Curse

audioaxes · Nov 18, 2006, 12:25 AM // 00:25

im sorry but too little too late, too many people left and i doubt they are looking back

vapor311 · Nov 18, 2006, 12:55 AM // 00:55

Let's please keep the thread on track. There will always be some sort of function that people will use to separate quality from the chaff of poor or inexperienced players. Rank just happens to be the most applicable at the moment, but if it went away, do not delude yourself for an instant that the invites from awesome groups would appear and that everything would magically fix itself. It won't. Power of My Rangers will not start spamming you to join his group, just because everyone was rank 0. Accept this fact and realize that while public group formation still could use some work, it's not why HA is in the toilet.
To anyone that I may have 'offended' before by my suggestion to reset fame on a seasonal basis, I apologize. I know that you have worked or spent hard to achieve the fame that you have. And truth be told, I'm ok with fame staying the way it is. All I'm saying is that there needs to be more incentive to bring players back to HA. For me, fame isn't it. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on that one either. The future success really doesn't lie with bringing in new players to HA, it's bringing back the old players who left it. New players will come and go. It's the diehard veterans who will make the tournament worth playing again. It's alot like Reagonomics. Quality of competition, if nutured at the top levels, will trickle down to the rest of HA.

Lord Mendes · Nov 18, 2006, 01:18 AM // 01:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by vapor311

The future success really doesn't lie with bringing in new players to HA, it's bringing back the old players who left it. New players will come and go. It's the diehard veterans who will make the tournament worth playing again. It's alot like Reagonomics. Quality of competition, if nutured at the top levels, will trickle down to the rest of HA.

Why do you think many players including myself have been suggesting a change back to 8v8. The format change really drove away a once loyal fanbase and the only way I can see some of them coming back is if they rechange it to 8v8.

phoenixtech · Nov 18, 2006, 01:20 AM // 01:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by vapor311

All I'm saying is that there needs to be more incentive to bring players back to HA. For me, fame isn't it. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on that one either. The future success really doesn't lie with bringing in new players to HA, it's bringing back the old players who left it. New players will come and go. It's the diehard veterans who will make the tournament worth playing again. It's alot like Reagonomics. Quality of competition, if nutured at the top levels, will trickle down to the rest of HA.

First thing ANET needs to do is do some market research and realize that catering to the casual players will not get what the job done for HA. HA has a steep learning curve and isn't suited for casual players, that's what RA and TA is for. The biggest mistake ANET did was to cave in to the casual player's whining and made changes to HA thinking that would boost it's popularity/sales. It failed.

At the end of the day it all comes down to money. ANET obviously believed that they could sell more copies of GW by changing HA to suit casual players who probably only played HA once or twice then forgot about it, all the while alienating the hardcore players who have spent months/years playing HA. What ANET's marketing department needs to realize is that while there's much much more casual players vs hardcore players, us hardcore players also do alot of "word of mouth" advertisement for them. Alienating your most loyal fans to gain a few more casual fans is a HUGE mistake in any game.

tomcruisejr · Nov 18, 2006, 01:39 AM // 01:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by vapor311

The future success really doesn't lie with bringing in new players to HA, it's bringing back the old players who left it. New players will come and go. It's the diehard veterans who will make the tournament worth playing again...

This doesnt make sense. Old players that you're referring now were new players back then.

So it's the new talented players who want to play and be a success keep the HA alive.

But yea, if what youre saying is true, then why cant i see the Sissy Boys, Ascalon Electric Company, Marvel Superheroes, Valandor, Esoteric Warriors, iQ etc still playing HA hardcore?

Scizzors · Nov 18, 2006, 01:43 AM // 01:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Mendes

Why do you think many players including myself have been suggesting a change back to 8v8. The format change really drove away a once loyal fanbase and the only way I can see some of them coming back is if they rechange it to 8v8.

In my opinion the people constantly asking to change HA back to 8v8 should cut it out. My question is.. for what reason do you request that it be reverted back? Is it because u lost builds that were designed for 8v8 and now doesnt work in 6v6? Is it maybe that you dont like the alterations to the maps. Im a frequent HAer. Once the change was made myself and most of my friends simply ajusted. Why cant the rest of the 'loyal fanbase' do the same? Another thing i noticed is that alot of old timers returned to HA once the update came through because it got rid of some of the exploited builds that drove them away in the first place. Im happy with the change, whether they revert it back to 8v8 or keep it as 6v6 really wont make a difference to me. Im kinda tired of seeing people constantly nagging anet to change back to 8v8

phoenixtech · Nov 18, 2006, 01:59 AM // 01:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scizzors

In my opinion the people constantly asking to change HA back to 8v8 should cut it out. My question is.. for what reason do you request that it be reverted back? Is it because u lost builds that were designed for 8v8 and now doesnt work in 6v6? Is it maybe that you dont like the alterations to the maps. Im a frequent HAer. Once the change was made myself and most of my friends simply ajusted. Why cant the rest of the 'loyal fanbase' do the same? Another thing i noticed is that alot of old timers returned to HA once the update came through because it got rid of some of the exploited builds that drove them away in the first place. Im happy with the change, whether they revert it back to 8v8 or keep it as 6v6 really wont make a difference to me. Im kinda tired of seeing people constantly nagging anet to change back to 8v8

It comes down to build flexibility and the current design of halls. 8v8 Allows you to design a more complete build that can handle the different map objectives/team builds and have a fair chance of holding. Basically, it gives you a chance of letting SKILLS instead of Build determine the outcome of the match. 6v6 lacks the ability to carry the necessary utilities and makes the build vs build differences more pronounced. For example, it is difficult to design builds in 6v6 that can 1) Fight the common FTOM searing heat heroway on 3-way maps 2) Take down the paragon holding build 3) Hold halls yourself. 8v8 would let MULTIPLE builds accomplish that easily, and give more variety.

Now much of this has more to do with the flawed skills that needs to be balanced, the outdated hall of heros and other altar map mechanics than it does with 6v6 vs 8v8, however, as people have pointed out, the QUICKEST and CHEAPEST fix would be 8v8. Now I'd LOVE it if ANET would spend time making new maps and give halls the badly needed overhaul that it needed (I mean, it's been 3 chapters, GvG gets new halls and HA gets NOTHING) but whether they believe it's worth their time and effort remains yet to be seen.

Kaida the Heartless · Nov 18, 2006, 02:00 AM // 02:00

I don't want Heroes removed for a few simple reasons:

- I can test out new builds without being called a plethera of vile words by human players for not running a FotM.

- I don't have to have a ventrillo/teamspeak server nor use one to compete in HA now.

- I don't have to be rank 50 billion to get into any team.

Heroes don't have attitudes. For this reason, I think they should stay.

Scizzors · Nov 18, 2006, 02:04 AM // 02:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless

I don't want Heroes removed for a few simple reasons:

- I can test out new builds without being called a plethera of vile words by human players for not running a FotM.

- I don't have to have a ventrillo/teamspeak server nor use one to compete in HA now.

- I don't have to be rank 50 billion to get into any team.

Heroes don't have attitudes. For this reason, I think they should stay.

Your 1 in a million mate

DIH49 · Nov 18, 2006, 02:19 AM // 02:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless

I don't want Heroes removed for a few simple reasons:

- I can test out new builds without being called a plethera of vile words by human players for not running a FotM.

- I don't have to have a ventrillo/teamspeak server nor use one to compete in HA now.

- I don't have to be rank 50 billion to get into any team.

Heroes don't have attitudes. For this reason, I think they should stay.

Those are good reasons, but I invite you to think more deeply about them with me. Let's talk about testing. You say you can avoid being raged at by players. This seems obviously true, since when you have heroes you don't have to interact with anyone (at least allies). But can you really test things? I don't think you can. If heroes could perform as well as humans, then you'd have a solid argument. But the thing is, they can't. They perform nowhere near as well as actual human players can. For example, heroes are incapable of using maintained enchantments. They can't time skill usage or choose the best skills for a situation. Do they really help you test things then? It doesn't appear that they do beyond an extremely basic level.

Let's look at your second point. Do you need a vent/ts server for GW? Well, no, you don't. There's plenty of teams that play without. But suppose you did. TS offers free servers on their site, and GW has the sB vent all set up for any pug you want. This might be a problem, but the solution is trivial.

As for the rank req, this is just silly. I've personally seen hundreds of people complain about not getting into groups because of rank. I'm constantly amused that these people don't think, "Hey! Let's get together and play!" That's what I did when I was unranked and it worked spectacularly. The only reason rank would prevent you from doing something is: You are unwilling or unable to work for a team. Hell, there's a thread at the top of this forum for getting pugs together.

Legendary Shiz · Nov 18, 2006, 02:28 AM // 02:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless

I don't want Heroes removed for a few simple reasons:

- I can test out new builds without being called a plethera of vile words by human players for not running a FotM.

- I don't have to have a ventrillo/teamspeak server nor use one to compete in HA now.

- I don't have to be rank 50 billion to get into any team.

Heroes don't have attitudes. For this reason, I think they should stay.

tbh, these are not good points.

If you want to test out new builds, meet my friend RA.

Vent or some sort of communication is almost 100% needed if you plan on doing PvP. To be honest, I think it should be a req for everything you want to do. And there are a lot of pug teams that dont bother with it.

Blah blah blah, rank elitisim, blah blah blah. Cry more plz.

Meta Dervish · Nov 18, 2006, 02:50 AM // 02:50

Well, whatever ANet do, it can't get any worse than it is now, so I will support their decision whichever one they choose.

On a side note, a temporary solution for unranked players if you are hardcore enough is, to play in European time or move to European server all together. The rank problem, at least to me, is way less severe there. The general population seems to be more mature and skilled as a whole, so even unranked can do a bit more decent than the american ones. Not to mention they have weird accent...joking

. I guess that contributes to why European almost always have favour eh?

Mystic- · Nov 18, 2006, 03:21 AM // 03:21

HA just doesn't give off the same..."vibe"... as it used to. You'd get all your friends together, get 'em on vent, roll a build, and meet up in say, id6? You'd see all the other good players setting up their own teams aswell well. You'd say on vent "oh look, xxxx xxxx is playing, look forward to playing them". You'd enter HA or Tombs even and win UW, Burial and Broken. Then you'd get to Scared Earth. Win the 1st match and wait 5min for the next whilst observing what they have and adjust your tactics ahead of time to secure the win. Then comes the relic run. You realise who your playing against and you know it will be a challange. You decide your tactics wether is be bodyblocking, killing, or just out running your opponents. Then you see "Captured Relic 4-1" and you would all cheer on vent and talk about how you won. Then comes Dark Chambers... you go for the priest swap and have a tough fight against an equally matched team. You are about to lose but you kill the ghost, refresh your sigs and before you know it, its 8v8 again and you've won. Once again you cheer with your team mates about how the f**k you just won that. Now comes Courtyard, you load up along with the other 2 teams. You check the names of who loaded and realise your playing against good friends of yours who match or even excel your teams skill. You know it will be a tough fight so you decide to wait and gank. Your team waits a nervous 8min 30secs talking about what your going to do in certain situations. Finally it comes to 1min 30sec and a team makes a move for the altar! You just about get in the bodyblock on both ghosts and cap the altar at 0:05 thanks to an awsome kd from the ele's gale. You pm your friend about what just happened and tell everyone how good the people you just beat on vent are again. Then comes Sacred Temples. You realise you are playing against an extremely skilled team, beyond your level. You see the HoH message come up, the team holding had been holding for a while, you know if you win this it will be hard in halls. You capture the 1st relic but your team gets rolled and they take control of the game. You are 2-1 down in relics with 2min left to be played. You manage to get a relic to your ghost but you are being bodyblocked with 1min to go. They have a tight bodyblock going on and there is no way out. Then with 30 seconds to spare, someone on vent shouts "pass it!, pass the relic!". You then begin a count down..3..2..1..and result! you have passed the relic to your team mate and capped with 20 seconds to spare. You had done it, and where about to enter the HoH.
You enter the vault and scream at your team mates not to speak to the ghost so it won't get bugged! The HoH message pops up... its the same team holding, you know you may not win. You load up the HoH map after a log run through all the maps. You see it is going to be a 5-way HoH match. You roll the 1st team in 2 minutes and make your way to the central altar, you realise the other team is already there and it is not a 3-way HoH match with 7min to go. You take a good look at each teams build and have a discussion about what you are going to do. You call for your team to start pressuring the Blue team. After nothing dying for 5min, you get to the 2min mark. You call a perfect spike on blues ghost and its an instant death. You realise you may just pull if off. The other teams ghost has made it onto the altar already so you set your two interupters on the ghost. After a tense minute of trying to get your ghost on the altar finally you break through the block and cap the altar. You've done it, you've won the HoH....
THIS WAS THE PRIME OF TOMBS/HA.
Now it's;
1st map searing flames,
2nd map ganked by searing flames hero way,
3rd map paragon way, lose by rolling die,
etc. etc. etc.

That special feeling from Tombs/HA is gone... and the way things are shaping up... it will never be back...

B Ephekt · Nov 18, 2006, 05:43 AM // 05:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

I disagree here. The hero is functionally a player on each team whose purpose is to either give your team morale or prevent the other team from getting morale. It should not be invincible.

I'm not really sure how you got "invincible" from my post, perhaps you should read it? I'm well aware of the purpose the hero serves on non-alter maps, it's his capping mechanic on alter maps that I'm addressing.

dgb · Nov 18, 2006, 05:46 AM // 05:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Mendes

Well in all fairness it must have taken some courage to start a thread that will most likely start loads of arguments.

Or it could be that she gets paid to do it...

lorph · Nov 18, 2006, 06:31 AM // 06:31

Here is the status of Heroes Ascent right now.

First heroes are not the problem. All you people complaining about player vs. player might as well complain about archers, knights, bodyguards, ghostly heroes, priests etc. If you can't handle this, maybe its time you quit hoh after grinding your rank 9+.

Therefore heroes should not be limited in any way, and people should be allowed to take as many as they like.

Now to please the whiners, you could change the matchup code in HA so that heroways will first play heroways.

So what is the real problem with HA now? Currently, 6v6 results in a big decrease in build feasibility. This means that after many weeks, the most successful builds in tombs have centered around being radically offensive or defensive.

This is due in no small part to the fact that the skill Searing Flames is overpowered and happens to be one of the few builds that the AI is intelligent enough to use.

Consider the intelligent HA build maker as he thinks about what builds to run. He thinks about interrupt builds that use to be able to pack in all around good damage and healing power since they come in ranger mesmer ele classes etc. However, this is now down the drain ever since Song of Concentration makes the Claiming Resource impossible to stop.

Now lets take a look at builds that are all offensive and focus on killing. Unfortunately Searing Flames is the defacto offensive build at the moment which if made right will kill every other offensive team and cannot take out dual paragon builds.

So what about curse builds that can take out dual paragon or 6 monk builds? Well these get toasted by the hundreds of searing flame heroways on your way to hoh. Assuming you do make it to hoh, you will then die due to the fact you were running all offensive in order to take out dual paragons out of halls. You have a net gain of 5 fame. Very Inefficient.

So what about a mixed build with all that good stuff combined? You will not have enough offense to take out defensive builds, and therefore you win matches more slowly than an offensive build, and basically have a guarenteed loss against defensive builds.

I would also like to mention that paragons are too hard to counter which I am sure most of you have already experienced for yourselves. Well of silence requires a death, and can be moved out of too easily. Then you have vocal minority, which with a lengthy recharge which is as long as most shout recharges lol, can be easily removed with expel hexes and the new nightfall hex removal on a timer of 8 or less.

A feasible counter would be to use energy denial, but no one has the incentive to run a build that would get toasted by sf heroway just to take out dual para and make 2 fame.

I would also like to explain the problem with 6v6 in greater detail. With a dual paragon build you have 4 defensive characters. The people on the other team will have 8 offensive players maximum (4 offense + 2 monks) x 2 teams. With 8v8 you have (5+ offense mostly + 3 monks) x2 teams. You ease the pure defense builds with this situation. Now you might be inclined to state why not remove the 2nd monk for another offensive? This does not work because as the number of players scales down, the skill power does not scale down linearly, which I will not explain in detail here. But for example, a skill like channeling, which usually gives all the energy you use plus more still has the same amount of power.

Here is a nice summary.
6v6: 4 defense vs 8 offense MAX usually less (easy to hold halls now if you get there)
8v8: 4 defense vs 8-10+ offense (better)

Therefore it is easy to see why the intelligent players decide to grind or skip to halls with their defensive build in order to exploit the unbalanced nature of the 6v6 change.

So these are the reasons why many people are fed up with tombs.

Arenanet would be wise to solve these problems with the suggestions listed here now as the "new" people are currently content with winning 1-3 games with their searing flames heroes before they reach 1 hour matches to teams with 6 monks or 2 paragons. However, this would go with the strategy of getting rid of the serial players to reduce server maintanence costs.
(they only make money when you buy the game)

It takes experienced people to realize the flaws of the current hoh instead of the inexperienced masses that only voted for a 6v6: that only benefits them in the short term.

I hope you have gotten a feeling for the problems with HA right now and are not too confused, as I know I have glossed over some of the explanations for the technical points I have made.

So the bottom line is that HA must be fixed by introducing more than 2 anti shout skills, the ending of searing flames nonsense, and 8v8. Or at least 7v7.

Minus Sign · Nov 18, 2006, 08:54 AM // 08:54

Read the thread. Browsed a few others and logged in to talk to some of my friends. Not many were on.

I’d like to retract my previous statement. I can see no way in hell and sunny Jesus that GW is getting any more of my money. PvE is a Neverwinter Nights McDonalds happy meal fest. No thankyou; may as well save all the server space and make PvE completely user side. Anything else is wasted bandwidth.

GvG is turning into gimmick city thanks to Searing Flames and some new bunny thumper crap. Did you idiots really put NF skills in the online store the day of game release? Puff puff and pass it over here.

HA…what HA? What many considered a joke before has been proven the shining example of Heroes Ascent. When IWAY is considered the good old days, you know you got problems.

There is no way Anet will own up and fix enough of this crapola bullturd that some idiot over there rolled up, smoked and blew in the players’ faces. The fact that your second post flatly denies even thinking about a redress of the 6v6 debacle shows how small minded this company is/has become. You’ve got math wizards telling you exactly why you need to change it back; player experience screaming at you over dice rolls and exploitive builds.

Skill balancing will not solve the screwup you’ve created of this game. "Minor Dev Updates" won't even scratch the surface. HA is only one symptom of a money grubbing cancer that has infested this game in Factions and eaten it alive with Nightfall.

New suggestion Mrs Grey: Monster.com. Get out now and start looking for a new job. If GW makes it to Chapter 4 I'll be very impressed.

Scizzors · Nov 18, 2006, 08:56 AM // 08:56

Makes Sense, Very well put Lorph. /clap

B Ephekt · Nov 18, 2006, 10:27 AM // 10:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by lorph

Here is the status of Heroes Ascent right now.

First heroes are not the problem. All you people complaining about player vs. player might as well complain about archers, knights, bodyguards, ghostly heroes, priests etc. If you can't handle this, maybe its time you quit hoh after grinding your rank 9+.

This is a ridiculous and grossly oversimplified point. NPCs in GvG don't play a major role in combat until VoD, otherwise they're really only useful for their conditions. The hero is only there as a means to gain morale and cap alters. However, heros play a major role in current HA matches, since they're replacing spots that used to be filled by human players.

If you can't see the difference between clearing out NPCs in preperation for VoD, killing a ghostly to prevent capping/take him off the alter/gain morale, and fighting 1 player with a team full of NPCs, then I must say I'm speachless.

Lord Mendes · Nov 18, 2006, 10:30 AM // 10:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by lorph

So the bottom line is that HA must be fixed by introducing more than 2 anti shout skills, the ending of searing flames nonsense, and 8v8. Or at least 7v7.

rofl 7v7? Maybe add a flagstand a knockdown effect every 15 seconds.