Curse

Oceans Fury · Feb 14, 2007, 09:28 PM // 21:28

Hey, Im probably the 985646891067th person to say this, but the maps need to be reverted back to the previous state.

And with this next point I *HOPE* to bring about some different views, if they're not different then sorry:

To be honest, low level players will always complain about being of lower skill level, and that unfair advantage of facing much higher skilled players. We all know it, no matter what, you can NEVER get rid of that.

BUT, the current style in which maps are setup, I believe are setting up players for disaster later on for when they get better. This metagame, which to me, is dominated by slightly versatile yet profoundly overpowerd spikes. Spiking is always going to be in the game as well. These "kill count" and relic run maps in halls are setting up players to be limited in the roles and builds they can play as they get better.

If all you learn to do in 8v8 now is ritspike, your doomed the minute they nerf it, because your clueless as to what else to run. Granted, higher ranked people have and will become more versatile in what they can run, making it easier for them to run many many different builds.

But Anet is making it difficult for themselves by setting new players up for failure each skill update with these new AB Style maps.

By returning to the old Holding halls method, I garuntee these things will happen:
1. Yes, Gimmick Holding builds will come out, as they always will. BUT, with 8 players, and the *supposedly* more frequent updates, ANY build with reasonable balance should be able to beat any other given build with the correct players.
2. You'll see an increase in the number of balanced builds run. You wont have 8/10 groups being a spike group, then an Iway, then FINALLY a balanced. That ratio will be greatly equalized.
3. Lastly, youll see people more often than not win halls who actually deserve to win because of thier skill and ability to play a build with tactics and couterability to metagame builds, not because they can spike every 2 seconds with 600+ damage spikes.

Basically, if you want to get better, and want to be ready for new metagames, DONT PLAY METAGAME SPIKE BUILDS. Yea, youll get better at that build, but when they nerf it, your back to square one as far as builds to play. Play Balanced, and get good at the actuall game first. You dont have to win to get good either, learning to counter builds, and implementing skill counters in your build efficiently, make you a better player 100x faster and easier than meta hopping spike builds till you get your tiger.

Thanks for reading, just thought Id get some ideas out there and see what you guys thought about it, and what you'd like to see done with the Map style of HoH. Dont bother flaming, I dont get into e-peen contests.

-Fury <( ^.^ )>

Wasteland Squidget · Feb 14, 2007, 10:54 PM // 22:54

How does AB-style altar holding specifically promote spike over versatile builds? I would argue the opposite - some construction issues aside, it's the only HA gametype that rewards versatility at all. Altar holding just rewarded packing as much defense onto the altar as you possibly could.

Spike has been successful the last few days due to a mix of overpowered spike skills and kill count. Kill count is the gametype that promotes spike above all else - the others are fine.

Oceans Fury · Feb 14, 2007, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Yea, I agree with that. I hear recently that kill count has been removed, which totally negates my argument. -.-.

GG for timing

Dutch Masterr · Feb 15, 2007, 05:21 PM // 17:21

i'm kind of an HA noob and dont want to get off topic here, but is the 8vs8 update permanent?

having not tried it, but knowing player habits, these are my thoughts..

i observe some matches and noticed most teams consist of a team made of mostly 1 profession for spiking, like you said with the rit spike. i believe that with 8vs8, teams will be able to pump out team-builds that will be overly powerful or exploitive...but, thats just what i have to say from what ive seen.

Hirum · Feb 16, 2007, 05:24 AM // 05:24

I agree with you oceans but unfortunently Anet's delayed response to spike builds, such as rit spike is too slow. I dont see why a support/utility class should have as much damage in the first place.

Single skill spikes are BAD, and should be targeted immediatly with the nerf stick.

Nadia Roark · Feb 16, 2007, 09:47 PM // 21:47

After playing against rit spike for a few weeks, I'm becoming less and less impressed with it. I wouldn't mind a slight increase on the cooldown of rit spike skills, but there are a lot of viable counters to rit spike (consume soul, mass AoE on spirits, Prot Spirit, Spirit Bond etc) that just aren't being used intelligently. Rit spike was a big problem for my teams at first, but after running with the same handful of guys for a few days we don't generally lose to it anymore. Aegis before you run in so you can see who gets their enchant ripped--usually if you catch the first couple of spikes the rits will start to go poof. I try to catch spikes with Spirit Bond or RoF; either of which will give your infuser ample time to heal up the target.

That said, I couldn't agree more about single spike skills. There is a large culture of people in HA who don't know how to do anything else. The people who are rit spiking now were probably (if they were playing in old 8v8) blood spiking back in the day, or running SoMW in 6v6. I'd be very interested to see what would happen to those people if the viability of single-skill spikes were somehow diminished.

vapor311 · Feb 17, 2007, 07:46 PM // 19:46

I fail to see how changing the altar maps to altar holding does any of the following:

Makes people better

Promotes "balanced" builds

Allows the more skilled team to win

People will spike in HA regardless of the objective. If they're not ritspiking, or ob flame spiking or, <insert spike skill here> spiking, they will find some other skill to spike with. It's been like that for the last 20+ months. So when ritspike gets nerfed it will be replaced by something else.

As Squidget said, it is the Kill Count maps which preceed the HoH map which encourage spike teams. The AB style point capture maps and relic runs actually promote splitting. Something that spike teams do not do well.

In the entire time that the HoH map has existed there has not been a mechanism which promoted the "better" team would win. Teams get ganked in the HoH map all the time. Whether it's an alliance thing, a friends thing, a we don't like your district thing, or whatever, good teams get ganked and crappy teams win all the time. It's the nature of the beast.

Oceans Fury · Feb 20, 2007, 02:13 AM // 02:13

People will spike in HA regardless of the objective. If they're not ritspiking, or ob flame spiking or, <insert spike skill here> spiking, they will find some other skill to spike with. It's been like that for the last 20+ months. So when ritspike gets nerfed it will be replaced by something else.

I dont think you get it, if and when they eliminate *the overly* powerful skills, and return to the holding halls, it would result in a much more pleasurable halls experience. I dont know about you, but running ob flame spike is retarded, seeing as 1 interupt or 1 prot and your spike is defeated. THE ONLY spike that needs to be nerfed is ritspike. All other spikes are easily counterd. The current halls allows for monking to be an important role up until halls, it allows versatility until halls. This halls arena sets groups up for 2 things, the necessity to have 2 relic runners, and to be able to split.

If you have 1 relic runner, good luck trying to win relic runs as most teams carry dual runners and snares. If you cant split, gl trying to win altar points, seeing as most teams can have up to 3 seprate teams including the ghost.

By returning to the old halls, it allows for you to rely on not only your monks, but your offensive ability in applying defensive pressure against the other teams offense. So your not screwed if you dont have 2 runners, or if your monks arent at the exact skill level to where they can split so many different ways.

Dont get me wrong, I think thesenew halls maps are pretty cool, great change to HA. B U T, the old halls was MUCH MUCH better at accomplishing the feel of winning halls, Maybe throw in some side objectives, like making it a longer match and run relics for morale boost or somethngm but Halls was ment to be held, not run relics for 9 straight minutes only to run more relics next match.

Halls wins SHOULD NOT BE DECIDED BY WHO HAS THE BEST RELIC RUNNING SKILLS, OR WHO HAS THE BEST SPLIT TEAMS.

Halls should be decided by teams fighting against eachother, deciding the battle upon PLAYER SKILL OF THE GAMES SKILLS, NOT THE GAMES MECHANICS.

Relic running is a mechanic, NOT a skill.

Granted, it is very nice not seeing the same people hold halls all night long, it does get very boring when you losen simply because you got bodyblocked by two tems.

vapor, I dont know who you are, and I dont know what rank you are, but splitting teams have NEVER been a part of HA before. Nor should they be at the moment, Splitting is for GvG. HA is just pure player based skill and knowledge of skills, Very little tactics involved. I dont know ho wlong youve been playing HA, but back in the "good ol' days" before 6v6, the best team won, not because they ganked, or because they spiked, but because they played their build better than both other teams. Granted, they may have been lacking interupts or whatnot, BUT the team who played the best WON.

And thats how it should stay. Like I said, HoH shouldnt be won becuase you have the best relic running build in HA. Thats just not how HA is suppose to work, if you dont believe me, look at every other map in HA, relic runs included. If you have a awesome relic running team, your probably lacking either offense or defense. Good teams can exploit that, most teams cant.

If HA stays this way, we all might as well start running water eles and fire and air eles and assasains in our builds.

Well, thats my long-winded post for the day.. Off to get r10.
BTW, Dont bother posting if your going to flame once again, I dont respond to neither do I acknowledge them.

Gnight ^^
-Fury