Curse

Earendil · Dec 22, 2006, 06:06 PM // 18:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bacon Goes Monk

Since when was HA meant for casual players.

Thats actually a very good and important question. Who is HA meant for ? I mean, of course, in the minds of developers not in mine or other player's.

1. Was it meant as a paralel (to GvG) form of Top-level PvP or just as a passage from 4x4 to GvG ?

2. Was it intended for the casual player that logs once or twice per week, about 2-3 hours or for the dedicated one with 30-40 hours of play per week ?

Until we know the answer to these questions we cannot really give valid inputs.

Lorekeeper · Dec 22, 2006, 06:21 PM // 18:21

--- create 2 modes of HA... 6vs6 and 8vs8---
--- both reward players with fame (although the rate at which fame is rewarded could be higher in 8vs8 than 6vs6 or vice-versa)---
--- Winners of HOH in the 8vs8 decide favour of the Gods. Or come up with a system where winners of both modes contribute to favour.---
--- when you enter Heroes Ascent give players the option to join 8 man or 6 man teams... at which point they are sent to 8 man team districts or 6 man team districts. ---

*this allows you to please the entire pvp community which is split between 6vs6 and 8vs8*

i personally wouldnt mind if 6vs6 was just taken out of the game... but i respect the views of other players and it seems like some have grown attached to this mode.

once this is introduced... let the metagame settle. And then you can easily evaluate if the problems about the decline of HA is due to the 8man or 6man debate or whether there are clear HA map mechanics which need changing.

I would advise that the project to revitalise HA... is achieved via a range of successive changes. So that each change or addition is assimilated into the community before the next one comes out.

A complete overhaul happening overnight... is just not a wise option as far as im concerned.

Frank Dudenstein · Dec 22, 2006, 06:23 PM // 18:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bacon Goes Monk

Since when was HA meant for casual players.

Why do you think HA is dead?

You may think 8v8 will bring back some existing players (and maybe it will) but there's just not that many die hards around ... many have found new games...

GW PvP (like any game) needs a constant influx of new and casual players into the mix or it will die.

6v6 and the allowance of two heroes makes HA alot more attractive to new and casual players. You may not want them, but I guarantee Anet does...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bacon Goes Monk

I don't need to pug. I have a guild and a friends list.

You can take your high and mighty attitude all you want ... be glad that you contributed to the death of GW PvP...

Thom · Dec 22, 2006, 06:34 PM // 18:34

Why not fix the actual problem? HA will always be dominated by unimaginative builds and clumsy machine like play while the maps revolve around 0 to 1 control points and defending a non-kiting NPC. GvG is interesting because up until VoD there are multiple control points (3 minimum, 5 on some maps-- 2 cats, flag, 2 guild lords). Alliance Battles, Hero Arenas and competitive missions all use a multiple control point philosophy with varying levels of success. Random/Solo elements kind of kill them as serious game types, however the game play for each of those types is more interesting than HA.

Some people like the fact that HA is a micro-fest where those with the most experience with a particular build have a huge advantage. I can respect that, but feel that micro is only a small part of the guildwars experience. HA is worth saving for the following qualities: 1)People have grinded significantly for HA titles and deserve a continuing health HA arena. 2)The tournement mechanism is a nice compliment to GvG: one is short term global success, one is an extended campaign for Guild Wars fame. 3)The tournment mechanism is a strong game type which should provide increasing challenges which is a good experience for players of all levels. 4)A variety of arenas should showcase a teams versitility and HA could be the perfect area for that type of competition.

Anet needs to drop all of the altar maps before HoH, limit the annihaltion map to the first map and fill in interesting control points (not obilisks) that will effect game play. Finally, HoH should be captured like a Alliance Battle altar or with a flag because interrupting the hero tactics aren't interesting/fun/balanced.

supaet · Dec 22, 2006, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frank Dudenstein

Why do you think HA is dead?

You may think 8v8 will bring back some existing players (and maybe it will) but there's just not that many die hards around ... many have found new games...

GW PvP (like any game) needs a constant influx of new and casual players into the mix or it will die.

6v6 and the allowance of two heroes makes HA alot more attractive to new and casual players. You may not want them, but I guarantee Anet does...

You can take your high and mighty attitude all you want ... be glad that you contributed to the death of GW PvP...

dude if you're a casual player, why the hell you need others to run your damm build. I used to play HA just for fun and just join a low rank group and blast away. It's your choice to be casual or be hardcore. But DONT EXPECT to play with hardcore people when you want a casual experience. HOH was the place for quick fun 8v8 casual pvp. In HOH, you can be as casual as you want or as hardcore as you want. Just find the right people to play with. And one more time, when you're playing casually, you must accept the fact that others won't listen to you like it's serious and you will get rolled by hardcore players. But it's still fun isn't it? You want to be casual and get in good groups and win a lot? wishful thinking............

Kids just can't accept the fact that the time/effort you put in = what you get. They just want to invest minimal time and have a easy ticket to fame and high rank in hoh. Come on....if that's how you feel as a newbie in hoh, i'm sorry, you're not welcome anywhere.

HOH did not died because of lack of new players. In fact it was those new players with heroways that killed it. How ironic. Do you realize how many old players left? If a new player just come to hoh and expect to get into good groups and start winning right away, he is not welcome okay.

tomcruisejr · Dec 22, 2006, 06:45 PM // 18:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom

Anet needs to drop all of the altar maps before HoH, limit the annihaltion map to the first map and fill in interesting control points (not obilisks) that will effect game play. Finally, HoH should be captured like a Alliance Battle altar or with a flag because interrupting the hero tactics aren't interesting/fun/balanced.

how about totally removing altar maps coz it seems like 6 players cannot hold an altar against two teams of ALSO 6 players each? also, one good side of this is to prevent holding builds that just surround Heroes and spam Heal Area or Karei Healing circles, wards, and dumb AoE skills such as After Shock from existing.

and i like your suggestion of alliance battle altar or flag capture for HoH so a 6man team isn't forced to bubble bath aoe's coming from teams of 6 player each. Moreover, the reliance on keeping an NPC alive and preventing him from getting interrupted and knocked down is not fun, dumb, and doesn't showcase player skill.

Bastian · Dec 22, 2006, 07:23 PM // 19:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Earendil

To rephrase: if you are a casual player and cannot log for at least 20-40 hours per week you should go play WoW, PvE, Hero arena, Random arena etc. You kiddies should stop bothering us big boys while we playing. Keep off our play ground too while you're at it.

Hate to say it but thats the kind of superior attitude that brought 6v6 on you. GvG was already limited to dedicated pvpers. Now you want to close HA too.

I really doubt that more than 5% of the 2 milion copies of GW were sold to "dedicated" players. If ANet wants to make money they need to sell their PvP to people too, not only PvE.

1. 6v6 or 8v8, HA will always be a place where groups of dedicated players play. And as long as dedicated players decide where they want to play, it will be difficult for casual players to win.

2. HA and GvG are both open for anyone to play. No one is saying "close HA", however, if you want to compete and be successful somewhere - you may want to choose PvE, RA, 12v12, or TA.

3. Because of points 1 and 2, it does not matter what GW intended, nor does it matter how they try to implement new material to sell to the other 95%. If dedicated players are going to decide that they want to compete someplace, they will go there, they will be successful, and casual players can do one of 3 things: 1) stop playing and move somewhere else, 2) play and have a greater chance of losing OR 3) try to get better so you can compete and win.

These are all things that Anet has no control over, whether they implement 4v4, 6v6, 8v8, or XvX, it won't matter - the hardcore gamers are going to go where they want.

Additionally, I think that there are way more than 5% of dedicated players. However, from a financial perspective, dedicated players will eventually bring more money to ANet because the amount of money they spend on GW will outweigh the amount spent by a casual player. They need to keep the dedicated happy because these are people that are already "sold" on GW, whereas a casual player may not be.

Thom · Dec 22, 2006, 07:41 PM // 19:41

HA was design to be the confluence of PvP where hardcore and casual players would meet (or collide). Casual teams are excited about having a 3 game run and earning a bit of fame while a top team expects to enter HoH and judge success by consecutive times holding halls. Both communities can coexist in HA if both communities are large enough. When IWAY was prevalent, the community size was large enough for both player groups. Over time the casual community collapsed which meant their was no place for casual gamers in HA. With no casual community feeding the hardcore community new "members", the hardcore crowd started to die by attrition.

GvG is different because there are hundreds of "bad" guilds which play each other, but rarely see time on observer mode. You get active guilds right through rank 1000 and during primetime you'll have plenty of completely casual guilds battling it out with some not so great builds.

Nurse With Wound · Dec 22, 2006, 08:03 PM // 20:03

6v6 change brought downfall of HA. Most of us ( veteran HA players) were saddned by it, many left the game, selling their high-ranked accounts on ebay for lots of money, or left Heroes Ascend, simply because the game mode we loved, ceased to exists for reasons unknown to us. Facts speak for themselves - the number of HA disctrics atm are around half of what it used to be. All top HA guilds either disbanded, or left HA for gvg. The change wasnt good nor welcomed by HA community.

Besides the discontent of Heroes Ascend player base there are more reasons why 6v6 has to go. The change caused holding builds to be highy overpowered by the simple factor that you had to sacrifice two characters from your party. Now there are two ways of playing it - you either go full holding mode with minimal damage, or offence mode with good chance of killing other teams in lower maps but no holding power at all, making it impossible to hold Hall of Heroes. Lots of matches now end in a "roll?" msg, when team leaders type /roll 100 and the one with lower results resignes.

While in 8 vs 8 meta you could pack both strong offence, and decent holding power - now, its impossible. Its so obvious that GW PVP was balanced aboud 8v8, not 6v6. 6v6 meta is broken, and wrong.

Another thing - the number of classes , skills and combinations is multiplying from expansion to expansion, while the actual slots you can experiment with is dwindling. Why? Many skills and many builds are now impossible to play and enjoy in HA simply because theres no place for experiment. You have to pack whats necessary and thats it.

Also Heroes Ascend lots all of its former prestige. Most of good, HA dedicated guilds moved away from that arena because of the reasons listed above. Now, no one really cares about HOH victory, while back in the day, wining and holding was really something. Those two changes reduced HA status in PVP community to something totally unworthy of attention, while its supposed to be otherwise. Favour of gods, hall of heroes, 24/7 tournament for the best teams in the game. Now empty slogans, because all thats left is fame farming arena with easy victories and no challenge at all. Koss and Dunkoro running rampart, where once some of the best teams were fighting each other.

All the metagame changes were for worse as well. ^v6 was supposed to bring new build variety. In fact, all thats run now are 3/4 builds and thats it. Its pathetic and boring.

Because most of experienced good players left the game or left for gvg theres no really competition there anymore. Easy, boring scrub arena. I thought it was supposed to be the high-end one? For dedicated pvp players? Causuals got RA, PVE or AB. And we got what??? Im not interested in PVE AT ALL. I want my high-end arena back...

HA in its current state is a place unworthy of attention of serious PVP player. Im not wasting my time in it anymore. I will return only when HA will be back to 8v8. Im speaking also for lots of people in my our pvp alliance.

Shendaar · Dec 22, 2006, 08:05 PM // 20:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom

When IWAY was prevalent, the community size was large enough for both player groups. Over time the casual community collapsed which meant their was no place for casual gamers in HA. With no casual community feeding the hardcore community new "members", the hardcore crowd started to die by attrition.

That is exactly what I wanted to hear. This anti-casual player mindset of the "hardcore" community is slowly killing HA. You need casual players to feed the hardcore crowd, but right now, I can't see why anyone would waste their time trying to move up the rank system.

Thomas.knbk · Dec 22, 2006, 08:05 PM // 20:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bastian

1. 6v6 or 8v8, HA will always be a place where groups of dedicated players play. And as long as dedicated players decide where they want to play, it will be difficult for casual players to win.

Allow he to rephrase
In ANY GAME that EVER existed, dedicated players will beat casual players, and dedicated players will achieve a higher level of play than casual players.
@Hell Maurander, I was going to write a long reply to you, but hell. If you don't get it now you'll probably never get it.

tomcruisejr · Dec 22, 2006, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom

Casual teams are excited about having a 3 game run and earning a bit of fame while a top team expects to enter HoH and judge success by consecutive times holding halls. Both communities can coexist in HA if both communities are large enough. When IWAY was prevalent, the community size was large enough for both player groups. Over time the casual community collapsed which meant their was no place for casual gamers in HA. With no casual community feeding the hardcore community new "members", the hardcore crowd started to die by attrition.

so true. before, new players enjoyed playing iway, vimway (fast paced), blood spike, ranger spike, holding disguised as balanced (holding builds that can stall matches and win HA with less effort) and other pug friendly, tried and tested builds. but the thing is that they were so prevalent and looked like they're becoming the permanent HA builds. killed variety obviously.

when HA was 8 vs 8 and those staple builds in their prenerfed form can be run with ease and gives high chances of success, Heroes Ascent (American and int servers) got lots of districts to choose from. when it was changed to 6vs6, setup where in those usual winning builds cannot thrive easily, the effect was clearly felt. HA got lesser districts. what does it mean? does it mean that players that filled HA were iwayers, bloodspikers, ranger spikers and players of those tried and tested builds?

i think A.Net got to be firm and learn to sacrifice things to implement a change. 6vs6 is just months old. and for sure, one cannot please everyone.

finally, only a few of the posters got it right. what keeps HA alive are the new players so A.Net should make HA a hospitable place for them.

T-R-A-S-H · Dec 22, 2006, 08:29 PM // 20:29

Dear Santa Clause,

bring back 8vs8
new maps (u can replace scarred earth for a new one and bring back burial)
balanced update

Shendaar · Dec 22, 2006, 08:43 PM // 20:43

This thread is here so people can voice their opinion and I'm afraid you're not gonna stop me. On a side note, you prove my point pretty well, thank you.

Gaile Gray · Dec 22, 2006, 08:52 PM // 20:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Earendil

Thanks for the thread Gaile ! Please keep in mind that the people playing and the people posting groups are not completely identical. You should always rely more on objective data (like your own ingame statistics) to evaluate topics like "how many FoTMs - how much variety in skills", "how long games are in 6v6 compared to 8v8" or "how easier it is to hold the HoH a long time in 6v6 compared to 8v8".

The 6 vs 8 debate has a side that noone wants to name so far and yet is the most important IMO: what are the odds for a team of well coordinated experienced HA players to lose against a medium to low level team ? Does playing skill and experience grant you victory in 99% of the fights against less skilled and experienced people ?

The main complaint after the introduction of 6v6 came from experienced (and skilled) HA players who found themselves losing at some points against less good teams, mostly because of build issues - no way to fit the same amount of utility on 6 skill bars. If you go 3 monks you'll have problems killing. If you go two monks you'll have problems holding an altar against 2 teams - its also way harder to provide defensive skills to counter all possible forms of damage: pressure, spike, conditions, life drain, hexes etc.

Top HA people got angry mostly because they (obviously) do not like to lose when they feel they are more skilled than their enemy. They are usually the more vocal and more experienced on forums like these.

However - on the other side,in 6v6 if you are not top skilled and you see a team that obviously outskills you, you will still try, for you know now that you might still have a chance.

Holding HoH for hours should not happen. It used to happen in the 8v8 days a lot more than it happens now (after the EF nerf). This can be easily checked through statistics.

So - there is a choice to make here: how important should player skill be in winning ? (It's actually a legit question - if you do as in GvG where player skill is the most important factor - you are chasing away less skilled players who will find it pointless to try if they know their chances of winning are very low)

Skill or Build - that is the question. If you think that player skill is the most important part - bring back 8v8 - we will have again a group of about 3-400 players (could be checked through statistics too) that will dominate HA, mostly because they are better at it. If you want the less skilled people to still have a chance at victory, be it by luck or build, keep 6 v 6. You will have a lot of mid level (skill wise) people fighting each other and caping HOH once or twice per day. The top PVPers will either leave, move to GvG or adapt to the idea that you can still lose even if you are better than the enemy - you just rolled a 1 on a devastating critical

First of all, you're right that we should not rely exclusively on fan forum thread to make decisions about design. We will use these comments, player statistics, and many other things to come up with the right decisions moving forward. (And of course players will always continue to provide feedback, which is great.) It's also true that we are reaching only a segment of the PvP population with these info-gathering threads. However, I'm delighted that we have such good participation, and grateful for the very valuable input in this thread! (And I'm overjoyed that no one told me to use the search engine, because this really is the best way for us to get distilled info, particularly after a couple of months of player-to-player discussion.)

Beyond that, your post was interesting in its assessment of the whole 6v6 versus 8v8 debate. As someone who is trying to remain objective and see all sides--but who sees how diametrically opposite those sides are!--I cannot help but think you've hit quite a few accurate points here regarding player approval or disapproval of the change.

Quote:

Originally Posted by phasola

Umm, no. I played 6v6 for a couple of days when it was introduced and i had no problems winning HoH. I quit simply because 6v6 sux.

Why? In what way does it suck? I wonder, could you look back and recall your win/loss records? Did the percentages change? I'm wondering if Earendil's comments may have relevance to some of the reactions to the numeric change.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frank Dudenstein

GW PvP (like any game) needs a constant influx of new and casual players into the mix or it will die. 6v6 and the allowance of two heroes makes HA alot more attractive to new and casual players. You may not want them, but I guarantee Anet does...

Well, I don't know about the "or it will die" comment.

However, I definitely agree that we want more PvP players. (One point of proof: The PvP Primer is designed to sprout and nurture those we hope will stay active in PvP.) But one of the positive outcomes of the change to 6v6 involved the numbers: If you have 4 - play TA or RA; if you have 8 - play GvG. 6v6 seems like a really good mid-ground option looking at the numbers. I don't mean to argue other points, only to submit that yes, including Heroes and changing the number of participants does seem like to have had positive outcomes through increasing accessibility to newer players. And we do want to grow the community of PvP players in many ways. It's unfortunate that we can'toffer--as players suggested to me yesterday in HA itself--a nice tidy 7v7.

phasola · Dec 22, 2006, 09:11 PM // 21:11

First Gaile thank you for posting and reading some of the crap here

.

Quote:

Why? In what way does it suck? I wonder, could you look back and recall your win/loss records? Did the percentages change? I'm wondering if Earendil's comments may have relevance to some of the reactions to the numeric change.

Because it's boring. That's it. 1 week of 6v6 and i was already bored as hell. You think IWAY and bspike were bad during 8v8 ? You should have tried HA after 6v6 was introduced. All was there was Conditions & dual smite. Also the HA feeling was gone, it felt more like RA/TA than the old HA.
I would like to ask why did you consider changing it in the first place. I mean we all know HA had it's problems, but messing with the party size seems more like a desperate measure than an actual fix. 8v8 was there for 1.5 years. Who suddenly decided that 6v6 would be more appropriate ?

Thomas.knbk · Dec 22, 2006, 09:12 PM // 21:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

Well, I don't know about the "or it will die" comment.

However, I definitely agree that we want more PvP players. (One point of proof: The PvP Primer is designed to sprout and nurture those we hope will stay active in PvP.) But one of the positive outcomes of the change to 6v6 involved the numbers: If you have 4 - play TA or RA; if you have 8 - play GvG. 6v6 seems like a really good mid-ground option looking at the numbers. I don't mean to argue other points, only to submit that yes, including Heroes and changing the number of participants does seem like to have had positive outcomes through increasing accessibility to newer players. And we do want to grow the community of PvP players in many ways. It's unfortunate that we can'toffer--as players suggested to me yesterday in HA itself--a nice tidy 7v7.

First of all, even when HA was 8v8, GvG and HA were two completely different types of play. In short, GvG's primary focus was killing (the guild lord), HA was preventing (the ghostly hero) to be killed. That means you need to bring quite some defense in your HA-team. Fortunately, with 8 players and 64 skill slots, you could, along with the defense, bring a decent amount of offense, and counters to other builds. In 6v6, with only 48 skills on your bar, you have to make a choice: Leaving out the defense is not really an option if you want to hold the Hall of Heroes, so you have to leave out either the offense or the counters to other builds. Leaving out the offense sucks as well, because you can't kill anything, so you have to leave out the counters to other builds. THIS is the main problem with 6v6. Because you can't bring counters to everything, the outcome of a match is often already determined before it starts. (the so called 'build wars') This creates a rock-paper-scissor-situation. This type of play rewards the player's skills over the player's skill. This is pretty much what Earendil tried to say, and so far I agreed with him.
I don't agree with him that you guys have a choice. I think you don't have a choice because player skill should always be the determining factor, as much as possible. Therefore, I say: "Bring Back 8v8!"
And Gaile, thanks again for stopping by, even after 5 pages of arguing. Keep up the good work.

Noddy · Dec 22, 2006, 09:13 PM // 21:13

I just want to ask something, wasn't this game and its skills ballanced for 8vs8 competition, if yes then how do you expect Ha to be more then a team arena with 2 extra players, if the game is ballanced for 8 player partys then making Ha 6vs6 is taking away importance from it.

Nurse With Wound · Dec 22, 2006, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by gaile gray

Why? In what way does it suck? I wonder, could you look back and recall your win/loss records? Did the percentages change? I'm wondering if Earendil's comments may have relevance to some of the reactions to the numeric change.

The 6vs6 metagame is too limiting for creating a good, working balanced build. There simply isnt enough skills to put to have al the necessary counters to various types of builds ( pressure, spike, degen ), protecting the ghost, killing the enemy team and holding against two other teams.
Thats why most of the grops atm are uber-holding defensive builds who have troubles killing anything but can hold altar forever, or fame farming 100% offensive builds who can kill enemy team quickly in the lower maps but have no chance of holding the altars. While the old 8v8 balanced builds, whith 3 monk backline were very versatile. You could have all the defence and offence in there you needed.
8v8 format were promoting creativity, with 8 elites, 8 players you could do so much. Especially now, when we have 10 classes, every balanced team could be so unique. I dont know why you're limiting our choices. Now, with new party forming system, and possible 2 heroes addition you could form parties much quicker, so that wouldnt be a problem anymore.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

well, if you didnt leave the game, what will prevent you to buy an account, farm it to rank say 6 and sell it on ebay when you got a build that wins almost all of the time?

lol @ you. :P

There are no builds that win almost all of the time. And account selling. Some of my friends who quit the game because they were upset by the 6v6 change, sold their accounts. That all there is to it. And my long post wasnt about that issue....

Also, I didnt quit, my guild reformed under the new name and started playing gvg exclusively. And lets end our personal argument here, and move it to pm if you still want to add smth to it :P Waste of a promising thread.

Jeni · Dec 22, 2006, 09:39 PM // 21:39

Suggestion :

Random Arenas 4 vs 4
Team Arenas 6 vs 6
Heroes Ascent 8 vs 8