The current state of Heroes Ascent and propsed solutions

So, anyone whos been to Heroes Ascent knows how disgusting this place has become. Its hard to call it PvP now since its basically farming fame off AI. The fun factor is gone. My propsed solution is to limit it so that no more than 50% (3 players) of the team can be heroes or henchmen. This means you must have at least 3 real players on the team to enter.

Now to the mods, you're probably thinking "theres already topics on this, so I'm closing this one". Look at what the other threads covering this have turned into. 1) They're just rude flame / whining fests. If any ANet representative was to look at those threads do you think they'd take it seriously? No. I hope to keep this thread a polite, constructive discusion on how to fix Heroes Ascent so that if anyone from ANet actually looks at this, it might get us somewhere. And, 2) Most people aren't reading beyond the first post. In the "Petion to kick NPC out of HA" thread, I've had to repeat myself hundreds of times shutting down the same arguemenents. With this topic I'll cover all of that in the first post so that people don't /not signed for silly reasons.

After reading through the other topics on this, these are pretty much the only reasons people have made on why to keep HA as it is... Before you /not signed this, please check if your reason is covered here...

Reason to keep HA as it is #1: The only reason people are complaining about Heroes is because they can't beat Heroes! If you can't beat Heroes you shouldn't play HA...
Reason why this is to change it: You misunderstand. Very few people are actually complaining because they think heroes are overpowered. We are complaining because fighting AI over and over is not fun. The fun factor of HA was to fight with real people, against real people. However, if you enjoy fighting AI over and over (what HA has become), theres nothing wrong with that. But theres a whole big section of the game for you called PvE. This is not what HA was about. HA was for PvP players that liked to fight other real players, not AI.

Reason to keep HA as it is #2: HA was just full of elitists that won't take me in their groups. With heroes I can finally get a group!
Reason why this is to change it: I'm not going to cover this one myself since other people have already made excellent posts on this. See these quotes:

Reason to keep HA as it is #3: There where NPCs like Ghostly Hero, pets, minions and even henchmen before. No one complained then, why complain now? Its the same isn't it?
Reason why this is to change it: Theres nothing wrong with having a few NPCs in the battle field. As I even said, as long as 50% of the players on the team are real people, not AI bots, I'm happy. But in HA's current state, its basically farm AI bots after AI bots after AI bots.

Reason to keep HA as it is #4: I'm anti-social and don't want to play with other people. With heroes I can finally play HA.
Reason why this is to change it: Heroes Ascent, heck even Guild Wars in general is a team game. If I'm not mistaken it even said that on the GW box. If you don't like to play with other people you shouldn't be playing HA, maybe not even playing Guild Wars. There are tons are great offline, single player games that are better than Guild Wars for those of you that don't like team based games. I can recommend some for you, if you want.

Reason to keep HA as it is #5: I just want a nice deer to go with my fissure armor. I couldn't give a **** about the state of HA. Just want my deer and I'm out. Heroes help me get my deer faster so I'm all for 'em.
Reason why this is to change it: This is really the only valid reason I've seen on why to keep HA as it is. But come on ANet, the whole philosphy guild wars was built on was no grind, yet right now you are favoring the people who want to grind over the people who want to have fun playing your game...

If you have any reason to keep HA as it is that I haven't covered in this post, please do tell me amd we can discuss. But in the other topics these 5 points are really the only reasons to keep HA that become have come up with...

So ya, thanks for reading and I would appreciate feedback and /signeds or /not signeds (PLEASE GIVE A REASON I HAVEN'T ALREADY COVERED THOUGH ~.~). Thank you, have a nice day.

/sign

A good idea, IMO, is to limit Heroes to 1 Hero per person while in HA. That would fit the 50% requirement you suggest, and also allow for more "individual skill," should players decide to heroes.

no more heroway please

/sign

I don't PvP often but I think it's wrong Heroes are aloud in at all...leave the heroes in RA..easy faction

heres a little payback for you pvp'ers

ADAPT and if you dont like it play pve

/sign

GW's AI is incomparable to a regular player's intelligence, their micromanagement coding is insane.
AI > Players

Leave it to PVP Only.

Heroes should only be restricted to the assistance for players to progress within the PvE part of the game.

I made a couple post on the other Topic
I have a feeling that this topic might merge with the old one.

/signed

Make it PvP again not PvPw/HEROES

That makes no sense whatsoever.

To some people (i.e. the OP), it's either "PvP," or "quit."

/signed

Adapt to what? Rolling through AI? I think I've adapted fine thank you, since when I did HA I've been making very fast fame. But I'm not having fun, which is what matters. And yes I'm playing pve now. Once I beat Nightfall PvE I think I'll be moving into GvG or another game.

Signed.

I too agree with Zinger314 and Yunas Ele.

If Heroes are involved in the PVPing between players, then It would be classified as PvEing already.
The addition of Heroes makes PVPing to PVEing overall.

Considering said AI has rolled through numerous whiners you should be happy you are playing with bots instead of said humans.

Let the AI be a minimum bar for teams playing in HA. If you beat them as consistently as you try to purport it to be (come on, I know the truth, you wouldn't whine if you are winning because it is "not fun". You are getting your ass and your nut sacks hauled back to you more like), then it wouldn't be profitable for said "botters" to carry on playing Heroway.

Let market forces decide people, or rather the forces of your "skillz".

...can't we play games just for fun?

If it is getting kicked out of HA get it kicked out of AB too.
/signed

Then just change your perception of "fun". When you beat these guys instead of thinking they are a series of bots, instead realise you have just beaten a loser who tried to gank you with heroway.

How is this different from IWAY, or VIMWAY, or other WAYs?

Those humans are essentially like bots anyway.

By that token why not remove them from TA and other arenas too?

Woah, we have "whined" about the locked elite missions in Factions for months and guess what that got us. I definitely hope for the sanity of us PvEers that Anet will just do what they've always done for this issue - sit more on their asses. Great... yielding to a minority playerbase's whine to remove an advertised feature! Yeah I can see that happening.

For the record, the only PvP Heroes are allowed in is HA and HvH. Heroes weren't ever allowed in RA/TA, and they were recently removed from AB.

/signed

didn't they already create a pvp that involved heros? Ah yes they did.

This is a redundant and biased compilation of points made elsewhere.

I hope they keep heros in for a long time just so we can see you gvging with iway.

The concept of PVPing is Players Vs Players, No additions of Heroes or "Bots"
What you are describing is a P/E vs P/E type of game.

Yes.. people may whine about this on and on, but what would it have been like if Heroes were to never be released. Those who currently have Heroes would whine about not being able to HA often.

Heroes is just an excuse to get into HA and to have ranks under their name.
And to complain about not being able to join a group because of not having rank is also just an excuse.

Players originally started out all the same, as newbies. They eventually had to work their way up to that rank. Just because you, or others got the game late does not mean you should be just as equal as those who played since the beginning. Yes this may seem unfair, but its also reality.

(Thanks to those who had this view and Posted)

/signed

Or even limit number of hero's/henchmen to 2 per party.

Please, provide evidence of this "truth". I admit I've lost to a few searing flame heroways and been beaten by other heroways when playing herowaying myself, but beyond that, yes I consistently beat heroways. Sure its "profitable" to keep playing but, guess what... some people play games for fun. Yes, amazing isn't it...

See my first post. In the other topic's no one reads beyond the first post (seems you didn't even read the whole first post in this topic...) so I summed everything up in the first post for the lazy people...

I haven't IWAYed in like 3 months but whatever, think what you want...

well not signed. I, rank 0, want fame too :P

I read the first post just fine. I was stating a fact that remains true. This is redundant and shows bias. If you wanted to have a real conversation on the matter the information would have to be presented by a neutral party otherwise this thread will degrade just as badly. Besides the fact that if it's for the sake of the 'lazy people' you'd be giving them a skewed opinion, misleading them in a sense.

/signed

Umm... if you want fame and gain ranks... go and get a bunch of friends and start learning how to play as a group.

Heroes should be limited to hero battles only.

I personaly used to play HA for its competetive nature. I truely enjoyed playing some of the top tier HA guilds everyday and having really great matches win or lose. It was a place to pit my teams skills vs the other teams skill. it was a place where map tactics, movement, and positioning were key to winning.

Heroway has destroyed the competetivness of hero's acsent. There are now much fewer "feared" teams in HA to truely compete with. I miss having matches with [Math], [SWIM], and [ugly] that were extremly challenging and required real strategy to win.

One arguemnet people seem to be having is that If you cant beat them stop whining. This has no valid point. Everyone takes losses to heroway, but the Win/Loss ratio usually favors the winning side. Lately Heroway's have been inciting ganks against non-heroway teams because it just may be the only way they can win.

This Opinion literaly makes me sick. Many players (myself included) worked hard for our rank. We worked our way up not being accepted into the higher end groups which we had no place in anyway. Was this fair? YES! I was a complete noob, I had no place in a rank 6+ pug. I played with friends, I played in PUG's who would accept me (they are out there) and you know what, I enjoyed it.

I understand some people just want thier deer, but even without heros and worst case scenario it's 180 underworld wins. This is not that difficult.

So after my rant a BIG /signed

Well I just go interested in this and tried HA with Heroes. I did to stages then lost and got 1 fame which is pretty good. But I can't get in a group because I dont have Rank 3+, wtf? If you only let Rank 3+ in a group how do you except new people to play. Don't say oh you have to work your way up because thats bull. You HA people don't give us a chance. How can we work our way up if we don't get to play. With Heroes we can work our way up getting 1 fame a run until we can get Rank 3 where people might actually let us in a group. If you all were more accepting and didn't say "0mFg j00 4r3nt r4nk 3, h4ha j0ou c4tn join" then the people that use heroes would be in your group and not Hero-Henchwaying. Yes there would be still be some people to Hero but not as much if everyone was accept. Now I do agree that if someone isn't the rank you want you can ask them questions to make sure they know how to play the assigned build but give them a chance don't just kick them for not being "elite".

Thats be two bits.

/not signed

Heroway is a great way to learn some of the maps and common builds in PvP and get your feet wet. To be honest, in terms of "fame farming" the only difference between heroway and IWAY is that you had to get 7 other people for IWAY. If people want to try it out let them. As far as we know, ANet probably *planned* on people bringing heroes into PvP.

Other reasons to keep heroway:
1. AI is sometimes better than the pugs you'll find
2. You might not always be able to find enough people of the right class if you have a specific build in mind.
3. This will encourage originality; you and a friend can try out builds to get the kinks worked out before having their friends play it.
4. This will introduce people to HA and help them start getting connections so teams and guilds will pick them up if they do well
5. Not everyone has Nightfall
6. Not everyone has VoIP to do well in PvP.
7. Because if you get rid of this, another farming build will come up to be nerfed later.
8. A lot of teams don't want people under rank 3 in pvp

Meh, you exaggerate, I'm rank 0 and I've been playing around in HA every now and then, haven't found it hard at all to find a party (in fact the times I've had a very hard time finding a part has been when there was no one on)...

"1. AI is sometimes better than the pugs you'll find"
The OP is asking to LIMIT the ammount of heroes allowed in.
"2. You might not always be able to find enough people of the right class if you have a specific build in mind."
See answer to 1
"3. This will encourage originality; you and a friend can try out builds to get the kinks worked out before having their friends play it."
See answer to 1. Originality? Sure you can make a creative build, but you're still running it with AI.
"4. This will introduce people to HA and help them start getting connections so teams and guilds will pick them up if they do well"
How do you expect them to get connections if all they do is heroway? And since pretty much all decent teams and guilds roll over them, hardly an impressive show.
"5. Not everyone has Nightfall"
And?
"6. Not everyone has VoIP to do well in PvP."
VoIP is hardly difficult to get.
"7. Because if you get rid of this, another farming build will come up to be nerfed later."
So what, it'll be nerfed so it's balanced, point.
"8. A lot of teams don't want people under rank 3 in pvp"
See first paragraph.

QFT.

/not signed.

I'm not a PvP'er at all and never will be but i see some thruth in the OP's post.
I can only agree with removing heroes from any PvP orientated battle apart from Hero Battles of course.
That's not what the gametype is about and it should very well never be like this Period.

PvP stand for just that.

Join unranked groups. That's how we all did it, nobody ever started at rank 3. Then at rank 3 we joined rank 3 groups. They sucked a bit less but it was still slow. Now I'm at rank 6 and I join rank 6 groups and we win with a bit of regularity.

At the moment the chances of me taking a Rank 3 player are about zero, precisely because people like you are heroing your way there. It's nothing to do with being elitist, it's just it's fun to win and fame (while a flawed mechanism) is the best way to measure your skill.

Okay, it may be redundant but just look at the other topics. In the "Petition to kick NPC out of HA" topic, its amazing how many people still continue to post "zomg u guys jus complain cuz u lose to teh heroway" and "heroes allow me to get a grp cuz dos elitists wunt take me in ther grp!111" when both of those issues have clearly been covered numerous times in the the topic. I made this topic with those issures covered in post 1 so they won't get repeated. Maybe lazy people wasn't the best choice of words but what do you call someone who posts something thats already been posted (and shutdown) 10+ times in the same topic and thinks their a genius and like the first person to post it... (like the people still posting the quotes I mentioned above).

While it may be biased I at least tried to meet in the middle with the whole 50% players things... but hey I'm trying to sell a point here. When the politicians want you to vote for them do you think they give an unbiased stance? Of course not. If someone wants to prove their point right there will ALWAYS be bias.

And you can get fame without heroes...

Great post, thank you.

Playing in a team of real players and actually learning is an even better way. See Mr Seph's post that I quoted on in the first post.

Oh, I don't even know where to begin ripping this statement apart... I'll just let this one slip for now, if you want I'll edit later and right uber long post but for now just let it slip...


Edit: Err saw Fabius Cunctator's post after I posted this >_> I had a few different answers but ya mostly the same so skip over if u want...

1. Fair enough. But thats why you don't get pugs if you want a good team, good teams come from the friends/guild lists
2. I'm not asking to completely remove heroes. I'm asking to limit it to no more than 50% of the team. If you can't get 2 other players, you shouldn't be playing... Like I said GW is a team game if you don't want to play as a team I'd be more than glad to recommend you some single player games that are vastly superior to GW, one example being Okami for PS2. Damn, that game owns...
3. Thats what that place outside of Great Temple of Balthazar is for, to test things. And if you want to actually test it out in real HA, like I said in last point its not hard to get 2 other players...
4. LOL? Connections? I hope this was a joke. What connections are they gonna get? Acolyte Jin PMing them for r-spike? You play with real groups to get connections, see Mr Seph's post I quoted in first post.
5. What are you getting at here? You can join real groups without owning NF...
6. Voice comm is very important in pvp and helps with the whole team work aspect. Again, if you don't like team-based games I can recommend you some great single player games to play instead of GW.
7. So...? Better than fighting dumb AI over and over...
8. A lot of teams don't want below r3, but guess what some teams do or you can make your own team with other people who aren't r3+ too... Do you think everyone but you started at r3+? Definately not...

/signed

Heroes' Ascent has absolutly no chance to ever be considered a competitive PvP area as-is. Restrict NPCs such as Heroes and Henchmen to 50% of a team, if not to 33% of a team.

From what I can gather, the 6 vs 6 change was made to freshen up Heroes' Ascent, make it more competitive and easier for new players to form a group. The introduction of Heroes' defeats that change. Heroes' promote a fairly stagnent metagame. They promote a focus on beating bad teams and doing so quickly, instead of beating good teams and winning. The only 'positive' is new players can get a group very easily now! Too bad they're not really improving themselves as a player by playing with NPCs, against NPCs, and only playing to farm fame, not to win.

If ANET wants Heroes' Ascnet to remain competitive, and fun, they absolutly need to restrict the amount of Heroes in a party.

I think heroes should be removed from both HA and TA. Why? If I wanted to fight AI I would run the Zaishan over and over or go PvE. Heros just ruin what HA is supposed to be. I remember back when nobody ever took henchmen or even thought of it into Tombs. Yes thats right, back when Hall of Heroes was in tombs. All people do now is run heroes or henchmen. I would prefer to have the 8v8 HA back with no heroes or henchmen.

I don't even HA that much but what little desire I had to play it died when I started seeing heros in HA.

/signed

On the topic of heroes and HA (or PvP in general) I think there are a variety of points both for and against that need consideration. I think I can show that the arguments for heroes are flawed in aspect, and that the argument for their removal is strong. Before we begin, I think it important to note that heroes are not in and of themselves the main problem with HA. Not even one of the main problems. However, it is a problem (or at least an issue) which there is some potential to fix. As such, it should be adressed on its own merit.

The main arguments for heroes seem to revolve around the notion of accessibility. The idea is apparent in several arguments: that a person can not worry about finding a group in general, or that a person can avoid the rank restriction by using heroes. They both revolve around the notion of a person being more easily able to access HA. My question to these arguments is simple: what is the inherent value in accessibility? I claim that there is no such value. Accessibility is only valuable insofar as it applies to something of worth. Let me give an example. Suppose I created a zone that was accessible upon creating your character. In this zone you randomly die between 0 and 5 minutes of entering. There is nothing otherwise in this zone except yourself and the map. Would you consider this zone a good thing? I think it somewhat obvious that a person would not. This zone is more accessible than any other in the game, but the accessibility is meaningless because the object accessed has no worth. Acessibility therefore is a function of value, not a precursor. Were I to make my zone challenging and rewarding, I think most people would agree that the accessibility drastically improves my zone over, say, the current Factions elite missions. The elite missions are relatively inaccessible for the vast majority of the populace and this has been a point of contention for some time.

If we take the above then, it seems the basic premise of the argument for heroes is in serious danger. If it can be shown that heroes severely reduce the quality of HA, it appears that their accessibility argument is invalidated. I think it somewhat apparent that the quality of the arena has been reduced, but I will go through the analysis in case others do not agree.

The first issue is that of the nature of the arena. Heroes Ascent (despite the name) is intended as a PvP arena. With that distinction comes a few qualifications. One of these is the notion of player v player combat. That is, people fighting people. It goes almost without saying that Heroes contradict this notion. After all, per definition they are not people or players and therefore you do not have scenarios of player v player combat. Instead you have player v computer combat which is simply different. A closer analog to this sort of gaming is PvE, where you have Player v Environment. As the environment is controlled by the computer, it seems that we have these two things identically. Now, this is a form of reduction in quality. Namely, you are reducing one form of gaming into another, diluting the former. In the same way that a person could reduce the quality of say, a brick of gold by smelting it with tin.

The second issue is in the value of experience. That is, is the experience gained on the part of the hero user greater than it would be if that person used pugs? I think the answer is a clear no, since heroes do not communicate. A hero cannot tell you a proposed strategy for a map. A hero cannot critique your build. A hero cannot communicate to the player in any way. In fact, heros are so poor at communication it was necessary to institute a special menu that allowed the player to see directly for himself the state of the hero's energy, health, and skillstate. The other option is pugs. Pugs can certainly communicate all of the above, and in fact probably will whether you like it or not. Often loudly with poor grammar. And as much poor advice as you'll invariably get, poor advice is better than no advice. Poor advice at the very least makes you think over your decisions and explain them to the poor advice giver. That sort of reiterated thought is extremely valuable for refining builds and strategies. The lack of this then is a clear reduction in quality.

The other argument which I feel I should make note of is the, "You're just mad that you can't beat heroes!" argument. I make note of this not because this argument has any merit, but because it seems to be so prevalent that I think the community could benefit from knowing precisely why it is so poor. There are two main reasons this statment fails as an argument. The first is that it is based on an unsound premise, and the second is that the entire line of reasoning is logically invalid. Validity in logic means that is the premises are true, then in virtue of this the conclusion must be true as well. The argumentation of, "You're just mad!" does not meet this criterion. Even if it were true that the people who are arguing against heroes are merely mad that they cannot win against them, all this shows is what motivates these people to post. It in no way changes the authority of the arguments presented. Arguments rest on their own merit, not on the merit of their speaker. To give an exaggerated and thus more easily seen example, suppose that I was arguing that 2+2=4. Suppose then that Hitler was also arguing that 2+2=4. Now, if the quality of the person giving the argument were relevant to the argument itself, it would follow that 2+2=4 only when I said it, because Hitler being bad invalidated the position. How absurd! Regardless of who gives an argument, the argument stands on its own merit. The soundness objection is epistimelogical. That is, the unqualifed assumption in the attack is that the posters against heroes have consistently lost to them. But, how precisely do we know this is the case? It seems like this is an empitical assessment. That is, it is a statement which is verifiable through observation. If this is true then the only way such an assertion could be made soundly is if the observation had actually been carried out. I defy a single proponent of this argumentation type to come forward with evidence that they have carried out this action. I rather suspect there will be none.

There are of course other issues, but I think with these solidly presented there isn't any need to go into any others. With the arguments for heroes dismissed from consideration then (subject to rebuttal of course) we can turn to the arguments for their removal. The arguments against heroes function around two points. The first is a quality point and the second is an enjoyment point. Luckily for us, the quality argument has already been given in rebuttal to the accessibility argument of the pro-hero community. I will instead focus on the enjoyment argument. It is important to note that this argument has several subjective basis to it, and so there may be people who contest various elements of it. Overall however I think the claims I will make to be true and so I will ignore the varous outliers.

The argument of enjoyment basically works in this way: The anti-hero crowd is of a position that playing heroway is not fun. If they win they cannot feel accomplished in defeating a computer, and if they lose they are demoralized after losing to one. I think the latter case unarguably true. It is simply a fact that people are smarter than computers are. Therefore if you lose to a computer in an equal environment you probably won't be very happy. The first case I think needs clarification. After all, the entire premise of PvE is based around people enjoying defeating computers. Clearly, as people play PvE, you can in fact feel accomplished fighting a computer. The distinction between the events is of their nature, I think. That is, a PvE player can feel accomplishment in defeating a computer because in PvE the computer cheats (it is not on an equal playing field) and defeating the computer has story-value. The same is not true of the PvP format. PvP is by nature (in any viable PvP game) a direct competition on an equal playing field. Computers simply cannot approach the level of ability that even a bad person brings to the arena. Further, I make the claim that there is inherent value in fighting a player over fighting a computer. That is, if all other variables are kept constant, a player would rather fight another person than a computer. In this sense then there is a direct connection between enjoyment or "fun" and fighting people versus computers.

With the above asserted, it follows quite simply that the arguments against heros are strong whereas the arguments for them are misguided in a variety of fashions. The only recourse seems to be the removal of heroes (and assorted other NPCs) from the playing field.