if I decided to invest $50+ in a dying game. I imagine it would be kinda like buying the latest Star Wars Galaxies expansion.

infymys · Feb 22, 2007, 03:27 PM // 15:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

The thing I hate about 8v8 is IWAY and spike builds.

In ten days of testing, I saw IWAY a total of THREE times. All three times by the same "calculating" guild. Spikes in 8v8 will always be present but guess what? They are easily countered if you put your head into it and you have a strong, coordinated team. There are so many spikes being played because they're easy to start, easy to play and requires little skill outside of the caller and main healers. A little thought, good teamwork and patience and they can easily be rolled in a single 8 player build AND have the utility to do relic runs and such.

-Strongly for 8v8.
-Rework killcounts or simply get rid of them.
-Bring back the Rifts.