[Dev Update] Heroes' Ascent Changes Coming

I'm just going to ignore the part about monsters...

Wrong. Implementing a system where ranked teams fight teams of the same rank would cause people to grow weaker, not stronger. If you do not fight truly superb teams, what are you ever going to learn? Also, this would probably break the rank system even further (if possible). If something like this were implemented, nothing below a tiger would have even the smallest semblance of meaning, as the players have most likely not faced all that many competitive teams. The better the team you face, whether you're winning or losing, the more you learn if you're paying attention. Also, a rank system like this would allow more players to get farther, clogging up the HoH map and resulting in long wait times. The most important problem with this though is that the lower rankings would mean NOTHING as they would not have played against real competition.

Okay, I've been reading a lot of the comments people have been putting...And I've got to step in and make all of you realize a couple of things...

1) Skipping/Hall skipping in general is made possible because of the unlikely moment that there is not another team to compete in a match/Hall of Heroes when a team is needed, therefore, Hall Skips will continue to occur and can not be done way with.

2) There are only 3 total altar maps, and altar maps, in my oppinion, make Heroes Ascent more enjoyable considering that anyone can win and in a 1 vs 1 match you could get uberly annialated by your opponent if you have an awesome team build.

3) The skills are relatively balanced. I never have a problem dealing with Searing Flames/Avatar of Grenth Dervishs' (even with test builds). Put a Thumper onto a Grenth every now and then to pressure him/her and problem solved.


4) There are currently 8 stages (not including The Vault) that are all capable of winning on; just play tactically and strategically and if you are the better team then congradulations on your victory. 8 maps is more than enough maps to get a nice win streak and having to create additional maps, I would assume, would take time to produce. But who knows? Maybe aNet will in fact create more stages to play on?


5) Personally I prefer 6v6 because: 1) no more iway, 2) no more insta-wins like blood/ranger spikes. 6v6 is great especially for the new upcomers to the PvP enviornment. Thanks for the change aNet (no sarcasm intended).

6) I am most sincerely sorry for this, but you must understand that "elitism" occurs solely because of the fact that people want high ranked players to insure their wins. My suggestions: start a group of youre own of what the current meta-build is and practice on that build by continuously running it. Guild groups work particularly well because you know you won't have a rage quitter.

7) Not a bad idea, but as I stated in reason "1)", you need groups in order to have matches. If Heroes Ascent was divided by rank then people would have to wait for a very long time just to get into at least 1 match, therefore, making your thoughts/ideas on the matter obsolete. Sorry.




Well, I'm done trying to make some of the issues in this thread make more sense. But now onto what ***I*** would personally love to see:



-I would LOVE to be able to control the Ghostly Hero with a "flag" marker like with heroes/henchman. So many times have I seen our Ghostly Hero get body blocked and "glitched" and our team not able to pull him back becuase he's already in his permanant "entering altar" state.

-Off topic, but yes, I too would love to see Razah much more easier to aquire, hence, I play roughly 55% PvP, 45% PvE; and personally, I do enjoy playing PvE.

-I would also like to see Scarred Earth removed and Burial Mounds put back into the Heroes Ascent arena.

-Another Double Fame weekend sometime in the future would be nice.

-Keep Heroes Ascent 6v6. 6v6 requires more tactics with the limited amount of people in a group, and also, in my oppinion, offer new PvP'ers a chance to get experianced, where as, 8v8 was a total chaotic mess and had lots of people coming in and insta-killing everyone with blood/ranger spikes. Hence, ruining the fun.

-Possibly change "Song of Concentration" to it only being able to block 1 interupt, maybe?

-I'm kind of an ego-maniac, and, when I pug, if there are more people from a different server (for example, I am from the American Server and I occassionally pug with Europeans from the International District) then the person leading the group is changed (for example, from Lena the Saint to John Doe). The name, in this case, is announced as the first person that is from the other server in your group. Maybe if you could, aNet, change it to where the person that is leader is still the name shown in screen it shows who you are versusing no matter how many people are from a different server. (sorry if I confused anyone, but I'm sure people who PvP know what I am talking about, and hopefully, you also know what I am talking about aNet)



Well that's all I have at the moment, so, hopefully my ideas/oppinion/contradictions to people's thoughts made sense and got a point across to whomever is reading this. Thanks, and keep up the great work Gaile/aNet.




*Lena the Saint

they should make it if a lower ranked team (add all members rank together for each team) wins they get a little extra fame for the win. This may help get lower ranked players into higher ranked groups. I feel this would help get new players into HA and also players that left may come back as well. Regardless HA is pretty dead right now and the changes made should focus on getting new player back in and old players that left back in otherwise the changes made will be useless.

THEY NEED TO TAKE THE FAVOR SYSTEM FOR UW/FOW OUT. PVP SHOULD NOT HAVE ANY EFFECT ON PVE. THIS HAS BEEN A COMPLAINT FROM A MAJORITY OF GW PLAYERS. LISTEN UP ANET BECAUSE THIS IS WHY YOU LOSE CUSTOMERS.

Well if they dont change the favor they should put the pve monsters in the mix in halls like that guy suggested, that way the game is balanced and pve players get screwed by favor and pvp players get screwed by something they cant control either. You may have beat the two other teams for halls but to winn the altar heres 20 monsters from DOA

Once again since you are making changes to HA, TAKE OUT THE PVP INFLUENCE ON WHERE PVE PLAYERS CAN GO. 20 MONTHS IS LONG ENOUGH FOR THIS CRAP. THE ONES THAT DONT COMPLAIN ARE THE ONES IT DOESNT EFFECT (PVP PLAYERS)

I definitely agree. I would much rather fight a bunch of people higher ranked than I am and get my ass trashed than to constantly fight people at the same skill level, or below mine because it doesn't force me to be any better. As frustrating as it is to go in and get my ass absolutely handed to me by a rank 9+ group, it's the only way I'm ever going to learn to get better.

actually.. i suggested pve with pvp coz it does makes a difference in terms of excitement... reminds me of diablo 2, when some ppl will pvp in cs. u have to fight wif ppl, while ensuring that u do not die to monsters as well.

to me, its would be like a fresh style of playing.

When i said FoTM doesn't work as well as in pve... trust me. I saw a group of IWAY (rank 6++) trying out the new tomb pve setting. Died within the first few minutes lol. i was laughing all the way. That's was like in jan or something... hmm...

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To: Gimme Money Plzkthx

actually, it does help...
Reason: rank 0 people are with not much exposure *read: experience* with it. its meant to be a form of initiation of what its like, eg. knowing the maps etc.
When u get higher rank, u get more exposure, and definitely more confident in ur style of gaming. i remember when i first pvp in gaming, i was like what the hell?! kinda panicked and jammed all de buttons i can get my hands on lol.

as u get higher ranked, u definitely get the chance to pvp with other ranked people. after all, you don't improve immediately. Rome wasn't built in a day you know?

that's why i suggested it. To enable people to learn slowly.

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To: JonnieBoi05

Ya. i get what you mean lol. It would be like AB all over again. De vaju lol.
I think what they could implement is like a system base matching.

Example:

Rank 0 group priority --> rank 0 (primary match).. in the event it does not find a match.. it will go on to rank 3 (secondary pairing) ... blah blah blah..

At least, this will give people a starting chance.

OMG, kill me please......u know we want 8 man ha back......just do it
,moonie

The current problem with HA is in my opinion the 6 minute instead of 12 minute rule of HoH. Now that there are 6 minutes, you need a constant supply of teams to fight in the Hall of Heroes. However, this means that you play much less games before getting there. That way it's like there's only 3 maps. The golden maps are the best in my opinion (especially the capture the flag. The priest one can die.), and they see the daylight once a day or so.

I think its good that they're recognized that there is bigger problems with HA, rather than just party size.

Quite interested in seeing these temporary skill changes, which may or may not stick around.

-Wilhelm

No, keep the influence there, that is part of the thrill of HA, you are fighting for your region's right to go there.

Taking this out would greatly KILL HA...........

Heres an idea, hire people that actually play the game to balance it.

It would be nice if they stopped putting so much emphasis on the 4 team map. I hate having to fight 2 holding builds that run around trying to make you quit, and then having to enter the 4 player map as the first map everytime you go back in.

For all of the pvpers i've played with this doesn't make any difference what so ever to them, winning favour is only a slight perk at most. However, from what i understand a large number of pve'ers dislike hugely, so I can't really see any reason to keep it, except for the possible economic effects on the game.

lets listen to the people that know pvp

gg



lol, nuff said

When I was playing HA I could care less if I was on an american team or a european team and I dont believe anyone does. People want to be on a team that wins not winning favor.

Ive never seen this Grp 5/6 LF WOH monk must be on american server so that team is american LETS GET FAVOR WOOOOHOOOOO. wasnt like this in 8 man either

Besides that there are many americans that switched servers to european or tiawan and such same with european players doing this

Take the favor influence out but keep the ticker every time halls is won to give recognition to the winners

A way to keep the holding build or any other type of build from being dominant would be to make how you winn halls random.
1) One time it may be the typical altar match as is now
2) Next maybe a relic run
3) 2 teams vs 2 teams match where the winners then fight each other for halls
4) there can also be a scarred earth 4 team type of match but it starts one team vs another then at 1 min into match the next team gets put in and then after another min the team currently holding gets put in all on one room no altar a killl em all type of match

That actually might be a decent idea. If there's no one fixed type of battles, then it's impossible to design a build to specifically exploit that type of fight. It's like how you can only 55 in certain areas- right now, HoH is only one area, but that update would make it several, thus ruining an overspecialized build's chances of success.

Stop sucking, and get a better infuser, and/or learn to pre-prot and interupt

Easy solution don't wait till the ghost dies to put yours on the altar.

B/P is the fotm in pve tombs, while SB monks were a farming fotm until they were nerfed

If they were really a holding build they wouldn't need to run, but I agree scarred eath is the worst map for different reasons, mainly length, and getting ganked.

Lol, rank has been discussed to death, get a guild/friendlits, I giant easy button is unnecessary for you to get fame.

This has been discussed to death, Anet already said the favor system was working as intended. In fact I think it should be made to 25 wins, so I can here even more hilarious whining like this.

Yay, lets take the guild lord and flagstand out of gvg as well, I hate those damn gvg builds!

hmmm, different skill changes? does that mean we could get a Mesmer buff??????????? Really excited about this, maybe i can finally get my fame up (its been sitting at 9 FOREVER)!!!

That part about new builds and such sounds really cool too, ive been getting bored with the same old builds for mes, such as esurge and the like.

I've seen several times where you're fighting a holding build, another holding build will gank, and then the one you were fighting first runs away leaving you to fight the ganking team.

mmmm, i have mixed feelings about 8v8. Quicker group formation is nice with 6v6, but 8v8 would likely create more variety in builds. My only complaint is it's a little too difficult to run a balanced build in HA at the moment, idk if that would necessarily be remedied better by a skill balance or 8v8 switch.

Making Hall of Heroes longer sounds pretty lame, unless it became a sort of environment where the team who hold longest total wins, rather than the team who caps the alter at the end. But that idea even is pretty iffy. I like the current format of the Hall of Heroes atler map.

All i know is that i'm glad ANET has brought attention to this and i'm confident that they'll do a good job. Also, regardless of any current problems with HA a map revamp is always nice.


Oh, and Lena the Saint, your comments about 8v8 and skill balancing are rediculous. Teams can get rolled just as easily in 6v6. Bloodspike is fun and is in no way overpowered. And grenths, sf, sandstorm, etc. could use some tweaking imho.

How would this help lower ranked people into higher ranked groups? People would still rather take a higher ranked person than a lower ranked just so they can win games in the first place. All this'll do is create rank smurfing where people take second accounts into HA to boost the ranks of other people in the group. About the favor influence in uw/fow, anet created those zones intending for it to be tied to pvp (which has been and will always be the main focus of guild wars), so consider it as a privilege, not a right. Funny it's how mainly the people in the English forums (AM or EU) that complain about access to fow/uw and not the people in the Japan or Taiwan servers (who should be the ones complaining since they see favor only once in a blue moon). Be grateful for what you have, and don't be a scrub.

Testing game mechanics... fair enough, but please realize that what goes in 6v6 may not go in 8v8. The majority of people in the polls and threads wanted 8v8 back, please make it happen.

I said it may help people get into higher ranked grps the point of that was if a lower ranked grp beats a higher ranked grp they get more fame for that win as opposed to getting x amount of fame for beating a grp of the same rank. Same thing for higher ranked grps beating a lower ranked grp they get less fame than they would beating a grp of the same rank.

Why is a balanced grp called a balanced grp anyways it does not have a character from each class when it was 8v8 they would have 3 monks so actually they would be a defensive build and the gimmick build that these balanced players always complain about would be offensive. For all you gimmick/iway/fotm haters out there if you are so good the other teams build wont make a difference besides that all you would have is your own little build fighting its duplicate over and over. That sounds pretty lame to me.

Finally, pvp is not the main focus of guild wars and never has been there has always been more pve players (not including pve/pvp players such as myself). Take all the people currently in HA/TA/GVG/Etc and that will not match the numbers of people in explorable areas and towns this could change though due to people leaving the game because issues like this are never addressed. Gaile Grey has said before that the elite mission entrance was a mistake that should be fixed but never was and from the looks of it never will be, this is probably why favor system has never been changed as well. Has there ever been a poll here or another website asking the customers if they want the favor system in place or have it removed if so i never saw it and from the threads concern this topic it is obvious that the gw community would llike it removed? That is how GW should go about making a choice on removing it or not. If thats the way they intended it fine but it still doesnt change the fact that it is not liked by the community.

Since you're fighting your peers, I'd say it would teach you how to beat your peers. Did that? Cool! Move on to the next tier, and your new peers.

All the ranks would have meaning. They would display which tier you were at. It's not like you're being held back from attaining your "Rank 9++" or what not. It's just adding more meaning to the inbetween ranks rather than "inconvenient stepping stones til the Cool 9'er."

Perhaps it would be a way for individual players to:

A) Make progress
B) Learn something (after all, if you win, you're doing something right, until you lose, upon which you've had bad luck or doing something wrong.)
C) Get into parties if they aren't the "beginning" PvP rank of 9 or whatever the trendie rank is now.

Damn dude, you're so totally right! We can't have these n00bs making progress in the game they paid as much for as you did... you like so totally showed me the light.

I'm sure you can use the minute or two more this might add to somehow advance the goal of world peace.

How would it mean anything different than what it does now? The rank shows your current level of experience.

Under this hypothetical update, having a Rank of three would indicate you have triumphed over all tiers 0-2 and are currently working for that Tier 4 rank.

Stop looking at it as "how many R9++ must I beat until I, myself, am a R9++" and start looking at it as "getting to Tier 9."

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Let's look at this from the perspective of a company. More users = more copies of game = more money for ANet, correct?

If you can't get into a team without being of Rank Y, but you can't get Rank Y without first getting into a team.... but first you need to get Rank Y to get into that team... which requires you to have Rank Y.

Does that endless loop look friendly for new players?

Sorry, only felt like quoting a few things, although there was a lot more I would like to quote from multiple posts.

The reason rank would mean less is two-fold. First, if you're playing only people around your rank, chances are you played fewer battles. Second, if someone has only played against someone their rank, they haven't seen as skilled players yet and thus have not learned as much... do I really need to explain this? Less exposure=less experience. If a system was implemented to make rank to obtain3, people simply set my rank requirements higher, making rank worth less. Also, if you knew anything about HA, you'd know that more teams in halls would result in a lot longer wait than a few minutes (3 teams every 6 minutes, if you have say 6 teams reaching their due to teams getting farther from rank set up matches, you do the math). Also, all I ever hear is rank discrimination. For the large part, it is skill discrimination. I know several r3s I regularly play with because they're good, even though I'm a much higher rank. I don't care about rank, I care about skill, it's just that the average person below r6 or so has no clue wtf they're doing, FACT.

K, if PvE is the main focus of Guild Wars, send me an invitation to the next PvE world championship that anet hosts. Thanks.

I'm pretty sure he means progressing through the maps to create the congestion at halls, so how you think 20 min waits in the vault is a good thing really confuses me. Also, getting farther through the maps is not a sign of progress (as you seem to think) but rather beating skilled opponents regardless of the map. This is like saying winning halls after a skip from the zaishen shows you have an equal skill level to a group that won on every map, up to and including halls. Make sense? Nope.

QFT, pretty much sums it up. Didn't bother responding to this in my previous post, thus this post.

will this quote from JEFF STRAIN suffice?

Strange quote, because it goes against every other quote from every other Anet Employee.

Just because most players are playing PvE doesn't mean it's PvE focused, it just means people are:

1) Stupid, dumb or too low skill level to compete in serious gameplay.
2) Wants to relax a bit from serious gameplay/hard day at work.

Marketing discision.
He mostly agrees that Guild Wars is PvP orientated, compared to any other MMORPG/CORPG, but also has PvE elements, like the story lines etc..

PvE is either training or relaxing.

here is the interview read it yourself.

about halfway down the first page


http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12122

I get the feeling that heated arguments about whether GW is PvE- or PvP-focused is going to cause trouble...if we're going to discuss it, please try to keep it level-headed. Don't let this turn into another one of the so many locked threads about HA...

While Prophecies seemed to want to take players from PvE into PvP (see the Ascension missions; they're each a different sort of HA goal. Elona Reach = relic run, Dunes of Despair = altar, and Thirsty River = annihilation), I believe I'm correct in saying that Anet doesn't mind how you play the game. There are PvE'ers and there are PvP'ers, they play the game differently, but it's the same game and from my experience, equal attention has been paid to both.

That said, would it be possible to get back on track about what Gaile has posted? For instance, has anyone noticed that the skill update, which is supposed to be in mid-January, could very well take place just before the weekend of the 19th? If this is the case, it'll be interesting to see the kind of changes made to both HA and the skills, and how they'll affect each other.

EDIT: For the sake of debate:

Does this not imply that Anet wanted people to play PvE, and then once they've beaten the game, move into PvP?

i call total bs on this.

most are doing pve but it is not pve focused?...............good thinking

Most people aren't voting for president, yet isn't the government voting focused?

[QUOTE]very true.

JEFF STRAIN in a follow up interview stated surprise at the great number of people who wanted to continue PVE with their chracters instead of jumping on the PVP bandwagon.

Now, is it not logical to say that the game was designed with a PvP'er majority in mind (assuming those who have completed PvE move into PvP), and that it is the playerbase who are deciding to play PvE more often? Just because the majority of players play PvE doesn't mean the game was designed with the philosophy of that happening; it was the players who made it so.

Let's use an example. Early on, Underworld soloing with Protective Bond was fairly common; it was the predecessor of the 55. Protective Bond was designed with the philosophy that it could be used to greatly and reliably mitigate the damage an ally takes. It was the PLAYERS who turned it into a farming tool, am I right?

Now for a real-world example. Thousands of years ago, writing was developed as a means of record keeping. The PEOPLE turned it into a tool for leisurely communication, although it was not designed as such.

See what I'm getting at? PvE and PvP aren't any better than one another; Guild Wars was designed so that the majority of players would be PvPers but these players decided they would rather continue PvE. This doesn't make the game focused to one or the other either. I think Anet has generally paid ample attention to both PvE and PvP. The fact that they are treating both sides of their game with great care and seriousness leads me to believe that ArenaNet will continue to be a player-oriented company that listens to its customers.

I know I would love to get into HA. Do I know much about it? No. I dont know the maps, I dont know the common builds. Because of this if I can get 1-2 games a day im doing well. So im new, I suck. I can accept that. How do I get better? I practice...but I cant because I dont get enough games and when I do we end up getting destroyed by a much higher rank team.

There isnt an easy way into HA right now, even if say the first two maps in the rotation stopped you playing against anyone more than 3 ranks higher than you that would be great. It wouldnt let just anyone get to halls but it would allow new players to get a few wins, learn the game and get better. In the end I play for fun but when you are in such a situation where you spend no more than 10% of your time ingame actually playing and even then its not exactly a riviting experience.

Now Im sure people will say make some friends get in a good guild, I would love to. I really would. But its just not that simple, there are only a few guilds ive ever seen looking for new players or offering to help. Even then it seems its more to fill up on numbers to make sure if someone leaves they can keep playing. Game time is still very limited and your not exactly learning much by having a bunch of players many ranks higher than you doing all the work. Really I think anything that will let new players get into the game more easily can only help it on the whole.

I agree that the rank system needs to be reworked. I keep trying to play in HA but because of my non-existant rank (PvP wasnt important to me when the game first came out) i cant get into any gorups, im a competant pvper now (from GvG, and other PvP aspects) but it seems that the only groups i can get into are "fun" and "casual" groups who get completely dominated in the first minute of play. I think there needs to be a way to play either "Ranked" or "Unranked" somehow. Or even by making other ways to get fame (liek a "Random Arena meets HA" kind of pvp). If rank was attainable other ways it woudl make HA a bit less elitist, considering rank only means how many matches you've won (or farmed).

This person is wise, and possibly even prescient!

Do not derail this thread on the topic of PvE vs PvP. If you must discuss it, you can make a new thread for the topic and appeal to JR to not axe it.

To anyone who continues to complain about rank, I have one thing to say to you, QQ more.

Honestly this topic has been discussed to death, its irritating when we have people complain and complain without actual making any move to help themselves, get off your ass, and do something about it, no one started off high ranked, so you can and will get fame if you try.

Some suggestions include, start your own groups, and add the people who play well to your friendslist, and invite them to future groups. PM the leaders of low ranked groups i.e. R3+, to let you in, inform them that you know what your doing, and ask to get in. Try to find a guild that plays HA so that you can regularly get a group. More suggestions are in the HA forum.

It requires will and courage - but the result is awesome