Sour Attitudes of HA

After running out of things to do on my PVE characters, its been over a month since I went back to HA. Things never really changed much and there of course was a new easy no brainer, easy to form/win FOTM that was running loose in the area (VIMWAY).

My big concern was the attitudes of the players, namely in American D1. No welcomes to new players, constant fighting among party up groups, elitists demanding title shows and emotes to get into guild groups. Even on teamspeak things were just dirty.

Its like things have gotten 10x worse since the last time I was in HA. For a player new to the game, coming to this place without knowing friends would make you hate this game. Disgusting, and im just extremely disappointed in the community. We play this game to have fun, that idea was lost somewhere in heros ascent.

My advice to players new to HA is to find friends or a HA oriented guild. I personally will have nothing to do with the place.

Try again when the 6v6 patch happens, lots of new PvE'rs will flock in then.

HA is indeed not as good as it was when I got my sigil.

TIMELINE

The Golden Age

When everyone was accepted, balanced PuGs were common, it was noob friendly

Introduction of IWAY

Don't hate me for this but IWAY did change HA it took advantage of noob balanced groups and chased away many noobs

The IWAY hate period

Many people at first accepted IWAY as a cool new build at first but hate spreaded and people noticed that it became overdominate in PuGs. Balanced members and IWAY members begin flaming each other.

The IWAY nerf

Anet answers the calls of many whiners and nerfs IWAY. IWAY is surpressed and many of the noobs who converted to IWAY now leave HA

Elitism of IWAY

IWAY struggles with the nerf and it no longer is a noob build. Elite players figure out many new powerful builds. To replace IWAY in the mindlessness Vim-way comes.

The future?

the change to 6 man may bring back the noobs and recreate the golden ages. Vim-way is balanced and balanced may be able to function along side of it.

QTF to Guardian...

And flock straight back out when they see the huge amount of eliteist crap that goes on in HA as pointed out by the OP.

Seen it for myself and it's completely ridiculous.

sadly it will never matter how large or small the party group is as long as you get to choose your party because people will always be picky about your rank and how good you are. Noobs wont get accepted in many groups but that may be a bit better because the "elite" players usually wont teach you. The moderate players in HA that do accept you (the nice ones) are willnig to teach and turn the noob into a monster.

If you do get lucky enough to have someone teach you and accept you into a group dont forget it. If you get good in the future dont forget how you got good, we were all noobs at one point. Give the noob a chance and teach them!

It's not like the people dont give noobs a chance. Noobs will never admit their noobs, noobs will never listen, will always think they're noob, will always thinks they're right. Someone that willing to listen is not a noob. noob=w/mo using ressect spell in pvp and saids "I'm good, I heal, and I res" You want someone like that in your group? Just let noobs play with noobs, they'll learn from their experience

I think the discussion was discussing the unfriendliness of HA towards players relatively new to HA and hence lowly ranked. I guess your rant about "noobs will always be noobs" explains the scene.

No offense, but you sounded like one of those who will not let someone join the party unless he's rank 6 or something.

Where did this rant on noobs come from? This discussion was referring to noobs as someone new to HA, as evident from the thread above, not some stubborn stupid moron wammo you described.

IMO one forms a team, discussing builds and roles, and if anyone refuse to cooperate, ask them to leave. This is what MMS Dome meant by giving noobs a chance. NOT using rank as an entry requirement.

We all had to start somewhere, ie rank 0.

anyone remember the water trident spikes of the old old HA days?

Guild wars in general, but espeically HA was great before Rage Quitters... where exactly that came about Im not sure, probably about the same time IWAY hate did.

For the reason stated by the OP, is mainly and for some the sole reason why pure PvErs exist in this game.

Greetings,

Well, pass the bat, it's my turn .

There are several reasons, that I see, for the sour attitudes in Hero's Ascent. I'll try to list them out. Warning: rampant generalizations abound here, but it is necessary for the purposes of discussion.

* Competitiveness breeds smack-talk: The very nature of HA causes people to be competitive. Being competitive leads to high-strung people who are so wired up on adrenaline that they say the first things that come to mind, without the benefit of thinking about what they are saying. Have you ever heard how professional athletes talk with each other, especially their opponents? That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
* It's a mental game: The rough, coarse, immature talk is designed to turn away prospective opponents. Less opponents equals greater chance of being the one on the top of the dog-pile.
* No monthly fee = lower aged players: Since Guild Wars doesn't require a payment every month, it allows those who don't have a regular paycheck to still play in a MMO world. This allows younger players to save up their own cash and buy their own game, without letting parental types knowing about their online activities, via needing a credit card for fees. These younger players haven't yet learned how to be civil and polite to others.
* Anonymous nature of the internet: Since people have the illusion that they are anonymous on the internet, and cannot be held accountable for their actions, they sink to the depths of immaturity and childishness just because they can. This same attitude carries over into the internet gaming, such as Guild Wars, that these kind of people play.

To be fair about this, though, the problem is not as bad, or limited to HA, as it seems. I've noticed that the times I've played in RA, the same goes on in the outpost, but once I've started actually playing, the attitude seems to disappear. This leads me to believe that these kinds of people (the rude, immature kinds) are simply using the outpost as a kind of IRC or Yahoo chat room.

This kind of problem also goes on in the presearing portion of Prophesies. Too many people, hormonal early teen children from my impression, just stand around outposts being rude and spouting out what amounts to toilet humor. Things such as having cyber-sex, /dance humping (warrior and ele) naked female eles who are also dancing, and saying derogatory remarks about everything from sexual preference to racial origins.

To be honest, if you wish to dare venture into these unforgiving lands, do as others have done. Go with people you know, be it from friends list or guild/alliance mates, and keep your local chat turned off. And, if you ever feel the need, take screenshot examples of these offensive behaviors and report them to ArenaNet. Enough reports about the same person/account, and the offending people will get perma-banned from the game.

Merry meet, merry met, merry meet again,
Wyldchild777

Balanced PUGs died long before IWAY because of other dominating builds

Air-spike (nerfed early summer'05)
Smite came in waves and was nerfed several times (stacking Balt's Aura...ouch)
Spirit Spam (until ranger spirits were totally changed end of summer'05)
Ranger Spike
and probably others came before IWAY.

I find it amusing how the smallest amount of Internet glory can go to someone's head.

Oh great Internet, give me sight beyond sight!

Sounds awesome.

Well, from the point of view of a teenager who got Guild Wars a month or two after it came out as an '8th grade' graduation present...
I've always been scared of HA and PvP in general. I'm pretty much a casual player, mainly focusing on PvE since the ordinary stress of life keeps me away from being competitive and therefore, away from high end PvP. I know that 'high end' PvP like HA and non-casual GvGing is for the people who really want to achieve something in this game, but the preparation and attitude you face once you get into a game (if you ever do) is just not worth the little amount of time I am able to spend.

So to sum it all up, just like everyone says, competition in games and pretty much everything in general spawns immaturity and a sense of superiority that if definitely not noob-friendly.

The ones with the sour attitudes are not high ranked players, but rather low ranked players who want to leech off of a party they are not qualified to be in.

All high ranked players earned their rank one way or another so it's really not fair to criticize them for not taking bad players. No one took them when they were bad players so why do bad players often expect that special treatment be given to them on a silver platter? Those who whine about rank discrimination have no legs to stand on in my view. If they wanna get into good parties then it was always their perogative to either earn that right by acquiring rank, or playing with people of their own rank - which they never wanna do because people of that rank suck (which makes it all the more hypocritical for them to complain about high ranked parties not wanting that rank level seeing as the low ranked players themselves don't want people of that rank in their party either).

It's not fair to criticize people for using FOTM builds either because the game is designed in such a way that making any good non-FOTM build and stocking it with the best players takes 1 - 3 hours or more just to start playing, third-party voicechat, and often even after all that then it will lose 2 rounds in in which case the party disbands and it is 3 hours wasted for 1 fame point.

I've seen this happen on several teams made up of the very best players in the game.

It is simply not practical for a video game to require the sort of organization that 8vs8 Tombs does in order to start a match. That is why FOTM has and always will always rule the roost.

Other poster is right that 6vs6 will bring back "the golden age of newbieness" but I'm not sure that is a good thing. There is already AB for scrub PVP, now Tombs is gonna be scrub PVP also. Easier to get parties, yes, but the actual game is much more shallow.

The good news is that you'll be able to get into a group faster with 2 less slots being filled.

The better news is that with the party size limited to 6, spike builds won't work as well and there should theoretically be more class diversity.

The best news is that the Hero's system is being released... it's always possible that ANet could add heroes to HA.

MEANING...
LESS ELITIST SPIKE TEAMS
MORE GROUPS TO JOIN
MORE BUILD DIVERSITY

Again, in theory

So being treated badly yourself means you're entitled to treat others badly?

There's another social phenomenon that follows that line of logic, it's called hazing. It happens to be illegal in most places.

"When I was new, I didn't get in any groups" isn't a valid reason not to let new people into your groups.

Thanks for giving everyone a good example of what the OP is talking about. The attitude towards people new to HA - aka newbies - are automatically regarded as noobs by elitist snobs. This is exactly why I don't bother with HA much.

The experienced HA players that don't fall into the "elitist snob" catergory are there, and yes, they don't mind showing newbies the ropes. The problem is there's so few of them in comparison to the rank-happy players.

that's a perspective of person who never played iway or never got immersed in iway.

iway became popular coz it's faster and (was) easier to get fame in there coz people who got fame from previous fotm discriminated against new players and lower ranked. them new players formed iway groups. few iway guilds manage to beat established ranked HA guilds coz of different approach,a select few dominated (coz iway haters and non fans were dreaming that iway can just win in first 3 maps) and got fame faster (and the noobs who benefited from spirit spam, smiting, airspike and who were trying to play balanced but get beaten by iway cried "iway destroyed the rank system", brainwashing even the newer players), thus the IWAY hate. it got so popular again (coz iway got shortlived popularity vs Smiting) that "all you see in tombs was iway". then it got a major build nerf (spread to the classes) but it managed to adapt on with the introduction of faction's skill. of course there are still players and it still wins.

iway will still be there and will still win in 6vs6 but itll be weaker and will have more chances of being beaten.


Vimway is quite similar to the old iway that rocked the tombs back then. just remove the 2 trappers and slap an oov+oop and a tainted necro.

I will dare to say that being rank zero doesn't necessarily mean someone is a bad player. HOWEVER the overall assumption in HA is that an unranked player is a noob and usually treated like crap. In its current state....

~There is about 0 imagination in build design concerning HA. If someone joins a group wanting to try out a new skill not part of the cookie cutter builds that player is usually trashed and kicked from the team for being a noob.

~Rank 0 players, which are the majority of Gwars players will find it difficult to party with higher ranking players when they just start, forcing them to PuG with other unranked players. The stress of getting into a decent party through a PuG, which is one of the few choices a R0 player has usually already promotes a sour atmosphere once the "outcasts" party together. After being thoroughly spanked by a ranked team dominating the hall or a cookie cutter build like ViMway or IWAY, bloodspike even 50% of the team will break. This makes GETTING ranked for a new starting player extremely hard and unfulfilling.

~As a rank0 player you will spend 90% of your time finding a team only to have it break after a game. Sometimes the fault will be thrown at someone in the party for making a mistake (oh my god we cant do that in HA) and the player is trashed then kicked.... only to spend another 20mins finding another group.

~Players are not expected to make errors in any HA team. We are all perfect gamers. And when a player makes a mistake, the outcome is usually a bunch of trash talking from interparty stress and the "system" I've been desrcibing rather than a second chance with the team to actually do things right.

~There is no practice makes perfect in HA, teams under r5 dont stay together long enough to work bugs out.

~In HA you are expected to play perfectly while in a PuG of complete strangers on the first run. You had better synch perfectly because if you dont on round one 70% of the time the team will lack the patience for round 2.

~These forcing of outcast PuGs and struggling R0 players make fame farming easy for subpar builds like VIMway and IWAY. Eventually people get so stress out dealing with the crappiness of HA they either quit or join the ViMway or IWAY teams to avoid the stresses of being an outcast. Wonder why we have so many ViMwayers or IWAYers? Joining a FoTM cookie cutter is sometimes the only way for a R0 player to find a group quickly.

~You need to win over 200+ games to actually rank, which means dealing with the bullcrap for a LOOOONNNGGGGG time or cheesing fame off one of the popular builds. Yay welcome to team VIM, now shutup and spam traps you noob.

IN SHORT:
HA is a crock of crap.

The fallacy of your post that it's not "treating them badly" to not take them in a party they are not qualified for. It's just like if one is applying for a job; should the employer take the most qualified person, or should the employer just for the sake of "being nice to a newbie" take an unexperienced newbie who will handicap the team? Of course the employer will take the experienced person who won't handicap the team, as he should. Rank is no different.

The problem with your reasoning here is that HA does not offer new players the ability to refine or prove their skills. New players are usually outcasted by the elite community. Should I bring a resume with me next time proving that I know how to hit the right keys? In my opinion the fame system needs to be reworked to a stepping stone system. Maybe players shouldnt have access to particular districts unless they win a certain number of matches in a district bracket. HA is not expansive enough to cover the different skill levels of all of the guildwars community. Even the dumbest bolt in the box can tell you that stuffing new players with the most elite players in the game is a bad idea.

My idea for reforming HA would be to have different brackets of skill seperated by districts.

For Example:

Hero's Path (American District 1)
This is the start of the Gwars tournament, Ranks 1-3. The first map is and elimination, the second map is adds a flagpost for morale, the third map adds obelisks. Players learn the basics of the basics here but do not have access to the halls. Victories here earn you 1 fame.

Hero's Rise (American District 1)
Rank 3-6 players can enter hero's rise. Priest Battles are introduced in the 4th map, and Relic Runs are introduced in the 5th. Victories here earn you 2 fame.

Heros' Ascent (American District 1)
Rank 6+ players can enter heros ascent. This district leads to the hall of heros at the end, victories here gain you 3 fame.

Districts are retroactive, so R9s can go back to Hero's Path but you earn less fame there so whats the point? Elites and newbies are seperated and those who really want to fight for the hall must climb the ladder. The elitism is reduced and the atmosphere would be better, since players would be alongside those with similar skill levels. Newbie players cant even think of fighting for the hall since their district doesnt allow them to go that far. This way you wont have noobs clouding the upper districts.

PUG'ing for PvE: Purgatory

PUG'ing for PvP: Hell

in my opinion.. I think HA is making build for holding instead of just killing...

many method can make your build can hold when 1 team facing 2 team.... however if a build is just totally relying on killing.. then it is just a dumb build...

and 6:6.. will decrease methods to hold... like before was.. 8 ppl + 1 ghost, vs 16 people with 2 ghosts..

that is 9 v 18 people,, now will be 6 people + 1 ghost vs 12 people + 2 ghosts

then 7 v 14...

If your going to divide the arenas, at least make them equal, same areas including hall of heros. Each Tier should be the exact same, have you ever played a game where you feel like you have to grind through the tutorial? Nobody would play in HA for that reason. Also to keep the playing field equal, once you have a higher rank you can no longer go to the lower rank area. Keep the rank 0-2 and 3-5, but leave one open. That way it still provides the oppurtunity for friends or guildies to play together.

Also you describe "elite" and "newbie" like they are the difference between night and day, the learning curve is not that wide.... its more the difference between early afternoon and late afternoon. The best groups ive been in had a wide variety of ranks, rather than the snootie rank 6 or 9+ groups, not so great.

Bottom line.. Rank means nothing.

Ah the beauties of HA and its need to reform.

To be fair if I wanted to reform the PvP system I'd do several things :

1) take the current Zaishen training system and allow for more builds and more tactics as well as a better AI from the NPCs

2) A different path to HA :

- In the Zaishen at the start the player would learn basic mechanisms while fighting random teams. From the Zaishen start the player would jump to RA (random arena matches with NPCs to random arena matches with players).

- 5 consecutive wins in RA wouls earn the player 1 fame (and allow him to move to Zaishen 4vs4 team fights) with a maximum of 10 fame for RA (once the player is at 10 fame he doesn't gain more from RA to prevent rank raise).

- In the Zaishen 4vs4 team the player would learn to fight a few different builds while having the advantage of fighting in know arena, passing that challenge would lead him in TA (team arena matches with NPCs to team arena matches with players)

- 5 consecutive wins in TA would net the player 1 fame (and allow him to move to Zaishen 6vs6 team fights) with a maximum of 25 fame for TA (rank 1 would be the limit that could be earned there)

- In the Zaishen 6vs6 Team the player would fight in HA but with NPC team concepts varying each and every time (allowing him to learn of the maps available while getting used to the change in teams and common HA tactics as used by the Zaishen) passing the challenge by winning HA once in this mode would get the player access to HA 6vs6 (again from NPCs to players)

- Winning 10 matches in HA 6vs6 would get the player access to Zaishen 8vs8 (with or withour rank limit in 6vs6) which would again replicate the 8vs8 mode as designed by ANet (a new mode since it wouldn't be HA anymore) and passing that challenge would give the player access to the 8vs8 mode with players

Advantages of such a way to progress :

- Each player comes into a level with basic knowledge of the way it is played and this due to playing against Zaishen in the exact same environment
- Each player has a way to train new builds against Zaishens prior to testing them in the real deal and this with more accuracy than current
- ANet can adapt the Zaishen teams to reflect the currently popular builds thus giving players renewed training tools
- ANet can give tips on weak points of popular builds by the means of NPCs standing in the Zaishen areas thus educating the player base
- A dedicated player should have no trouble bringing a character through this with a minimal time investment


Pre-conditions to launch such a system :

- All players see their access to the latest levels of PvP rescinded and have to get back there from the nameless isle this to guaranteee to each and everyone that players in the lates levels know the maps and basic tactics
(optimally access to the latest level would be reset every single time ANet would implement a change to maps and/or tactics to force players to reacquire the delta before getting back in action but I doubt this would happen)


In my opinion (as in I on't speak for everyone) such a system would curve elitism for a time by taking out arguments on the knowledge of maps and builds in the possession of a low ranked person, it would also guarantee to valid players that any person present in an area has a knowledge of that area sufficient to not put her as a dead weight to the team

The definition of elitism as used here (The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources) is different from the one in guildwiki (the belief or attitude that the people who are considered to be the elite are the people whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously) even though similar.

this is exactly the reason i only do pve.

a couple of weeks ago i thought i'd try pvp in ha.
thinking of trying pvp is as far as i got, noone would touch a rank 0 even though i have all skills unlocked for all my chars classes and would of gladly switched skills around if asked to run a certain build.

its not just the fact you have no rank emote to flash its also the abuse you get when you tell people you havent got rank. its really not needed and only goes to put people off who might be thinking of trying pvp for the first time.

at least i know not to bother again in future, but thumbs up to all those elitist pvp'ers, you're doing a great job of preventing your part of the game from growing.

I would be amazed if the number of people who do any form of PvP regularly passes the 2% mark of those who have bought a copy of either Prophecies of Factions. This must be a worry to Anet, as their most marketable GW promotion is Guild v Guild at the tournaments. Consequently, they will keep experimenting to find new ways to encourage people to dip a toe in the PvP waters, and this is an example of that.

As it stands, HA is hugely newbie-unfriendly, encouraging elitism and making it difficult for people to get started, so Anet is trying to break the mould. Good for them! It may not work, but its worth a shot. People have been moaning on these forums for an eternity to see changes in HA, and now that they are being implemented - more moans!

Although Gaile reads these forums, and Anet has picked up (and implemented!) some good ideas from here, they surely have to wade through a lot of immature whining to find the gold amongst the dross!

QFT

QFT and remember kiddies, Rank means NOTHING in PvE so stop flashing those emotes in outposts when trying to get into a group as thats the first thing that stops me from taking a player as he's obviously going to be a complete a**hole.

So stick to what you know best please and dont forget to tell your next employer you're a Ranked player when going for a job as he's obviously going to be so impressed you spend all the time playing video games seeing as there's been a reference to Rank and Qualifications for a job being the same thing

All you need to be "qualified" to play the game is to *shock horror* have a copy of it which is what some people seem to be forgetting round here

Do you people really think 6v6 will remove elitism from HA? the only thing it will change is the team size, nothing else.

Also, blackhawk, whats bad about showing emotes in pve? owning the collectors edition of guildwars means nothing in pve either, but do you cry whenever you see someone with a signature dance or glowing hands? people just like to show-off what they have, in the same way the wammo's like to call that they own victos axe and have mending on, dont be so bitter about it.

He doesnt mean CE emotes, he means doing things like killing a devorour and then flashing there R9 over it.

Also, a noob =/= unranked person. I only have 35 fame, but im not a noob, and I dont run in and aggro. Infact, ive find alot of R3/6+ Groups giving me a chance, mostly in international districts.

I'm not bitter about it one way or another, just makes me laugh when we've had people in PvE groups with ranks who have been completely useless and just goes to show they obviously farmed the rank on a IWAY character during the double fame weekend.

well, somehow people do get their rank somehow. So apparently it is possible to get into a decent group. Whats more it is even possible without playing IWAY or VIM-way or any cheese FOTM build. The answer to all your problems:

Your friendslist. Make friends, ask people you play with if they mind if you play with them more often. Start your own groups. When you do it is recommended to use some kind of FOTM which suits your playing style best. Why? Because when people PUG it is necessary everybody knows the role they are suposed to play.

To start your own pug make sure of 2 things: first of all you have a ventrilo server available. If you dont have one, all good players will not stay in your PUG. Secondly make sure you know how the build you play works, completelly not just the char your chose. People from all ranks PUG, people from all ranks search for PUGS (believe it or not its true). When your foundations appear to be solid they will stick around. Once every so often a high ranked player sneaks into your party, for fun or whatever reason. Usually they do give advice, they do try to help your pug out.

This is how you can build up a decent friendslist and you will notice people will start PMing you in game to ask if you can join their group because they are looking for someone (yes also ranked players have trouble filling up groups). Dont be too intimidated by rank. Slowly you will gain rank, and so will your HA buddies. And suddenly you will notice: WTF IM a HA 1337 r12 OMFG, you think we play with R0 N000bzerrsssss!!!@@! (to avoid confusion that was a joke) Congratz your a elite HA player yourself and suddenly it feels a lot less special you thoughed it would be.

In case your all wandering Im just a r4 player so I still got a long way to go before reaching leetnes. But my point is, if I could find good and nice players to play with and gain my rank (just took me a couple of weeks) anybody should be able to do the same.

And you'll find them all in Pre Searing like the idiot I saw earlier flashing a emote in Ascalon City saying "Can anyone do what I can do"

Congrats.......

You are SO wrong there. I thought everyone knew that Ranked players are Pro's and surely the best at everything

Ok so Im not saying this applies to everyone with a Rank above 1, but lets face facts it does go to their head a bit.

I won’t add to what’s been said before but just hope Anet takes a look at this, preferably sooner rather than later.

Some very good discussions and recommendations have been made on these forums, which I trust Anet does read and take note of.

Changes are, in my opinion, long over due to open up HA to a wider player base.

Yeah. And most of the old people will leave... :/

So you've spent about an hour trying gather people to play in your group in HA (and thats a fair estimate, its been as long as 2 before), you've got a new build you want to test out and you want a competant player. You go through your friend's list and find no one is available and you find out that no one else can get anyone either.

So you have to find a random player (ugh).

Looks like all of the more well known players are occupied. (Double ugh).

So now you have an option of a) choosing completely randomly or b) going by rank.

Rank may not mean much anymore (it hasn't meant much even before IWAY). But its better than nothing. Deal with it.


As for 6v6 tombs. Well holy crap , you mean camp spike won't dominate anymore? I think I hear the smallest violin in the world playing in a corner somewhere. The metagame might actually evolve and go past FoTMs! Oh Noes! What shall we ever do?