Reforming HA: Skill Brackets and a Ladder System

I recently boycotted HA due to rampant elitism and the stagnation of the community that has been reeking from it lately. A huge problem is the Ranking System a creation of a extreme gap between higher ranking players and lower ones by stuffing them all in one area. The addition of Rank Titles has made it even more difficult for newer players to really get into HA as an outcast R0 or even get a party.

Actually, its so bad that new players may be turned off from gwars completely just being exposed to it.

Common sense is that throwing the most elite players of the Gwars universe and newbies in the same boiling pot is a brew for trouble. The rigid system of HA pits the greenest players against high ranking teams or those abusing a well known cookie cutter build to earn free fame.

Also one can take into account that higher ranked players wont want low ranking newbies ruining their game.

In my last comment I called HA a "rotting corpse that needs to be cleaned." Granted I am aware about the 6v6 change, but I dont believe that this is big enough the solve the problems of elitism and build abuse against new players.

My preposition to HA is a ladder system that divides the districts by rank and skill level. The system would look something like this:

Hero's Path (American District 1)
This is the start of the Gwars tournament, Ranks 1-3.

BRACKET 1 (Low Rank Dist, R0-3)
1. Heroes' Ascent (PvE - 1 team) Doesnt count
2. The Underworld (deathmatch - 2 teams)
3. Burial Mounds (annihilation - 2 teams - designed for 6 teams)
4. Broken Tower (king of the hill - 2 teams - designed for 3 teams)

Players learn the basics of the basics here but do not have access to the halls. Victories here earn you 1 fame, which ascends cumulatively until the 3rd map, in which there is a +5 fame completion reward and a short congrats scene. There is also a +1 fame bonus for flawless victories which is also prevalent in the higher brackets.

*Chance of accumulating 6 fame +5 ending bonus. 11 fame max per run (without flawless bonuses, which up the max to 14). Upside is that its a quick run since theres only 4 maps.

Hero's Rise (American District 1)
Rank 3-6 Players can enter this bracket. It is the mid range district.

BRACKET 2 (Mid Rank Dist, R3-6)
2. The Underworld (deathmatch - 2 teams)
3. Burial Mounds (annihilation - 2 teams - designed for 6 teams)
4. Broken Tower (king of the hill - 2 teams - designed for 3 teams)
5. Scarred Earth (annihilation- 2 or 4 teams - designed for 6 teams) +1
6. Unholy Temples (capture the relic - 2 teams)
7. Dark Chambers (annihilation- 2 teams)
8. Courtyard (king of the hill - 2-3 teams) +1

Victories here earn you 1 fame which ascends cumulatively until the 6th map, where there is a reward chest (can be grape, and not as high grade as a real HA chest... no sigils or crystallines) and a +5 fame completion reward + scene.

*Chance of accumulating 28 fame +5 ending bonus. 33 fame max per run (without flawless bonuses, which up the max to 40). Zaishen removed, if you get to this bracket you know what you are doing, no need for them to waste time.

Heros' Ascent (American District 1)
Rank 6+ players can enter heros ascent.

BRACKET 3 (High Rank Dist, R6+)
2. The Underworld (deathmatch - 2 teams)
3. Burial Mounds (annihilation - 2 teams - designed for 6 teams)
4. Broken Tower (king of the hill - 2 teams - designed for 3 teams)
5. Scarred Earth (annihilation- 2 or 4 teams - designed for 6 teams)
6. Unholy Temples (capture the relic - 2 teams)
7. Dark Chambers (annihilation- 2 teams)
8. Courtyard (king of the hill - 2-3 teams)
9. Sacred Temples (capture the relic - 2 teams)
10. The Vault (waiting area for the Hall of Heroes - 1 team)
11. Hall of Heroes (king of the hill - 2-3 teams - designed for 5 teams)

This district leads to the hall of heros at the end, victories here gain you 1 fame which ascends cumulatively until you win the hall and favor, which also adds a +10 fame bonus.

*Chance of accumulating 66 fame +10 ending bonus and a sigil chest. 70 fame per run (without flawless bonuses, which ups the max to 80).

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.

Something like this needs to be done to kill the elitism in the community. As of now, new players suffer in the HA districts and wait for 20 minutes just to get a party. That same party breaks in one round after being stomped by a R9 bloodspike.

Rank0 players DO NOT belong with the elite players. Pitting these two groups in the same area is a recipe for failure. A ladder system would help divide the the groups and keep both sides happy. At hero's path a new player can learn the basics of a hall and quickly find a party with those having a similar caliber of skill. In upper districts like Ascent, Rank 6+ players will compete for the glory of the hall without the interference of noobs.

Let's face it, the divisions between ranked and unranked players are already there. Because of this obvious point, new players are outcasted by a community of skilled players and never given a chance, leading to a crappy gaming experience.

Tacking hero titles on players and stuffing them all into one district was a stupid idea... of course your going to have an elitist society, geez thats so obvious.

This is common sense. We need to seperate elites and newbies to keep both communities from ruining their gaming experiences due to influence from each other. I think this would be a much needed implementation to improve the hall for everyone.

Granted this wont stop cookie cutter build abuse and information about FoTMs that work leaking into the lower districts. There is no way to stop that, but think about it.... IWAY, ViM, and the such are noob builds that belong in the lower districts anyway. Someone can surely run IWAY to the upper levels of play, where they will get STOMPED by real players and know the difference between using a build as a crutch and real skill.

If its 3 fame 1,2,or 3 fame for each win wihtout an ascending fame increase, why wouldnt ppl just keep /resign to farmt he first match if its the same fame? and are u suggesting in ur heros path that ppl farm zaishen for fame? ummmmmmm i dont think getting pts towards a title by killing npcs exactly rewards skill, as shown the by the gladiator zaishen farming exploit a while back.

The zaishen would not count as usual

And if I want to go play HA with some (very good) friends who are rank 1-4? We'd all earn less fame and have no chance at getting anything decscent by winning halls, simply because some of us aren't high ranked?

Sorry, that's just lame. I play HA with low ranked and unranked friends all the time, and do very well.

/not signed, for the stated reasnos, and many, many others...

Read the post, the system of brackets is retroactive so your rank 9 can go back down to a lower level to play with your friend, he just needs to make it up to play on your turf, which would be fair.

So you would suppose that the mass conglomeration of new players mixed into the higher ranks is ok? That the current system is fine with lower ranks being outcasted by elites? If your lower ranked and really wanted the hall, there should be no problem climbing the ladder to get there. Its the injection of new players into the HA with no experience that causes the problem, and HA is way to easy to unlock with just a few lucky wins of TA. Where do you suppose these players should go to get experience for HA? A 4v4 arena?

R8+ parties take a lot longer than 20 minutes to form so if newbies only wait 20 minutes to get a party like you say here then they are actually having it way better than the high ranked people do.

R9+ parties often take 3 hours to form and then lose 2 maps in and then disband, even parties made by some of the most famous people in the game. ex: I personally have been in R9+ parties led by Brehon in which this has happened on more than one occasion. My point here is that that part of your commentary is not exclusive to low ranks, and in fact the low ranks probably have it much easier on this point too since it didn't take them 3 hours to form.

As for the IWAY bashing in your post, I must digress: surely many alleged "real players" could not beat IWAY which is why IWAY has been unnecessarily nerfed by Anet multiple different times. If IWAY gets "STOMPED" nowadays in my view it's mostly only because Anet over-nerfed the crap out of it due to illegimate mass complaints.

Must disagree with your "a R0 can't get a party" comment. R0's can find plenty of other R0's with which to party. No elitism in the world can stop that from happening. Therefore, if someone wants to join a party of higher rank than himself and can't it is not "He is a victim of elitism!" Rather it is "He is a wannabe-leecher and the good players will not allow him to leech off them!"

Having said all that, I do see the merit of your idea to make PVP more friendly to new players. The problems I see with your idea are:

1. There are not enough Tombs players in order to "split" the ranks like you suggest. If ranks were to be split like that, then the "waiting for next round to start" timers would often never stop cycling and the next matches never start due to lack of players.

2. Knowing Anet, if they were to implement a model similar to yours, they would not use your idea but rather use the similar ideas of past posts that unbalanced fame gain in favor of newbies. In actuality they would probably make it a cakewalk for newbies to get fame easy and then punish high ranked players for being high ranked by making them get fame way less fast. Which would be totally unequitable plus it would make the rank system worthless (some say it already is but this would make it wayyyyyy more worthless than it ever was before).

3. If I understand things correctly, your "you get less fame on the earlier tiers concept" is based on maps not being skipped. Yet in reality, Tombs maps are often skipped, which destroys fame accumulation. Kind of related to my #1 point above (as this is already caused by lack of players which is a problem which splitting ranks would seem to worsen ). Hence would it not be more profitable for the players in higher tiers to go back to the lower tiers en masse so as the skipped maps don't destroy the fame accumulation?

And say the elites had a higher district of all R6+? You think it would take 3 hours to form a party?

So your saying if they didn't nerf it and "real" players couldn't beat IWAY, HA would be nothing but a W/R fest and the hall would be a challege of who could IWAY better? Doesn't sound like a good tournament to me.... oh wait that was how the hall used to be before the nerf.

Yes but these R0 parties are thrown into the mix and 75% of the time are pitted against a high ranking guild or R8+. Seperation of districts and a lower fame reward would keep the elites from stepping down to the lower districts to farm fame off the newbies. Likewise newbies wont have to deal with being pitted against a highly organized build way past their caliber on a regular basis. Granted cookie cutter builds will always exist, but you learn to bypass them. I can see something like IWAY running rampant in lower districts, but that same tactic may not apply as the player learns and steps up to higher districts. Also those who overcome or join the cookie cutter build rise to higher brackets. If a cookie cutter build rises all the way to the hall as a FoTM you can only really say is a damn good build (or damn overpowered and broken). Seperation of districts is there to build player experience instead of just tossing them into the hall. Right now the HA we know is damn unfriendly and we all know it.

You also need less fame to get lower ranks, it all balances out. Lower fame rewards for lower arenas, higher fame rewards for higher arenas. There is nothing stopping a R9 from stepping down to help or teach a friend, but I don't think new players at R0 are in any position to be fighting highly organized r8+ teams and being just trumped for free fame. The richer get rich and the poorer get poorer. What do you think the chances of a complete R0 team's chances of earning any fame at all with today hall are? Why do you think there are so many R0's that cant get out of the hole? We need a progressive system. R0 teams now are just fame snacks for organized teams and cookie cutters.

And guildwars has over 2 million players yet tombs is lacking? Just think about why people don't play tombs. Also 6v6 is a permanant change, which means hallskips wont be so frequent and more games will be running.

This is assumption, and semi-off topic. It has nothing to do with the arguement and you really don't know what Anet is going to do. And in regards to the ranking system currenly being unequitable... If you were forced to rank to get into the hall wouldn't that give your rank more value? Using this method you wouldnt have R0s trying to leech into higher grade teams just to run off the crystalline dropping from the Hall chest at the end. After all holding the hall is an elite thing, shouldn't you have to prove yourself to be there? Adding a bracket system would ADD VALUE to rank. Because you need rank to get into the hall, players might actually strive to get better at the game, while others might just stay with PVE.

[/b]These are the current HA maps:[/b]

1. Heroes' Ascent (PvE - 1 team) Doesnt Count
2. The Underworld (deathmatch - 2 teams)
3. Burial Mounds (annihilation - 2 teams - designed for 6 teams)
4. Broken Tower (king of the hill - 2 teams - designed for 3 teams)
5. Scarred Earth (annihilation- 2 or 4 teams - designed for 6 teams)
6. Unholy Temples (capture the relic - 2 teams)
7. Dark Chambers (annihilation- 2 teams)
8. Courtyard (king of the hill - 2-3 teams)
9. Sacred Temples (capture the relic - 2 teams)
10. The Vault (waiting area for the Hall of Heroes - 1 team)
11. Hall of Heroes (king of the hill - 2-3 teams - designed for 5 teams)

By fame accumulation it works like:

1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10=55

So by winning all the maps the net fame gain is... 55 fame with the +10 fame bonus for the hall, if you make it all the way it's 65 (not counting flawless wins).

Now break this into seperate brackets:

BRACKET 1 (Low Rank Dist, R0-3)
1. Heroes' Ascent (PvE - 1 team) Doesnt count
2. The Underworld (deathmatch - 2 teams)
3. Burial Mounds (annihilation - 2 teams - designed for 6 teams)
4. Broken Tower (king of the hill - 2 teams - designed for 3 teams)

Chance of accumulating 6 fame +5 ending bonus. 11 fame max per run (without flawless bonuses, which up the max to 14). Upside is that its a quick run since theres only 4 maps, but not fast enough to accumulate fame quickly since the zaishen are at the start.

BRACKET 2 (Mid Rank Dist, R3-6)
2. The Underworld (deathmatch - 2 teams)
3. Burial Mounds (annihilation - 2 teams - designed for 6 teams)
4. Broken Tower (king of the hill - 2 teams - designed for 3 teams)
5. Scarred Earth (annihilation- 2 or 4 teams - designed for 6 teams) +1
6. Unholy Temples (capture the relic - 2 teams)
7. Dark Chambers (annihilation- 2 teams)
8. Courtyard (king of the hill - 2-3 teams) +1

Chance of accumulating 28 fame +5 ending bonus. 33 fame max per run (without flawless bonuses, which up the max to 40). Zaishen removed, if you get to this bracket you know what you are doing, no need for them to waste time.

BRACKET 3 (High Rank Dist, R6+)

2. The Underworld (deathmatch - 2 teams)
3. Burial Mounds (annihilation - 2 teams - designed for 6 teams)
4. Broken Tower (king of the hill - 2 teams - designed for 3 teams)
5. Scarred Earth (annihilation- 2 or 4 teams - designed for 6 teams)
6. Unholy Temples (capture the relic - 2 teams)
7. Dark Chambers (annihilation- 2 teams)
8. Courtyard (king of the hill - 2-3 teams)
9. Sacred Temples (capture the relic - 2 teams)
10. The Vault (waiting area for the Hall of Heroes - 1 team)
11. Hall of Heroes (king of the hill - 2-3 teams - designed for 5 teams)

Chance of accumulating 66 fame +10 ending bonus and a sigil chest. 70 fame per run (without flawless bonuses, which ups the max to 80).

Now lets look at fame by rank:

1 25 None Hero
2 75 None Fierce Hero
3 180 Deer Mighty Hero


BRACKET ONE: 11 fame per completion, 17 completions of this hall nets you Rank 3 and an emote... that seems perfectly fair to me.

4 360 Deer Deadly Hero
5 600 Deer Terrifying Hero
6 1,000 Wolf Conquering Hero

BRACKET TWO: 33 fame per completion, 24 completions of this hall nets you R6... again pretty fair.

7 1,680 Wolf Subjugating Hero
8 2,800 Wolf Vanquishing Hero
9 4,665 Tiger Renowned Hero
10 7,750 Tiger Illustrious Hero
11 12,960 Tiger Eminent Hero
12 21,600 Phoenix King's Hero
13 36,000 Phoenix Emperor's Hero
14 60,000 Phoenix Balthazar's Hero
15 100,000 (?) Unknown -

BRACKET THREE: Now your here after your 24 wins, not bad see the fame distribution by bracket looks good.

So, a newbie doesn't get a shot at holding halls at all untill they're rank 6?

Shouldn't the hall have some value? It is the world tournament and its supposed to be the best fighting for favor for their region. Yes in creating this I struggle with the idea of ranked entry of HoH because I do like to see the random pug miraculously hold the hall. But at the same time If I created the lower bracket with hall entry, people would just swarm there for easy access.

Getting to R3 is tha hardest part of getting up into higher ranks. Putting r0-3 in a seperate bracket would just mean newbs getting r3 much quicker then usual and there would be so much r3 newbs out there. Well more then usual any way They need to be pitted against r9+ teams to get experience from that. I personnaly totally disagree with this idea.

This is pure silliness. Under your logic, an r6 who had their account disabled/made a new one, or wanted to help their friend, can't play in areas with their friends, and it also slows down fame gain for people who are in r2 going for r3. Also, the King Spoilers can't reach HoH, he's unranked at the end of prophecies. Ooooh, and, under your logic, this makes ranks like 15 impossible. Rank 15 would take a lifetime. One last thing, if this existed, Anet would either make HA suck by capping ranks, or have to make new brackets for everyone past r15.

Does a 10 year old just started soccer player immediately get a shot at claiming the world cup? no he doesn't. Is a just started chess player taken seriously if he wants to challenge the world champion.
No, newbs don't get a shot at holding halls until they've proven themselves.

They wont be proving much against other r0-2 teams if newbs can hold halls thats proving themselves enough

If bunch of newbies fight and win their way to HoH, I'd say they deserve the shot.

/ not signet at all
this is stupid... So actually when you buy a new account because you need more slots and your other is r9... then you need to play with noobs?
really stupid

Rediculous. Maybe if the un/low-ranked would actually take the time to observe matches, make up builds, and stick with groups so they can improve, they would do better. That's how I started, and that's how I still roll.

You're just jealous like all the other unranked, and too lazy to do something about it - like all the other unranked (that join iway and vim). If you suck, it's your own impatient fault.

definitely /notsigned

Rediculous. Maybe if the un/low-ranked would actually take the time to observe matches, make up builds, and stick with groups so they can improve, they would do better. That's how I started, and that's how I still roll (almost r8 now, and have lots to learn).

You're just jealous like all the other unranked, and too lazy to do something about it - like all the other unranked (that join iway and vim). If you suck, it's your own impatient fault.

definitely /notsigned

edit: mod - I don't know how I submitted this twice, I only typed it once..., delete the previous?

This is the most ironic paragraph I have ever read.
First, you explain how noobs shouldn't be able to claim halls and need to "climb the ladder", then you explain how the eliteism is reduced.
If a "noobie" is good enough to fight their way to halls, whats so bad about that? "Noobies" dont crowd the upper levels simply because they can't fight there in the first place. Sure, there is the occasional "hall jump", but simply saying "your skill means nothing and you need to grind to get to high end PvP" is about the worst thing you can do. You claim this will reduce eliteism, but in reality, it will increase dramatically. After all, this is the opposite of what guild wars is all about.

The high ranked players don't belong in the lower areas, not the opposite.

So your saying a few rank 4s cant party with rank 7+ friends who want to cap HoH? Even though these rank 4s have never iwayed and possibly have the equivalent skill of the average rank 8 iway warrior. Your just restricting who can play with who, and saying those who dont play much but are skilled arent allowed to play with those who play daily.

/notsigned