The current state of Heroes Ascent and propsed solutions

Lets count the conflicting sentences.

For instance the first statement about "You guys are newbs (newbies, beginners)"
Next to the last one.

How would beginners have their rank already? They're beginners. And being beginners does not make them bad players, simply unexperienced.

Then there's the IWAY comment, next to the Grind comment. As I recall, last year all of the grinders were bitching because IWAY was cheating them out of their fame and rank.

Finally, I dont believe rank and fame were the reasont his argument started. I believe it was that people wanted to play against other players, and heroes were stopping that from happening.

Lemme re-phrase.
Wanting rank is stupid, but getting it with real players > getting it with heroes.
Hero fame farmers < cookie cutter fame farmers.
(newbs) (old timers)
Simply because they played PvP for their rank, not tomb of primeval kings (PvE part).

I was simply answering the guy that basically claimed he wanted to kick all elitists out of HA

They would already have their rank because most of them claim they couldn't find any parties. If these people wanted 2 get rank (which they clearly do, and are herowaying for it) they could have easily gotten it before all hell broke lose in HA.
IWAYers = the fame grinders, and people were bitching about them because it was an overpowered build that could be succesfully run by any1 with an axe.

I am not contributing to the original purpose of this thread, I have already posted my argument and /signed this.

And there, sadly, is what they are talking about.

The elitist attitude.

"We've been doing this longer so we're better than you, and the way we do it is better than yours."

What's elitist about knowing what PvP is and what PvP means? lol

Oh, you haven't seen anything. If tempted, I will start using slang from the 50s.

/super signed

PvP = Player vs. Player

'nuff said

I know this has been said before, but I'm just going to repeat it because I can:

Rank, heroes, IWAY etc etc will never get you anywhere. What HA (and GW organised PVP in general) needs is a GUI based party system where people can look for other people with similar interests.

In general, I am in favour of ways of helping newer people with GW PVP as
a) GW PvP can actually be really cool and atm its quite hard on the new person and b) the MONTHS (not days, not weeks, but MONTHS) of torture I had to endure to have FUN in a "game."

Sadly, Heroes dont help the new player at all as.. well.... its just PVE on new maps! Unless the new player in question is exceptionally bright and notices the opponent's (if he is lucky enough to play a "real" opponent) strategies etc.

I did not grind fame at all, ever. I never ran any fame farming build, simply played to win halls.
You gotta keep in mind that i was answering the guy that said that "HA would be so much better without those elitists, they don't accept me into their teams".
I am saying that people that grind fame with IWAY are better because they did kill real players, not some random person and his 5 heroes. I don't consider that PvP.
They have been playing for longer and know more about HA. I would rather those fame farmers be considered HAers, not people that got fame with heroway from killing other heroways.

I'm gonna take the high road this time and not say anything about builds people used to play.
3 humans, 3 heroes, 2 of the humans leave = nothing changed, now they just get a fighter hench instead of a mage.

No, I think they're complaining because most pug groups will take heroes over real people, so the only way to get a group is to have a guild team / large friends list.
/agree
Not even Massive MultiplayerORPGs.[/QUOTE]

Personally I would like to see 8 mean teams in HA again. There is no room for a build in 6 man. The more player slots you take away, the more unbalanced/unfair each team becomes over each other. When you get down to 1v1, it doesn't matter who's better, only the skill bars matter. HA will never be 1v1, but you can see where I'm going with this.
As I already pointed out, enforcing 50% human teams will do absolutely nothing. However, it is called Player vs. Player for a reason, and I think henchies/AI should be banned unless you get disconnected. Same for GvG, although henchies in gvg usually means you lose.

Addressing some of the reasons people would want to keep the current HA, if you don't like the LFG grind, post in Sardelac about making a random HA system...like a random-mini HA that doesn't win favor, but is otherwise the same.
If you hate playing with other players, luckily there is a thing called PvE, where you can beat the game without actually talking to another human being.

Sometimes I wonder what HA would be like if there was no fame reward for winning the lower levels. I think JR posted something like that.

Thanks, I'll take the high road too and not say anything about builds some other people used to play... Besides these builds consisted of real players. I can tell you so many people who use to flame me for IWAYing have even said they'd give anything to bring back IWAY instead of heroway, even though they have 100x easier time beating heroway.

I think it actually will make a difference. When 6v6 was around, you just had to get 1 other human to join and leave and you're set. But was AI teams anywhere near as popular as it is now? Definately not. Now anyone can grab some heroes/hench and click the enter button. I remember when 6v6 came around I saw someone spamming in id1 for 10 whole minutes to get one other person to join and leave for his/her hench team. Thats really enough to turn off your average joe heroway, IMO. And the evidence really speaks for itself since when you needed 1 other player, AI teams weren't a problem. Now you don't need any other players can click the enter button in seconds, and the AI teams make up 95%+ of HA teams.



Progor - first off, great post. Definately the best post supporting keeping heroes in that I've seen yet. But the thing is, putting the commander against the marines is really not a fair match up. Theres just so much going on in a battle that its really not possible to expect a heroway to put up a good fight against a team of real players. You could be the best commander in the game for all I care, but the fact is theres really just so much going on that you won't be able to compete fairly. That and while the controls we have over the AI are nice, their still not good enough to make them play as well as another player. Things like hotkeying hero skills would make this betters. So basically I think keep the commanders to fight other commanders (Hero vs Hero) and let the marines fight the marines (HA). Its not a fair match up having marines vs commander. Really the only way I have seen the heroway teams stand a chance against an above average HA team is by running overpowered skills like searing flames and rape as one...

I know I'm a noob when it comes to HA and I don't own Nightfall either and I'm not really saying to remove rank and kick out the experienced. Really I'm just here because of the pain trying to get started. First day, HAing with a couple of friends and I happen to pass by 4 heroway teams and lose to each one I'm just saying there are no way to remove elitism. I'm not trying to say remove rank...

Whenever someone poses to me the elitist issue, I ask them to solve this problem:

Suppose that rank is meaningless. If this is true, then an unranked person should be able to gather unranked people and perform equally as well as the ranked people. As such, there should be no desire to enter ranked groups in the first place.

Suppose that rank is meaningful. If this is true, then why should it be wrong or surprising that the ranked exclude the unranked from teams? As such, there should be no desire to enter ranked groups in the first place.

I have never yet met the anti-elitist who could provide an answer to my dilemma.

With that said, I find it rather amusing that people are still arguing the accessibility claim in the face of (what I believe to be) my crippling rebuttal. I think I've shown that the accessibility argument is fundamentally flawed and should be ignored.

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@Yunas: I think you're giving Progor's analogy too much credit. It's certainly a fantastic analogy with regards to the arious sorts of games that people like to play, but it somewhat misses the important question. Namely, does it and should it apply to GW? I think the answer is clearly not. GW is not a game designed around the idea of commanding forces. That is simply a different sort of game, the RTS or sim genres. GW is a game about team interrelations, or in Progor's terms it's about being a "marine" with your buddies. It may very well be the case that people like the commander aspect too. Hell, I enjoy an RTS myself from time to time. But that's just a separate issue.

I believe that this comment was more of a rhetorical question. In my opinion it states that there is no way of removing Elitist from the game.
Which, in a way is true. Those with higher rank, more experienced, and those who have Heroes.

Higher rank would look down on newcomers and Those who control have Heroes, would only look for those who have Heroes and experience.
I think its just a comment of that the only way for Elitist to be entirely removed is to remove any competitive ranking systems.

So that is where the last question would come in. It would be unfair for those who are already of that statue. Hence, its contradicting his thoughts rendering it meaningless.

To Lord Mendes,

Sorry, but since Akimi is a friend of mines, I would have to say that your opposing arguments are nothing then fighting your own thoughts. The purpose of Akimi's post was nothing but just thoughts and ideas of "what ifs". There was no reason to "smash and bash" on his words.

Interesting fact that my friend, Akimi Akatsuki, and I have found that would put an end to this on-going debate on Heroes in PvP.

Source: http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/synopsis/

The Third Paragraph down.
The Original foundation which this game is build on is stated in the following quote.

It mentions about PvPing and specifically says "Player-versus-Player".

The context means, this game is mainly for player skills and teamwork in PvPing and to not spend as much time PvEing to complete your build/character.

Mainly, it states overall that this game is more a PvPing game. Personal Nightfall Heroes is an idea that contradicts their original foundation. It added an extra E to PvPing, in which that E seems to be out of place. Hence, it should be removed.

*Before any opposing arguments arise that consist of things similar to "Stop whining", "Its part of the game". Heroes were not part of the game in the first place, stated in this argument. Heroes contradict their originally ideas for this game. This is Fact, and if you have no evidence that supports your rebuttal, then it is wise not to say anything at all.

/sign

its PvP not PvPw/AI

please keep it clean and fun.

what more do we have to say?

There's nothing new or surprising about this information. The idea that heroes miss the point of PvP has been brought up several times. I myself went through a significant analysis of it a few pages back. It didn't seem to end the debate then, and I rather doubt it will now. The primary argument of the pro-hero crowd is for accessibility over purity. That is, that it's fine to dilute the nature of the arena if by doing so you make it more available to the general populace.

Please I'm laughing inside, not at you, or your statement, but by the fact that you most obviously missed the "" around certain phrases and most obviously missed the links that are implied by such a statement. Though you are entirely correct none of this makes any sense at all. Though if you do a little digging you might just find why I put those certain phrase in "" and you might just get a little more understanding of my post. It's ok to take it as it is if that is all you are interested in though. This is just a side note. Maybe I should be more obvious in my sarcasm from now on. It was funny when I thought about.

That to me would sound like the most logical explanation for the allowance of heroes and henchmen in PVP arenas, which was in essence the point of my post so very long ago. My assumption would be that explicitly because of the rank exclusion that has occurred in these arena over the past year, would be in effect the partial reason for the above. I think the second half of this problem is escalated by the fact that players have been asking for change in those area, not all but enough to warrant a change to allow new users the opportunity to experience PVP without the henderance of rank exclusion.

Then I am mistaken for phrasing that it would end. But truly, this debate should have ended a while back. If only people did not continue to fuel their side with arguments that include non-sense and their personal greed for rank and fame... If only...

Well, I am firmly against the notion of accessibility over value. I gave a fairly complete argument against it in my first post of the thread, so I won't go over it again here. The conclusion was that something must be valuable first, then accessible, and that heroes reduce the value thus making accessibility irrelevant.

The rank hinderance problem is an artifical one created by the players who feel hindered. That can easily be drawn from my elitism dilemma that I posted above. The "problem" nature is shown to be a direct result of misguided notions on behalf of the lower ranked person. As such, it is not a valid basis for changes to be made.

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The arguments make sense somewhat, they are simply predicated on misguided notions. However these notions do not appear misguided on the face of it, so there is no particular shame in missing this aspect of them. I somewhat further feel that heroes are merely a scapegoat for ranting about the larger problems of the HA arena. In that sense the complaints aren't really about heroes at all in the first place so much as they merely include hereos incidentally.

Well said. Truly I did not view this issue in this kind of perspective. But then again it may have been the constant repetitions of certain arguments that clouded the view of the actual main point.

So are the main points of this debate more-so Elitism, ranking and accessibility issues rather than Heroes?
Thinking in another perspective, I believe that these are the problems before the introduction of Heroes.

But because of the introduction of Heroes, a new issue has surface and it has became a huge issue now, involving AI(E) in PvP.

So in addition to the problem earlier of Elitism, ranking and accessibility, this problem has now grown to be a bigger problem then before.

DIH49, I need some clarification.
If you say that Heroes is a scapegoat for ranting on bigger issues. What issues would that be? and for what side?.
Heroes currently are affecting those who used to be Elitist, ranked and those who do not possess a copy of NightFall. Those people are making all the accusations (That may also include me ). Yet, I do not see a problem, other then Heroes, for those kind of people.

I think that the people arguing against heroes are in fact arguing against heroes specifically as a subset of other HA problems.

I think that the people arguing for heroes are not arguing for heroes so much as they are in general arguing for accessibility.

Of that there can be no question.

For both sides. The experienced players are angry at the devaluing of the system instead of fixing the actual problems. The new players are angry that they have such a trial in entering and becoming part of the HA community.