Curse

Zakarr · Nov 16, 2006, 11:16 PM // 23:16

Heroes have been put to HA so that *EVERYONE* could enjoy from HA, ignoring their rank or vent/ts communication skill, knowledge about every PvP trick, etc? Right?

If that text above is true then why Anet can't make two versions of HA where first one is newbies vs newbies (with heroes) and another one veterans vs veterans (only humans)? There should never be matches like newbies vs veterans. It is annoying for both sides. Well, some veterans actually see this as easy fame which is the reason why fame doesn't mean anything. It has been mostly collected from newbie teams which lack knowledge and good communication. You suppose to meet harder opponents after you have beaten weaker ones. There is no sport where you can directly challenge champions.

Heroes are part of learning process. They should not be there when your playing skills have been advanced far enough. At the end, PvP is humans vs humans

Even at newbie HA, heroes should be somewhat limited. At least half of the party should be humans or split it to stages where first one is player + AI so newbies can become familiar with different HA phases without crap talk and second stage is where you meet other humans as opponents. Lots of PvE player might be potential PvP players if they can take their time and proceed carefully without any pressure or flaming. Once they are familiar with PvP, it is time to take next step. Current HA is too hard and time consuming for new PvP players because of rank discrimination.

SilentVex · Nov 17, 2006, 12:13 AM // 00:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ghost Recon

HA is totally messed with lower ranks been seen as "crap" removing hero's will just mean that these low rank players won't have any way to play. I have never lost to hero teams while playing with my guild only when with PuG's hero's aren't the problem at all the fact is there are loads of crap r6/9 players who just IWAY'ed there rank who think they should automatically win because of there rank then get annoyed when they lose too hero teams and complain for them to get removed.

This is a gross over-generalization of most high-ranked HAers. Not only that, it takes the attitude of most low ranked HAers these days. All you want is to make a group instantly and then expect to go win 5 straight. That's not how the game is played boys and girls. The amount of time you spend planning, practicing, and observing is directly proportional to the amount you win. Heroway teaches really very little about the team mechanics required for HA success, and if you aren't willing to learn then I prefer you do terribly so I don't have to pug with you anytime soon.

Also, the people I play with don't get annoyed when losing to heros (which does happen from time to time). We look at what beat us, and try to correct for the future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ghost Recon

Removing hero's won't solve much it will make the old HA player happy but the new one's won't both getting into it. If anything it should be limited to 2-3 hero's max and this will probably be what they will do to try and keep the new and old HA players happy.

Removing heros would definitely solve a lot. It would make the new players that have a good attitude about learning HA pvp do well & gain rank, and the lazy ignorant ones do terribly & continue to complain about rank discrimination. As it should be. Though you're probably right, anet will likely take the middle ground at 2-3.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ghost Recon

I would prefer them to be removed but i just don't think it will happen. Maybe make a second mini HA for hero teams

They did. It's called Hero Arenas.
Edit: Hero Arenas could maybe use a boost in incentives, but should definitely not give fame toward the Hero title. Why should an unrelated ai arena count toward (what's supposed to be) high-end pvp?

Mr Fizzle · Nov 17, 2006, 12:58 AM // 00:58

What alot(sry about generalizing I can't think of another way to put it)of unranked players don't see is It might be a pain to make that unranked group the first time but you have like 2 players in there that are good add them to friends.Then make a group with them slowly you'll have 12 good people on your friend's,next thing you know your r11 and rolling half the GW world and your winning halls all the time and you finally see that rank is irrelevant,because you owned heros all the way there.gfg

skillsbas8 · Nov 17, 2006, 01:27 AM // 01:27

I don't understand what the main concern is with heroes in HA. Any decent team will always be able to beat a team full of heroes. The heroes are entirely customized by the player, so it really puts a twist on just PVE. There has always been lower level "crap" in HA, and IMO adding heroes to HA definitely hasn't lowered the concentration of this "crap". If you're tired of people fame farming then why don't you just beg A-net to nerf Searing flames/ iway/ vimway. I would much rather play against varying heroes and some differences in games then to continually see "I Will Avenge You!" popping up in my screen.

Scizzors · Nov 17, 2006, 01:32 AM // 01:32

First of all i think people are complaining about the 6v6 situation way too much. They are only angry because the builds they got so used to running in 8v8 is not possible in 6v6 therefore they get lost and confused about what to do. Looking at the new professions and skills id say that reverting back to 8v8 would be suicide. Think about it, 3 paragons, 2 thumpers, 3 monks? u have got to be kidding. I personally like the 6v6 because it seperates HA and Gvg substantionally and its quicker to get up and running.

On the heroes situation i agree with most people that the same rules in gvg should apply in Heroes Ascent (half human half hench). Anyways i dont think heroway will continue as often if that happens because of their limited capabilities.

i got a suggestion i think you guys should throw more rewards into the HA system. For example Flawless Victories or quicker victories get you bonus fame (1 or so more fame on top of the fame you would earn.) Another idea is putting a chest or something on a few of the maps just as a congrads to people who made it that far (Scarred Earth, Courtyard). Also, i would really enjoy some totally new maps, maybe something with a 'King of the Team', where one team has to take down a certain player to win.. just to keep it balanced give whoever the chosen player is 1,000 health and say that he/she cannot be enchanted or effected by a shout. Its just a thought, tell me what u guys think about my lil ideas.

Scizzors

Jesse · Nov 17, 2006, 01:44 AM // 01:44

i personally like the 6v6 and the heros are just the way some people choose to play. if they wanna play cheep then play cheep back at them

B Ephekt · Nov 17, 2006, 02:09 AM // 02:09

Good to see you in here Gaile, thanks for posting.

william1975 · Nov 17, 2006, 02:14 AM // 02:14

maybe this thread would have made more sense if people said what they wanted and what they would like aas a compromise, instead of complaining about the injustices, life sucks and you dont get what you want.

I like it the way it is, and wouldnt change it,

if it has to change then two heroes would be ideal coz that way you need at least one other player,

only one hero would make it difficult to get a full team but still possible, so not so bad

remove them all together for me is the worst case, it just leave people in the same situation as before having got find teams, which i have sat for 2 hours tryign to do, or taking the virtually useless henchmen

I would rather play agaisnt a customized hero than a predictable henchman, because the only thing that will make a game last is variability,

Im no serious pvp player i just go in for fun and to try n get fame for fames sake, and the title, i dont want to commit to playing pvp all the time, and i dont want to spend hours looking for a team, i have a life and i dont want to spend all my free time sitting searching for somthing that difficult.

both sides have points, but it doesnt really matter its only a game, getting workied up about it is inane

Lynxius · Nov 17, 2006, 02:27 AM // 02:27

My suggestion is the following:

Allow only players bellow rank 3 to use heroes in HA, this way, unranked people could get to slowly build up their fame ( and get to know the maps, best strategies to use in certain locations, where to take advantage of the terrain and obstruction and learn a bit about general pvp ), after all, everyone knows the fun starts after rank 3 (even though builds such as Iway took any value this rank might have)

For those who still like using their Heroes in PvP, my advice would be making the reward's in Hero Battles Arena more compensating.

In my opinion, Hero Battles are quite fun and involve alot of deep tactics, having to control 4 characters at the same time can be somewhat of a chalenge to the average player.

Basically, Hero battles is an idea with great potential, but the reward's (except the pure fun and thrill that come from it

) arent worth playing it for, so naturally, the place isnt very frequented as of late.

Also id like to point out that, seeing as matches in Hero battles can last to a maximum of 10 minutes (if im not wrong), perhaps you should (and thats another reason for doing so) increase the faction reward.

Allow me to explain, a regular player, with skills to unlock and faction to spend, will prefer entering randomized matches and doing quick matches(with lots of "(Playername) has left the game" meanwhile), rather than having to spend an average of 7 minutes each fight in Hero Battles, which dont compensate with Glad points, or extra faction for Consecutives.

Another suggestion i would like to present:

Weekend events have been geting progressivelly better, and in my opinion are a great way to encourage people to discover certain unexplored aspects of the game ( unexplored by the majority of people), so congratulations on these events.

My idea is: trow in a triple faction reward in Hero Battles Arena, along with some tokens exchangeable for certain fun items ( alcohol, items that bestow sugar rush, that kind of stuff ), this might make people think " Hey triple faction at those arenas? Well why not grab this chance to go check it out, have some fun and gain good rewards for playing?".

If you believe these temporary weekend changes actually did increase the amount of people over at Hero Battles, then perhaps you could implement these increased rewards permanently?

Anyway these are my thought's.
Regards.

~Lynxius

PS:
Apologies if my text is slightly unorganized, its 2am right now and my brain is playing tricks on me.
Btw, loved the "Making Off" that came with CE, it changed my perspective of the Gw team completelly ^___^

master_of_puppets · Nov 17, 2006, 02:42 AM // 02:42

My vote goes to complete removal of heroes from HA, not just a limit. There will still likely be a lot of heroways even if the limit is set to 1-3 for NPC's in a group.

I don't believe that over 50% of HA'ers favor 6 v 6 over 8 v 8. Where was this imaginary survey taken? Probably asked a bunch of people in some PvE place like Lion's Arch lol. Or just aksed random wammos that would obviously prefer faster group formation.

Vindexus · Nov 17, 2006, 02:51 AM // 02:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by skillsbas8

I don't understand what the main concern is with heroes in HA. Any decent team will always be able to beat a team full of heroes.

If people wanted to beat NPCs they'd play PvE; that's the problem.

s w o r d y · Nov 17, 2006, 03:05 AM // 03:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jesse

i personally like the 6v6 and the heros are just the way some people choose to play. if they wanna play cheep then play cheep back at them

why don't some of you get it yet - it cheapens the experience for everyone!!

PLAYER v PLAYER

how does that not make sense to some of you

tomcruisejr · Nov 17, 2006, 03:43 AM // 03:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ghost Recon

loads of crap r6/9 players who just IWAY'ed there rank who think they should automatically win because of there rank then get annoyed when they lose too hero teams and complain for them to get removed.

take look at the people who want heroes to be removed and tell me if they are players who just iwayed their ranks.

maybe blood spiked/ranger spiked their ranks, thus making them crap whiners?

mind you i iwayed my fame and i wuv mah heroes.

vapor311 · Nov 17, 2006, 04:20 AM // 04:20

I'm going to apologize in advance, as this might get a little long. With that being said, how many people can remember when HA was the king of PvP? I know some of you are reading this post and saying to yourselves, this dude is crazy. Heroes' Ascent was never the ultimate place for PvP. Guild vs. Guild has always been where all the best players have played. That statement my friends, would be wrong. There was a time long past, where Korean teams terrorized the Hall of Heroes, European teams were a joke (with the exception of EW and Valandor) and America had favor all day long. Heroes' Ascent was extremely active and competitive.
Can anyone remember what caused the shift in power? I'll give you some hints:

It didn't involve Heroes
Didn't have anything to do with 6v6
Had nothing to do with the letters Y W I or A
Didn't involve a skill update
Heroes Ascent was called Tombs of the Primeval Kings

Give up? In the Fall of 2005, A-Net announced the World Championships. A $100,000 tournament between the top teams from each region determined on the GvG ladder. That my friends was when the exodus began. Heroes' Ascent was no longer the top dog. The big boys moved on to get a piece of the pie. Heroes's Ascent became more of a testing ground, warmup session and something to do when you weren't playing GvG. It's status as a place for top competition ended. From that point on, Heroes' Ascent steadily and gradually went down the tubes.
So what does that all mean? In a nutshell, it means that if you are playing for something that is worth anything, you are more likely to try harder. Success in that instance is more meaningful, because the people on the other side were trying that much harder. Competition breeds better gameplay and innovation. All because the reward is something worth fighting (or in our case, playing) for.
Now, with that said, lets take a brief look at the reward system for Heroes' Ascent, which has remaind virtually unchanged (barring the minor exception to the amount of sigils dropped when the timer changed) since release day.

Sigils - Sigils were once the most highly coveted items in the game. People sold the farm to get them as they were the only way to start a guild and they were super rare as only one dropped at a time. Fast forward 18 months and sigils are now passe. They shoot out of the HoH chest like nickels in a busted slot-machine. Current game valuation has them selling for 7 platinum, 500 gold. Ectoplasm sells for 8 platinum, 500 gold. Even Rubies and Sapphires are selling for more than Sigils at the moment.
Gold Item and Armor drops - These have always been a mixed bag really. It's really the only way you will ever see a gold crystalline sword or serpent or dwarven axe to drop but the likelihood of this ever happening is somewhere in line with winning the SuperBall lottery. Other than the occassional super rare item that is found, almost everything else is worthless. The other kick in the pants here is that gold item drops hold almost no value to someone who just PvPs.
Fame - Ah fame, the oh so controversial fame. The original title system. Really, and let's be honest what is fame, other than another title on your hero panel at this point. It's no more "special" than Treasure Hunter or Cartographer. Having alot of fame means that you've played alot of HA (assuming you didn't buy your tiger), just like the Treasure Hunter has run alot of chests and the Cartographer has spent endless hours hugging the walls on the map. It doesn't mean that you're a great player. It doesn't make you better than someone who has less fame than you. One could even argue that it means even less than some of the other titles for the mere fact that it has been around since day one. Take into consideration that if you've been playing since release, if you earned a mere 9 fame per day you would be rank 9. To put that into perspective, 9 fame is one run from Underworld to Scarred Earth or Unholy Temples by today's HA.
Emotes - Truly the only unique reward to HA. Unfortunately it suffers from the same devaluation as Fame. Having your emote doesn't mean that you're any good, or that your ability is greater than someone who does not have one. It simply means you have played more HA than someone else.
Halls win banner announcement - Not sure how else to describe this, but this is also one of the unique rewards to playing in HA. Really the only reward worth anything at this point. I would venture that unless you're a follower of the competitive GvG scene that you could play the game blissfully unaware of who WM is or iQ or any of the top GvG teams are but you know who held halls for 2 hours in a row last night is. The only problem with this is that it doesn't give any recognition to any of the other 5 five guys who comprised the team. In fact most of the time it doesn't even give the correct name of the team leader any more. I digress however.

So essentially what I'm saying here is that the reward for the gametype no longer justifies it's "elite" status. It certainly by no means compares to the rewards that are available for GvG play. Until HA gives something to make people stomp their feet and clap their hands for, nobody's going to buy into it. All of the events and map tweaks and other gimmicks will boost numbers for a brief time, but eventually people are going to go back to GvG where winning and losing mean something and where the cream of the crop battle it out for a chance to win real money.

So what's A-Net to do? They certainly can't go dropping $100,000 every season on GvG and HA and they shouldn't have to. What they can do is make rewards that are diverse and represent an accomplishment without spending money (other than development time). I may suggest the following:

Set up HA Seasons - These would be similar to GvG Seasons. Have them last 6-8 weeks or so. ::Steps into flame retardent jumpsuit:: Reset everyone's fame to 0 at the start of each season. Have people compete during the season to accumulate the most fame. At the end of the season if you reach certain plateaus you could get a special emote, or a special in-game item that commemorates the success you had that season. Something that has in game value to people. No bannana scythes or ogre-slaying knives. Although anything that is released to a limited amount of people is worth something. As far as the emote goes it would last all of the next season but would go away if you didn't perform the season after that.
Create HA stats - People like stats. It's no secret. People love to compare themselves to other people for better or for worse. It brings out more of the competitive nature in people. Does anyone remember G-stats? G-stats was a cool little program and website that tracked your PvP stats as you played in HA. It tracked your wins, losses, fame gained that day, kills, deaths, all kinds of stats, and posted them to a website where you could obsess over it. Sadly it went away a long time ago, but it was very cool none the less. I guarentee that if you added individual stats to HA it's popularity would skyrocket. You could even create individual rankings. Without detailing some complicated ranking formula, you could have each created group be a composite of the ratings of it's members. Then each game is measured against the people playing in it. Win and each individuals rating goes up, lose and it goes down. It could even be tied to primary profession. You could see who the best monk is, or who the best warrior is and so on and so forth. One of HA's unique attractions, is that while it is still a team game, individual accomplishments have and should be a big part of it. They are what seperate it from GvG.

These are just my thoughts on how and why HA is in the state it is now and what I may suggest we could do to get more people involved in it again. If you've read all of that I thank you and invite your thoughtful discussion on it. As far as the actual game goes, Thom's reposting of Wasteland Squidget's comments is 110% dead on the money. I agree totally.

byggryn10 · Nov 17, 2006, 04:52 AM // 04:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nurse With Wound

To put it simple, bring back the player to player vs player .

Amen. I would prefer to see them go entirely. At the very least make the same rules apply for creating a guild grp or a majority.

PS 8v8 was a good thing

skillsbas8 · Nov 17, 2006, 04:59 AM // 04:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by s w o r d y

why don't some of you get it yet - it cheapens the experience for everyone!!

PLAYER v PLAYER

how does that not make sense to some of you

Henchway has been around for ages. Since when has HA been strictly PVP?
Why are there complaints about Heroes when in reality they're simply a customized henchway. I would much rather play against heroway than against henchway.

SilentVex · Nov 17, 2006, 05:09 AM // 05:09

Henchway has been around for ages, but the majority of teams being henchway has never happened before. In addition, it has never been any fun fighting a henchway. We play HA to have fun, not to farm fame (well, alot of us anyway). It's exactly the same as the difference between playing chess with a human, and with a computer. Sure you can tweak a computer to be really dang good at chess (or really terrible), but after the game is done, you were still playing a computer. The whole point of pvp is to test your skills vs the skills of other humans. Pve is supposed to be where you test your skills vs the skills of the ai developers.

skillsbas8 · Nov 17, 2006, 05:12 AM // 05:12

So why the sudden outburst of anger against Heroes in HA when less intelligent AI via henchway has plagued it forever? Again, I would prefer taking ALL PvE out of HA, but since they'll never take out henchway, I would much rather face smart hench, aka heroes.

Kobold Seer · Nov 17, 2006, 05:26 AM // 05:26

I would support removing heroes from HA because they are better than the average unranked player. This totally removes any incentive for unranked players to band together and work as a team to gain skill and rank, which is what HA is all about. Even IWAY required teamwork of some sort.

That being said, hero-way would not be such a large problem for the metagame except the new map schedule allows it to win more than it deserves. A good coordinated team of humans has little trouble dispatching a team of 5 heros 1v1, but things become much more complicated on the new broken tower and scarred earth maps. Hero teams can often beat another hero team at the Underworld, then win broken tower by sheer luck, and go on to win scarred earth because they are running rediculously pressure-oriented builds, which that map now favors.

Under the old map rotation, hero-way would have been at a significant advantage to real players on almost every map, especially burial mounds and 1v1 broken tower. Part of the problem is that with those maps gone, hero teams now only fight one-on-one about half the time, so building a real team isn't worth the time.

shardfenix · Nov 17, 2006, 05:47 AM // 05:47

I guess someone didn't like when I asked Gaile all those honest questions...

Check this out everyone
Heroes' Ascent - PvP Match (what it says when you enter)
PvP = Player vs Player
Heroes are not Players
Heroes should not be in HA

I can see the other side of the argument, here it is.
Heroes' Ascent - PvP Match
PvP = Player vs. Player
Heroes make it so I can get fame without having to be good.
Heroes should be in HA because I can't play real builds with real people.

If you can find a way to convince me that heroes belong in HA, despite the sheer fact that they don't, please try.

While we're on the subject of Heroes, can you please change their reflexes. No character should be able to interrupt a reversal of fortune 100% of the time. Give them at least 1/2 second spell delay.