Curse

master_of_puppets · Nov 19, 2006, 07:25 PM // 19:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by QoH

max limit should be this: You can't have more hero/hench on your team than human player. Other words, you need at least 3 humans to enter.

Removing heroes fully from HA would be a big mistake.

Removing heroes from HA would be a big mistake?

Having people who were regular HA'ers return to HA after practically quitting (like me) after it became a PvE scrubfest would be a big mistake? Or maybe increasing the number of people that go to Hero Battles since there is no point of them now because you can solo HA, is that the big mistake? Or maybe so newer people will actually learn to play with OTHER GODDAMN PEOPLE which was how it was meant to be, and not with customizable crap-AI bots, is that the big mistake?

I dont see where the big mistake is, can you point it out?

lorph · Nov 19, 2006, 09:03 PM // 21:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIH49

Quote:

This does not follow since the useless (because it cannot be accessed by anyone) "valuable area" gains value by increasing accesibility, then by this situation, value becomes a function of accessibility.

Now you're mixing up our terms. The value area doesn't gain value by adding accessibility, it gains what I have termed "usefulness". And I absolutely agree, it does. I'm all for valuable and useful zones, arenas, whatevers.

Sorry for confusing your terms, but the last time I checked the dictionary, which was about 5 seconds ago, valuable and useful are synonyms. If something is useful, it is necessarily valuable, and the converse is true as well. You conveniently defined an artificial difference between these two terms so that something becomes more "useful" only when it becomes more "accessible".

Consider this true situation. A while ago, people had to create PvE characters, and capture or purchase every skill they wanted to use in PvP.

Arenanet changed this and allowed PvP players to gain skills with faction. Many PvP players have stopped whining about the skill grind, and as a result, HA has become more valuable as a result of an increase in accessibility.

Quote:

It is close to the realm of reality because that is effectively the state that the current HA is in. Anyone can roll a PvP character and visit HA (assuming they have it unlocked). Anyone can then fill a party with heroes and henches (assuming they have the heroes unlocked). There we have super-accessibility. They can then enter into a zone (or a series if you prefer) that is, for PvP, essentially valueless.

I think if you are going for a more elitist HA, you should be arguing for harder Zaishen, the method chosen by Arenanet to filter out teams, making it harder to get in.

Since heroteams on occasion perform better than full human teams, it does not make sense on the basis of merit to disclude heroes from HA with the goal of becoming more competitive.

Quote:

A difference in quality? Surely not.[...] If you remove heroes you will be seeing far more people teams. That's an increase in quality.

Here you are entitled to your opinion of what might happen with the removal of heroes. However, it is just as possible that this is a matter of fixing the symptoms rather than curing the disease. I also suppose you have not been in the circumstance where people are not playing and received waiting for team timers 3+ times in a row.(and this is before heroes with 8v8) If this is not a decrease in quality I don't know what is.

Though again, here we are addressing the symptoms (that fed up people and beginners play heroway or quit), instead of the original problems (6v6, skill, map objective imbalances which you and I agree on. Fix the original problems and the symptoms disappear.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vapor311

Of course it all goes back to making more people play the maps that are out there. Alot of the crap builds that are out there wouldn't make it through if they had to play every map. How do you get people to play every map? Reduce the amount of skips. How do you reduce the amount of skips? Add more people. How do you add more people? Increase the quality of the rewards for the gametype.

I think vapor311 is hitting upon something here though I'm sure DIH49 mentioned this in another thread a long time ago. You increase the incentive to run humanway, not make the only option humanway.

This is similar to the reason why people are given the option to make tax-deductable donations (in many developed countries): you don't encourage philantropy by making it mandatory, you give people an incentive. Likewise you don't make humanway mandatory, you give people an incentive.

Bowstring Badass · Nov 19, 2006, 09:17 PM // 21:17

I think that Heros in Hero's Ascent should be limited to at least 3 Heros/Henchman unless the team gets an error7 (known as code7 now) making people have to find 2 others at the least per team. Then they should get a henchman if they proceed to the next map with the error7/code7.

Dark Helmet · Nov 19, 2006, 10:04 PM // 22:04

The way I see it is... Anet never intended PvP to be dominated by Henchmen/Heroes. That's why Henchmen only have six skills, and why you could only have four, even when HA was eight people. Henchmen aren't supposed to be incredibly good bot replacements for players, they're supposed to be an adequate subsitute if you're missing one or two players.

Heroes are fun in PvE. But I think that since no other PvP arena, aside from GvG and Hero arenas themselves, allows them, HA should go back to real human teams.

The fact that there are three or so builds being played in HA, and half the teams are bots... that's not a good, flourishing PvP arena.

At one point, winning Halls was meaningful... it meant you were the best player/team in Tombs out of everyone playing in GW at that time. Now it just means you beat five or six teams of bots... first the Zaishen, then Dunkoro, Koss, Tahlkora, and Zhed five times over.

SilentVex · Nov 19, 2006, 10:25 PM // 22:25

lorph, if you went to the championships in the nightfall world championship, and won by fighting 8 teams of bots or half bots, would your championship mean much? I for one wouldn't be impressed. I'd say wow, nice job beating some ai. This is the bottom line.

DIH49 · Nov 19, 2006, 10:39 PM // 22:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by lorph

Sorry for confusing your terms, but the last time I checked the dictionary, which was about 5 seconds ago, valuable and useful are synonyms. If something is useful, it is necessarily valuable, and the converse is true as well. You conveniently defined an artificial difference between these two terms so that something becomes more "useful" only when it becomes more "accessible".

I defined the terms at the onset so this sort of confusion wouldn't occur. I used standard english words because I assumed you would take better to them than made up qualifiers like "having Aness" and "having the property of B". If you would prefer to use the latter sort of terms we can, and we can create quite rigid definitions for them, but I'd just as soon not bother if I don't have to. Please don't try to play semantical games with my examples, they'll lead nowhere and I'm quite good at them.

I'll go over the terms again:
-Value is having the zone have merit in and of itself, without respect to other considerations.
-Accessibility is having the zone be enterable, without respect to other considerations.
-Usefulness is having both of the above.

My example stands.

Quote:

Consider this true situation. A while ago, people had to create PvE characters, and capture or purchase every skill they wanted to use in PvP.

Arenanet changed this and allowed PvP players to gain skills with faction. Many PvP players have stopped whining about the skill grind, and as a result, HA has become more valuable as a result of an increase in accessibility.

Er...no. Faction gain has nothing at all to do with HA. HA is merely incidental. This is easily seen if we apply the standard methods of looking for irrelevancies. Assume faction implementation, does this change HA itself? No, it does not. It only affects the abilities of players to use skills which is not a funtion of HA. Assume no faction implementation, does this change HA itself? No, it still does not. The ability to unlock skills for PvP using PvP is not a function in and of HA insofar as HA is merely a PvP option, not a synonym. HA therefore is irrelevant to the faction issue, and vice versa.

In any case, I fail to see the point of bringing up this issue. Speaking of issues, if you can I would be obliged if you can give me an answer to the basic definitions argument I cited a while back (the "heroes aren't players" argument). I still think that is the strongest argument against heroes and I've yet to see a satisfactory rebuttal.

Quote:

I think if you are going for a more elitist HA, you should be arguing for harder Zaishen, the method chosen by Arenanet to filter out teams, making it harder to get in.

Zaishen are NPCs. They have no place in a PvP arena in the first place. I'm aginst them as much as I am against heroes or henches. I simply lobby harder against heroes because heroes are more prevalent.

Quote:

Since heroteams on occasion perform better than full human teams, it does not make sense on the basis of merit to disclude heroes from HA with the goal of becoming more competitive.

You are equivocating "merit" here. I am using value, or merit in the sense of PvP, not in the sense of competition. In terms of PvP, heroes cannot have merit because they do not meet the basic qualification for being "players". As such, they have simply missed the point.

Quote:

Here you are entitled to your opinion of what might happen with the removal of heroes.

It's not an opinion, it's basic logic. If the only option for entering HA is to have a full human team, then all teams in HA will be human. P->Q, P, :.Q.

Quote:

If this is not a decrease in quality I don't know what is.

That would be a decrease in accessibility. Wait timers are a function of the question, "How easily can I get to the next map" which is an accessing issue.

Quote:

Fix the original problems and the symptoms disappear.

I see no reason to believe that heroway will disappear once the mechanics/utility issue is dealt with. If anything, I expect it to increase as now fewer skills are necessary (assuming 6v6 remains). If it goes back to 8v8 I'm not sure whether heroway will remain as prevalent. I'd have to think about that one some more.

lorph · Nov 19, 2006, 10:45 PM // 22:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilentVex

lorph, if you went to the championships in the nightfall world championship, and won by fighting 8 teams of bots or half bots, would your championship mean much? I for one wouldn't be impressed. I'd say wow, nice job beating some ai. This is the bottom line.

No this is not the bottom line. You make it seem like bots could actually reach that high a level of playing ability.

By their nature, heroes have always been inferior to skilled human teams, and this is the case in hall of heroes right now as all the last games I have seen in observer mode are made almost solely of human players.

Were it ever the case that heroes would ever be capable enough to make it to championships, then they would be a problem. Same with HA, the only time I ever seen heroway hold halls was never.

Yes, they get the altar for one or two, maybe even three rounds due to luck, lack of people playing, or the twisted mechanics of the map that have two human teams pitted against each other with no regards to the weaker heroway.

Let's consider your hypothetical situation that there were a team of 8 bots in championships. This is would be more reflective of a lack of incentive for people to play this type of PvP rather than the problem of heroes, as there should have been plenty of eager human teams to beat out the heroes.

--------------------------------------

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIH49

I defined the terms at the onset so this sort of confusion wouldn't occur. I used standard english words because I assumed you would take better to them than made up qualifiers like "having Aness" and "having the property of B". If you would prefer to use the latter sort of terms we can, and we can create quite rigid definitions for them, but I'd just as soon not bother if I don't have to. Please don't try to play semantical games with my examples, they'll lead nowhere and I'm quite good at them.

I'll go over the terms again:
-Value is having the zone have merit in and of itself, without respect to other considerations.
-Accessibility is having the zone be enterable, without respect to other considerations.
-Usefulness is having both of the above.

My example stands.

See the problem with your definitions is that you conveniently define what you want so that you win the argument. How convenient that your definition of value precludes accessibility. I challenge you to find an example in real life where something is not accessible (able to be used) yet is valuable to them. These two qualities include each other and to seperate them like you did in your argument is a flaw.

For example, there is food on the other side of the world. However it is so far away that you will never be able to see, touch, smell, eat, sell, or interact with it in any way. Any reasonable person would argue that this is a valueless object. As you can see there is nothing that can be both valuable and inaccessible at the same time, because these things are defined by common sense so your argument in trying to seperate these two factors seems outlandish at best.

If you want to get scholarly, we can consider findings in quantum mechanics, where it has been observed that objects do not exist when they cannot be accessed. Therefore if it does not exist, then it cannot have qualities such as being valuable. If you disagree with this empirical finding and just common sense in that something valuable must be accessible then there is nothing I can say.

Your artificial seperation is like stating 1=2 because you defined it that way in your scenario. Of course if you get to define whatever you want then you can always be right. And any other normal person would fail at trying to convince you that 1 does not equal 2. So I guess I have no choice but to conceed this part of the argument to you.

Quote:

You are equivocating "merit" here. I am using value, or merit in the sense of PvP, not in the sense of competition.

I wrote something about people arguing against heroes on the assumption that they are not players a couple pages back somewhere.

Quote:

It's not an opinion, it's basic logic. If the only option for entering HA is to have a full human team, then all teams in HA will be human. P->Q, P, :.Q.

Thank you for the symbolic logic example. However, you also hypothesize that this will make HA a more valuable place which does not necessarily follow. If P then Q, if Q, not necessarily R since here is no clear link between them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIH49

That would be a decrease in accessibility. Wait timers are a function of the question, "How easily can I get to the next map" which is an accessing issue.

I guess I can't convince you here either because of your definitions. If I have to wait 20 minutes for the next match, this is a "quality" issue for most people. If i go to a club expecting to see people there, but there's no one there, I would call this a quality issue.

Quote:

Assume faction implementation, does this change HA itself? No, it does not. It only affects the abilities of players to use skills which is not a funtion of HA. Assume no faction implementation, does this change HA itself? No, it still does not. The ability to unlock skills for PvP using PvP is not a function in and of HA insofar as HA is merely a PvP option, not a synonym. HA therefore is irrelevant to the faction issue, and vice versa.

I think you need to review what a function is unless you have made up your own definition for this as well.

Here we define V as value of HA, and 'a' as the "abilities of players to use skills".

The value of HA is a function of 'a' because there has definately been a change in HA due to the factions change. People no longer have to create every character, and get the money to buy every skill they want which could run up to thousands of hours. PvP players are able to use creative builds without having to grind PvE, therefore:

1 V(a)

However, Value is dependent on many other unknown factors such as skill of opponents therefore:

2 V(a,b,...)

Then you argue that since faction can exist outside the realm of HA then HA must be independent of the faction change. This merely demonstrates the following.

3 V(a,b,...) where a = 0

Then you argue that " HA is merely a PvP option" where faction is concerned. We assume G as GvG value and we can all agree that creating build variety causes a change in the GvG value along with some other unknown factors. Therefore:

4 G(a,b,...)

Your logical fallacy here in stating that "HA is merely a PvP option" is a mistake in assuming that

5 V can exist without 'a', therefore V is independent of 'a'
6 'a' is a factor in G and others, therefore V is indepedent of 'a'

As we can see in these statements, this is wrong.

Quote:

Speaking of issues, if you can I would be obliged if you can give me an answer to the basic definitions argument I cited a while back (the "heroes aren't players" argument). I still think that is the strongest argument against heroes and I've yet to see a satisfactory rebuttal.

I can't find it. I also wouldn't be inclined to give you an answer considering the way you defined terms in this argument.

Dark Helmet · Nov 19, 2006, 10:54 PM // 22:54

The heroes aren't sixteen years old (give them another decade and a half), so they aren't elgible to be in the World Championship.

SilentVex · Nov 19, 2006, 11:24 PM // 23:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by lorph

No this is not the bottom line. You make it seem like bots could actually reach that high a level of playing ability.

No, they could never reach that high of playing ability, which is why it means nothing to beat them. The same goes for any match played against them, whether it's Underworld, or game 3 of the championships.

lorph · Nov 20, 2006, 12:20 AM // 00:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilentVex

No, they could never reach that high of playing ability, which is why it means nothing to beat them. The same goes for any match played against them, whether it's Underworld, or game 3 of the championships.

I would argue it means something for some of the people who can't beat them in Underworld. Your GvG example is so improbable that it is pointless to be considered. If anyone was skilled enough to reach championships using heroes in their current state, then yes I would find value in beating them, provided that they had to fight competition close to my team's skill level.

However, if heroes were ever the top skilled players of GvG, then even I would be against them. This is not the case, and will probably never be the case.

God Apprentice · Nov 20, 2006, 02:42 AM // 02:42

It's seems the heros reaction time is godly. On Broken Tower a Hero Mesmer was interupting our human mesmer who was casting interupts. I mean every time our mesmer went to cast he was shutdown, and that's insane.

2_fingers · Nov 20, 2006, 05:11 AM // 05:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by God Apprentice

It's seems the heros reaction time is godly. On Broken Tower a Hero Mesmer was interupting our human mesmer who was casting interupts. I mean every time our mesmer went to cast he was shutdown, and that's insane.

I suspect that its because the interupt AI is the same one used by the monsters in the game. Like how they can use a 3/4 cst spell to interupt a 1/4 cst spell.

My 2c would be, dont remove heros completely, if not it would be harder for newer people to start pvping, and check the skills (paragon and ele ) and see if they needs nerfing. Having a single person spike down a target sounds a bit overpowered. Perhaps searing flames should caust exhaustion?

Fingers

sir lockt · Nov 20, 2006, 05:27 AM // 05:27

After a long time I played HA with some ppl of my guild, after me convinced they needed me. I entered and was shocked what happened there. Of course you read something on these forums and we all knew what IWAY/ViM did to the place, but this was even much worse.Especially the althar maps are so screwed: 18 ppl run forward, and they start hitting buttons. if you are lucky you win, if you are a bit less lucky you lose.thats all the meta involved in the matches I played last week.

For me its quite clear: its not solely the introduction of heroes that wrecked the system; its a combo between a very easy build (searing flames e.g.) and the heroes that can use this just as good as humans.

Still Player vs Player describes it all...
1) If players want to use Heroes, do Heroes vs Heroes battles, which is a nice concept for it
2) skill balance... but thats obvious in the pipeline

One thing it HAS fixed though: ranking issues. First you needed to have some skill with IWAY to get your rank 6, now you can solo grind it together (I know some who did). Guess the rank cap need to be increased to rank 9 to be sure

Div · Nov 20, 2006, 08:30 AM // 08:30

Or maybe limit HA to having 3 total heroes/henchies...

NeHoMaR · Nov 20, 2006, 10:15 AM // 10:15

You could totally remove heroes and even henchies from HA if you want, I won't complaint about.

But, my current suggestion is this: Remove the henchies (the 4 henchies) and limit to 1 hero per real people, so a minimun of 3 real people will be needed for play HA.

And as I suggested in this same thread: If you finally change heroes in HA, don't forget people that love solo play with heroes, don't make they play heroes only in PvE or in that "imcomplete" hero's battles. Or just add a clone of TA for play with heroes <- I will love if something like this is implemented.

I have also some different ideas like this one: Split HA in 3 "places", one for rank 0-6, one for rank 6-9, and one for rank 9-?, and let people play with as heroes as they want in the rank 0-3 "place", only 2 max heroes in the rank 6-9 "place" and totally removed in the rank 9-? "place"; the first maps will be "ranked" (you only play with people of your similar rank) excluding the final 2 maps.

In 1 or 2 years we will see a lot of rank 12-15 teams, so where the hell unranked people will make fame? farming the 1st map with crossed fingers? They at least have an oportunity now with the heroway, think in that.

Thomas.knbk · Nov 20, 2006, 11:27 AM // 11:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by lorph

PD counts as an interrupt which song is impervious to, and Song of Concentration is unremovable.

Yess, but you use SoD to remove SB, and PD does not only interrupt, but also disable the cap, meaning the cap (though not interrupted) is disabled when the ghost finishes casting and therefore fails. You can interrupt an SB'd Warded Songed ghost with just one skill, but I'll leave that up to you.

qazwersder · Nov 20, 2006, 12:22 PM // 12:22

Blackout?

Thomas.knbk · Nov 20, 2006, 12:34 PM // 12:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by qazwersder

Blackout?

You get a cookie

conjurer · Nov 20, 2006, 12:40 PM // 12:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by phasola

It's sad that unranked people can't find groups. IWAY kinda fixed that...
I hope Anet realises that HA has more serious problems that heroway :B.

U are right, we need iway, not heroway!

-Anet should improve Tiger's fury & iway, like in the old days 66% attack speed boost & dual orders & maybe some +armor against fire on warriors as well

DIH49 · Nov 20, 2006, 12:51 PM // 12:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by lorph

See the problem with your definitions is that you conveniently define what you want so that you win the argument. How convenient that your definition of value precludes accessibility. I challenge you to find an example in real life where something is not accessible (able to be used) yet is valuable to them. These two qualities include each other and to seperate them like you did in your argument is a flaw.

It seems you still object to my terms. Fair enough, I'm more than willing to admit I chose bad terms. From henceforth and retroactively all uses of the word "value" will be replaced with the property known to be A. All "accessibility" will be replaced by B, and "usefulness" will be replaced by C. The definitions of the terms are as follows:

Aness is the property of being worthwhile as a venue and to the playerbase.
Bness is the property of being enter-able by the playerbase.
Cness is the property of having both of the former to varying not necessarily equating degrees.

Quote:

For example, there is food on the other side of the world. However it is so far away that you will never be able to see, touch, smell, eat, sell, or interact with it in any way. Any reasonable person would argue that this is a valueless object. As you can see there is nothing that can be both valuable and inaccessible at the same time, because these things are defined by common sense so your argument in trying to seperate these two factors seems outlandish at best.

I think this is simply equivocating the common notion of value with my argument's specific notion of value. If we replace your terms with my above properties we run into no intuitive difficulties. That far away food has Aness but lacks Bness, and thus lacks Cness for not having Bness. The food is good food in and of itself, it has no poisons or molds or anything other than what one would expect in quality foods. That's Aness. But the food is not "enter-able" (read as eat-able for the purpose of this example) and thus misses Bness. There isn't any contradiction in having one but not having the other. Aness is a property which describes the object taken as itself, while Bness describes the relation between the object and the users. Cness is simply a combined property of having both.

Quote:

If you want to get scholarly, we can consider findings in quantum mechanics, where it has been observed that objects do not exist when they cannot be accessed. Therefore if it does not exist, then it cannot have qualities such as being valuable. If you disagree with this empirical finding and just common sense in that something valuable must be accessible then there is nothing I can say.

On a scholarly note, and not with respect to my above arguments, they haven't actually observed quantum mechanics to my knowledge. As such the evidence is theoretical, not empirical. Further, and this is going on pretty poor memories, I seem to recall an individuation problem with quantum bodies that precludes one from determining whether they actually do pop out of existence.

Quote:

I wrote something about people arguing against heroes on the assumption that they are not players a couple pages back somewhere.

You did indeed, in your opening post in fact. You accused the opposition of a contradictory double standard. But I gave you a differentiating factor that you have not yet defeated. Namely, the difference between a teammate and an area effect. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to know your thoughts on my response.

Quote:

Thank you for the symbolic logic example. However, you also hypothesize that this will make HA a more valuable place which does not necessarily follow. If P then Q, if Q, not necessarily R since here is no clear link between them.

Those are two separate arguments. The symbols were just to show that human teams in HA weren't a matter of opinion but of logical necessity. That's separate from my argument that this will cause an increase in Aness. The Aness argument is from a "purpose of PvP" perspective. I could also do so considering that bots are so bad at the game, but I want to stay away from that to preclude the notion of "super bots" or somesuch.

Quote:

I guess I can't convince you here either because of your definitions. If I have to wait 20 minutes for the next match, this is a "quality" issue for most people. If i go to a club expecting to see people there, but there's no one there, I would call this a quality issue.

Re-look at this example in terms of my properties though. The club clearly has Aness (since you desire to get into it), but it clearly lacks Bness (since you can't), and thus lacks Cness. What you want is for your Aness club to increase in Bness for the purpose of having Cness.

Quote:

I think you need to review what a function is unless you have made up your own definition for this as well.

A function is a factor related to or dependent upon other factors, unless I am mistaken. I think there is some confusion here on my part. You are saying that the value of HA (or V in your post) is a function of, among other things, faction gain (a in your post). This is because, essentially, value is dependent on the ability to enter the field having the correct tools. Fair enough. I think I was equivocating my own terms. I was addressing value in terms of "Aness" where you were referring to it in the notion of "Cness". If we redo your example in terms of my properties though, we see no contradiction. Your argument passes with no difficulties. In fact, it's well explained by my properties. You have faction (a quality of Bness) that helps determine value (Cness). This is a separate issue from the value of the arena in and of itself (Aness). The arena clearly has this since people want to enter it (whereas no one wants to enter my example zone from earlier).

Quote:

However, if heroes were ever the top skilled players of GvG, then even I would be against them. This is not the case, and will probably never be the case.

This is a position I admit I don't understand. It seems to me like chauvinism. Why should it be OK for heroes to replace the lower level people but not the higher level people? It seems to me that if you accept bots you have to fully accept them, and that if you reject them (as I do) you have to fully reject them. Otherwise you run into the chauvinism objection.

************************************************** ********

On a side note, let's get the facts right here. Claim Resource cannot be blacked out. It is immune to the skill Blackout, immune to the recharge modifier of skills like Distracting Shot, and is immune to the blackout effect of skills like Psychic Distraction. Attempting to blackout a ghostly does precisely nothing.