[Spotlight Concept #5] Improving and Expanding PvP

After reading the above posts, one thing is certain, judging by most of the comments is that an overhaul of HA is very much desired.

I was last night in HA with a guild mate and it was incredible to hear some of the remarks uttered by some players there.

Such remarks were of course, and to be expected, of a very negative stance, mainly insulting players.

The one that was being repeated by 2 players who are well known as their names come out a lot as winning the halls was " the 6v6 are for the noobs who always get pawned and the for the brainless bashers of iway and vimway". Another remark was "Now there will be more noobs in HA"

Pathetic!!!!!

Obviously, these 2 players, for obvious reasons I will not mention their names, but it sure is typical of them and all those who are like them, stuck-up full of themselves idiotic racist sad individuals, and if 6v6 will see the last of them at HA, then let 6v6 be implememnted straight away.

I have to disagree quite strongly with this idiotic remark, and I have posted it here for all to see, because HA will now open up avenues for new team builds and perhaps make it more competetive by more players will now decide to get fame in HA.

So I have to say again, well done ANET and also hope that the maps do get a much needed overhaul.

All for now .............

Dearest Anet,

If you would like to make HA pvp infinitely better, take all the map changes you did in your update, and undo them. Here is what they accomplished:

- The removal of a 2-way map, and addition of a 3-way alter map has turned HA from team vs team killing, to objective based (more similar to gvg). This in and of itself is not bad, it just requires some build and tactics tweaks.
- The removal of a 2-way map, and addition of another 3-way now means there are 4 3-way maps (scarred earth is a 3-way map), and 4 2-way maps. Before the update, courtyard and HoH were already the 2 biggest bs maps simply because of the 3-way nature. Vs 1 team it comes down to team vs team skill. Vs 2 teams, it comes down to which 2 teams gang up on the 3rd. This can be controlled to a degree (noobway is always unpredictable) on a 3-way altar map. There is no way to control it on scarred. More often than not, guilds or players that are recognized are the victims.

All the changes did is reduce the required amount of skill to win, increase the amount of luck required to win, and penalize any guilds or players who are well known. You can't just take an aspect of the game that entire guilds are built on, and players are skilled at, and turn it into a boiling pot of double-teamed cluster fork. I have ideas on how to make HA enjoyable, increase the amount of skill required, still give noobs a chance at winning, and reduce the eletism, but lets face it, anet will never read this post, and I don't think anyone really cares what I think. gl hf gg.

- Silent

Edit: And to the individual that posted above me, please learn the difference between "stuck-up full of themselves idiotic racist sad individuals", and skilled HA players. The 2 are not synonymous. Frankly, I'm offended that someone would think of myself and my guild mates as such (not that we're skilled, but definitely better than average HA players). Basing opinions on 2 out of thousands is pretty naive.

While I think a lot of the sections are nice building blocks, I think a total redesign of all these systems is in order, the idea of having to add on instead of altering is becoming somewhat of the problem for Guild Wars, because instead of ramping up these locations we try to space people across numerous more fields.

I do like the set ups for the maps but I wish they were far more active, get a few obvious advantage points, get a few contention points, get a few controllable areas, especially for random and team arenas. Some where being knocked down in certain areas might have something, such as some sort of swamp you begin to move much slower for a few seconds. Or bleeding in certain areas will be accelerated say in that coral for the quarry and areas. Then you build the maps to cross near themselves far more, a couple of the maps are spaced too far apart that it takes forever to clash, and it is as well less useful to clash in certain areas rather than favoring high ground or the open room to their small hallway or near obelisks and such. I just think altering the game so that people took far more advantage of the way their characters can play in different environments would add that further level of strategy, instead of basing it entirely off of character to another character.

Then I believe that there should be further maps of areas like Fort Aspenwood, these are Conflict Arenas and you can select to move there from Random Arenas as well, doing either or a specific one, and gaining faction for either side you chose from (so the areas themselves put you on that faction's side) or randomly from the battle islands for faction of balthazar. Then add more that are less soldier dependant however on those and Fort Aspenwood, I think that is the biggest annoyance are these amount of gate guardians which will always fight back instead of the idea of destroying the gate or destroying players attacking you to defend it.

More environment I guess is what I am getting at through this area, less NPCs in a few areas and let us not think much of NPCs except few and far between for objectives such as priests or the architect. As well, a better level of interconnectivity and variety, I think it is necessary to gather as many people together as possible to keep them fighting, there is already a decent number but, I think if people are able to fill into a Conflict map from the islands or are able to join random battles at the same time and there is more effort towards placing a group together instead of people, you would get more movement here.

And maybe, while I am hateful of player housing, a housing type of development for earnings. You get larger instanced areas for yourself where you can send invitations for people to come in and see, you spend your faction points for either faction or balthazar to deck it out. Jade or Amber items, statues, furniture, the home itself becomes bigger, more rooms, attendants, etc., it would be a nice sink, and easy to enter as with the guild hall.

more nuisance then real trouble:
after you die, your cameraview changes to watch your feet for some weird reason.

stop that. i don't need to watch the ground if i'm ressed. yes, i can change camera angle. but i rather don't have to.

RA/TA
- RA is the first PvP most players will try, Anet should put more effort into making this mode more appealing and fair.
- Some sort of VOD condition at 5 mins. Preferably one that rewards teams with damage builds over teams with defensive builds.
- Remove the 5 matches to unlock TA/HA condition.
- Winning in RA should not give gladiator points.
- Ladder or some form of in game reward for TA.
- Remove the Luxon map from RA, and remove the Kurzick map from both modes.

FA/JQ
- Punish leechers. As far as I know, Anet has said and done nothing about leechers, which only encourages it.
- Fix the NPCs. Gatekeepers running outside gates, turtles getting glitched into terrain, luring warriors away to prevent respawn, npcs overlapping, etc, way too many problems here.
- Turtle location shown on map, helps both teams and a better indication for when the turtle has respawned.
- Increase rewards from JQ to encourage more play.

AB
- Show locations of all party members on map.
- Update the current map more often, keep teams intact after map switch.
- More intersting effects on the game world for captured towns, since the current implementation is completely pointless. eg. more expensive crafters for the losing faction, more chance of chests in PvE for winning faction.

HA
- Altar maps are all about interrupt spam on the ghostly. I think this would be more interesting: ghostly heroes are uninterruptable, but they cannot capture while another hero is alive on the altar. The winner should be the team that controlled the altar for the most time throughout the round, not the team that controlled it most recently.
- Less 1v1v1 type maps. Politics should be not a factor.

GvG
- Trebuchet should always hit the same location. Something that can wipe an entire teams npcs should not be a game of chance.
- Less erratic npc behaviour. Bodyguard rushing out, guild lord picking off archers one by one during vod, archers trying to fire through terrain, theif not respawning, etc.
- Show guild rank next to player name in outposts for top 1000 guilds.

GENERAL
- Reconnects.
- Show queues, so players can see how many others are waiting.
- Better group forming options.
- Stuck in terrain glitch. Its been there since Factions was released as far as I know. Thats 6 f****** months. Gamebreaking bugs like this need to be squashed asap, players should not be forced to bring vamp weapons to counter it. With hardly a word from Anet about it, I am beginning to think this is something they do not consider a priority, and will never be fixed.
- Remove ritualists from the game.

why show queues? plz explain?

why take out the randomness of the trebutchey its luck but if your in the main area you are dead.

if you cant interupt heroe and its whoever kill the others first you will get people body blocking the other heroe and alot of seeding and spam proting which slows down the game alot.

why should they remove the luxon and kursick maps there is nothing wrong with them.

Please think about your posts before posting its really annoying the amount of stupid posts tht have been posted.i mean why would arena net take out those levels they advertise for there other game therfore earning them money.

why remove ritualists! just ebcause you cant be bothered putting effort into thinking up a counter to them doesnt mean youi should remove them.

Please refrain from posting flames.

Reasons for queues were already given. Right now when you are waiting for a match, you have very little idea if other teams are actually playing, or if in fact there is nobody playing right now, and you should give up on waiting. Sure there are a few indicators, but they are far from perfect. Obs mode only shows top 100s and their opponents - whether or not people are playing or not can be hard to tell when the obs view has no games. In outposts you have no idea if people are actually waiting for a game, or are just idle.

The trebuchet hits in a very large area, it is possible to not get hurt at all even when standing in the general area. Games have been won and lost purely because someone got unlucky and their perfectly timed treb shot completely missed all the npcs rushing out the gate.

Altar maps only last for a set amount time 4/6 mins, hence it is impossible to slow the game down any further. Heal seed spam and bb already happens, its not an issue. By not forcing teams to bring interrupts, it opens up more room for different builds.

Luxon map has a priest, either remove it from RA, or bring the shiverpeaks map back to RA. Preferably remove, since RA teams usually do not have the coordination. The Kurzick map is extremely cramped, and you spend more time wrestling with the camera angle, than actually fighting. The spores are also an awful enviromental effect, they are not visible like miasma or lava, and whether you get affected by the spores or not when you run through a spore area is random. Also, the spore distribution is uneven, appearing more on one side of the map.

Heh, the remove rits was obviously a joke, but one cannot deny how boring and one-dimensional they are. Spirit spam wars in arenas is pretty damn awful.

Beside the Thrill of winning...... what kind of reward would attract a PvP player and make him/her want to play more?

(Faction Points, Rank, Rank-emote, Guild Ranks are the "carrots" in PvP right now, right?)

I think somebody mentioned something along these lines earlier in the thread..

Why not implement a 10 player (for example) scrimmage, All Vs All, with a similar entry system to that of RA, ie Random

Players start in a gigantic ring/area and simply fight! Skills and builds will be important because you could be fighting against one person, or 9! -The person that you are fighting with sees that you are weak from combat and Turns on you!

Comprendez?

The winner could be the last man standing, or first to 10 kill/points (whatever floats your boat ).

This could be adapted for a larger scale;

• You enter and leave the arena as you please.
• There is a safe zone around the outside where you spawn. In this area you cannot take or deal Damage.
• There is no DP
• You recieve Faction/gold for kills, more Faction/Gold, possibly even Gold Drops for killing sprees, Faction/Gold for killing somebody on a spree
• ...etc

What do you think?

Well the gold drops and gold would be a bad idea. This would ruïn the economy pretty much.

But apart from that I think it would be a great idea.
Oh and is it in you idea better to have certain matches or just a game in which one stays until a certain amount of deaths?

I said gold because you could have a PvE arena like the ones in Prophecies and the Shing Jea Arena.

I was thinking either a game that is 'always' there, like a chat room or a town/outpost; once full, a new one opens (not such a good idea me thinks)

OR

10 people (for example) spawn in the arena and the first one to x points wins. Points could be attained by killing someone, and lost by dying (min. of 0). If it works like this, games could last a minute or two, or hours if the characters are balanced. Once a player reaches x points the game is ended and players are returned to the outpost.

That answer your question?

RA/TA - some sort of new objective maps, something more complex than using a flag to take middle tower, like

-Capture the enemy flag and bring back to your base ("relic")
-More-themed competitive missions like Jade Quarry, with smaller teams (4man/6man) or maybe arranged teams...
- 3-way(maybe more) RA/TA maps

-Arranged Team ladders! - for RA/TA

I really like the idea mentioned before.

Explorable zones with pvp and pve combat.

Like a giant dungeon, with mobs that drop loot and stuff, new titles for doing stuff in this area, ability to kill other player parties to get bonuses, and to get loot for yourself (from the respawning mobs).

Basically a hell hole of pvp and pve with pretty good rewards for surviving in there for a while and killing mobs.

Let us spend Faction when Fully capped and UAX.

A few options here:
-Spend 3k for one Flame of Balthazar
-Donate 5k at a time for "Steward of Bathazar" Title, like "Friend of the Luxons"
-Spend 15k, 30k, 60k for Ascended, Elite, and (maybe) Obsidian Armor sets
-Hero Armor Styles
-Spend faction for the ability to mix/match dyes per PvP character, including black and white dyes
-Spend faction and consume a weapon to unlock that weapon's Skin into your PvP account - add organization windows for weapon types
-Req 8 max weapons

These things can be bought anytime, not neccessarily for those only with capped faction/UAX.