[Dev Update] Heroes' Ascent Changes Coming

Hi, there,

Thank you very much for your feedback in response to the recent "Share your thoughts" thread on the matter of changes to Heroes' Ascent. At this time, we'd like to announce that the designers have worked up several potential changes for HA, and we're ready to move them into testing mode. But wait, this isn't your standard "We'll let you know more later" thread. This is a "You can let us know more later" thread, instead.

You see, the first wave of changes will involve swapping out and refreshing the mechanics of Heroes' Ascent. From map revisions to victory conditions, there are a lot of proposed changes to the whole HA system that we think will enliven the whole place, will increase the fun factor, and will encourage the creation and use of more and different builds. We're also looking at testing a significant number of skill changes, after which they'll be rolled back out and then honed for final implementation

We will be holding a weekend of testing, and we invite you to participate. Join us the weekend of January 19 through 21 and test out the changes for yourself. Then, post your thoughts in the fan forums and let us know what you think! You can count on us reading your feedback and considering your input as we move forward.

One note on HA: In order to focus on the changes to mechanics, and in order to avoid shifting too many elements at once (which would make it difficult to assess the success of the individual changes) we are looking at altering game mechanics only during this weekend of testing. While we know that many players feel that HA would be improved through a change in party size, we will not be altering party size for this test. Naturally, we will consider numeric changes at a later date, after the first round involving the change to game mechanics has been tested and appraised.

And now for something completely different! Players have asked about how to acquire their weapon prizes in the Xunlai Tournament House Winterfest Winners Contest. Successful predictors will be happy to know that the Xunlai Tournament Agent will make his return on Thursday, January 11th. You must be sure that your profile is up to date, so check this link and update as needed. In that way, the XTA can give you your hard-earned prizes when you check in with him anytime from Thursday on!

So long as more unranked people get a shot in HA, I'll be happy =)

Huh.

Interesting.

I can't wait to see what you guys have in store =)

Thanks for listenin to the community

WOW

this is exactly the type of thing i was hoping for. For anet to give us an idea of the changes they want to make to the game before they actually make them permanent and to be able to give feedback on what we think about the proposed changes.

Now they go and do one thing better... making us all beta testers in a in-game test of potential changes! WOOOOHOOO

AND OMG... ''encourage the creation and use of more and different builds'' Are my eyes deceiving me or did my HA dreams come closer to reality. Goodbye players who depend on gimmicks and stale metagames for fame... hello innovation... hello balanced builds... helloooooo my tombs friendlist back online.

19th-21st january is going to be a no study zone for me. I cant wait. Someone invent a time machine and bring us all forward to that weekend!

gosh i wonder wtf kind of changes are going to be seen... its such a mystery!

Looking very forward to this!

I hope that involves enviroment effects that are like in RoT.

I hope it involves having a newbie area where R3- degladiate.

Great idea, getting feedback as you go along. This will take some quick work from players and devs.

Sounds like a good plan.

Thank you Gaile, Anet. Although this still doesn't reach my hopes of the return of 8v8, it is nice to see that you guys have made some effort to improve the game play in Heroes Ascent.

I hope to see further changes and look forward to the weekend.

Snype

DOes This Mean 8 man ha? cuz thats all i care about and hopefully they dont remove a good map like they did to burial mounds.

Rank discrimination is just stupid. I agree with Sarevok Thordin on this.

Also, what ever happened to the evil Lord Elvis in the Tomb of the Primeval Kings?...

Did you read the whole thing?

Reading comprehension ftw.

Of course I don't expect you to understand that phrase.

So the simple answer is NO. Not yet anyway.

She is pretty clear in saying THEY AREN'T MAKING IT 8 MAN in this test >_>

This is basically an open testing of future changes (which seem to be Skill Balances, and a Re-working of how HA works in order to try to improve it) , which people have been suggesting to Anet since the game came out.

There was no reason to be so "Cloak and Dagger" about their Alpha program and testing for so long anyway...

Sounds Fantastic for pvp people......


Are pve players ever going to get something like this??

not likely...

What "changes" do PvEers need.

Apart from Razah needing to be made reasonable to get.

But that's about it.

What does "changes to game mechanics" mean?

The changes are still a week away, but could this explain the EXTREME lag that HA has been getting recently???

I lost interest in HA a long time ago from rank descrimination and gimmick builds. If the changes fix those problems, I'll give it a thumbs up.

I shall now pray to God that it is not another lever because the exciting new map changes really disapointed me last time. :-(

that would be awesome....then I would actually be able to get my R3 to get on some teams in HA...(my guild used to do HA before we split into 2 allyed guilds, 1 pve, and 1 GvG, which now serves no purpose, as our "GvG" guild dosent really do GvG anymore...but we also dont have anyone who does HA anymore...)

Thank You Anet. Finally.

Dump those broken old maps. Rebuild new maps with new mechanics that dont exploit hold-way.

Create maps that require balance.

Kill halls skipping.

*crosses fingers*

well, hopefully this will make it better.. but if you dun want to change it back to 8 man so we can have proper balanced teams... perhaps you can create another Arena for 8 man HoH type stuff?

Thanks for the update, hopefully it will keep us happy

erm new chapter every 6 month, new elite mission, new professions, winterdays festival.. etc etc. the last change HA had was removal of a map and the introduction of a lever.

Maybe add double fame with the new Mechanics? A lot of players (Regulars but also newbies to pvp) will be staying the whole weekend there ^^.

Then the event would be a statistically total success and anet would feel completely satisfied with the results!

Anet, thank you for not neglecting us for a change ^_^

Please bring back Burial Mounds

-needs more non-altar maps in HA ... more 1v1 killing
-8v8
-balance skills like grenth sf etc
-more maps for better potential for higher fame streaks without holding hoh over and over


6v6 sucked. i get the impression that anet thought that is was popular cause alot of poeple were playing HA when they started 6v6 ... did anet forget that there was also double fame that weekend? ...silly anet

Please do not implement double fame in this testing weekend. Just like the 6v6 weekend, it will:
- bring a load of people to HA who don't know anything about it, who will then give mindless feedback
- positively skew the majority of the feedback you receive.

I'm trying to look forward to this. Whatever you do, just don't remove a map, and please bring Burial Mounds back (in a new form).

Awesome! HA has been really boring lately, I'm hoping the changes actually make it fun again. I want to finally go get my tiger

Yeah, because they didn't change a whole pvp-area to a nice pve-area, nor did they implement a huge freaking hard area lately...

And who says those people don't have the right to PVP? I am currently at 121 fame but just can't get into the ha pvp spirit because of elitism and the current way it's set up. I don't know what mechanics they are changing for HA but I hope it involves getting the old and new pvp players interested.

People like me (who played some HA, but not alot) can judge if there's an improvement or not. This game was made as a mixture of PVE and PVP. If they wouldn't want players to play across both they would sell it as seperate games without either influencing each other.

I own all 3 campaigns, been playing 1 year and am looking forward to what changes will be made.

I think in order to be fair... they should make something like segreating the ranks, like in gvg... unranked vs unranked.

Example:
Group of 6 / 8 with rank 0 will play with groups that are of their rank... that will encourage them to be pvp more. "Elitism" will no longer be that much of an issue.

If the group consists of differents ranks, they could average out the rank [eg. (rank 9 + 3 + 6)/3 = rank 6) ] .. so the group would be placed in an environment that is within their own league.

--> This would promote players to get stronger, as the competition would be tougher. (instead of those rank 9+ vs those rank 0).

I think this would translate to faster transfer of favor too... hmm... o well... just a rant that anet won't see lol.



Else they could also implement something pve into pvp.
Remember how pvp affects favor, and gets complained by pve?
They could implement a pve environment as the last stage as bonus to get items.

so the last stage would be like monsters + pvp groups inside.

u have to deem priority of whether to kill de monsters hitting u.. or the enemy pvp team that is beside u.

I think FoTM won't work well in here, since its been proven that it doesn't work in pve environment as well.

Yeh id have to agree on not having double fame, i think peoeple interested in HA will play even if theres no fame that weekend.

The skill rebalance and map change sounds good, song of concentration has gotta change before altar maps become as good as they were before, more relic runs and 1v1 and itll be awesome.

aa bad timing, it's my last week of examinations when its testing-weekend

can you change it for me plz

Perhaps we won't have to rely on some shitty ass AI to be victorious over other groups.

I like the idea of playing vs players with the same rank. But why the hell implement monsters in HoH so you can choose to kill a real team or monsters?:S And where did you get the idea that there's no FoTM in PvE? There really are FoTM's in PvE...Why does PvE always think that they do not have any overpowered skills and that all nerfing (except solo farming) is for PvP?

I don't want more NPC's in PvP, a ghostly interupting key skills is enough, maybe even 2 much>.>

Why the hell would I want pve in pvp? If I wanted to kill de monsters hitting me, as you put it I'll go farm minataurs at Elonar Reach.

That's like saying when you're pveing, you are transfered to the Hall of Heroes where you have to cap and win in order to complete the mission.