Daily Automated GvG Tournament WATCH

So are you suggesting that without a prize gvg is worthless? I love gvg (wish I could play more) but look at it like this, these changes while good are focused towards who? less than 10%? probably less than 2% of GW players in the hardcore gvg community. I won't claim to be in this community at all anymore, but Anet has to pay the bills, so I wouldn't honestly expect them to drop everything they're juggling out of our arc of perception to speed this up. In fact I'm happy they're addressing these issues at all given the direction things have been going.

Edit: I was sounding too harsh so I thought I'd clarify:
So while I get the point, and you are right it's not ideal as far as transitions go, my point is the ladder was meaningless anyways if they weren't going to use it within the old context already.

Troll it up somewhere else...

Making excuses for ANet only perpetuates their lack of responsibility towards their customers. This thread is not about deadlines, it is about a complete lack of information on a project that effects 1000's of guilds and was "promised" seven weeks ago.

I could care less if ANet has had some "problems", it happens and can be damage controlled through working with the customer. Poor conventions shouldnt happen in a quality driven business, but they still do. These problems can be forgiven if ANet takes the time to placate (with free flowing information) a lot of very pissed off people. I CARE that guilds are held hostage by the lack of information they need to prepare for these grand changes.

Bottom line is this...The handling of the future of GvG has been textbook for irresponsible Customer Service and goes against the grain of Parent Company NCsofts philosophy which includes "We are also working hard towards exceeding our customer services standards in-game".

So why not boost this thread with a bit of information?

Like said above the problem is not the delaying of the system, but mostly the "half-implemantation" of it. Like our guild positioned around 300's we get +2 when beating a rank 35 and +2 when beating a rank 2000..that sucks... since the loss is similar...resulting in a system where high up te ladder teams gain relatively much rank, while the lower teams lose much...

A challenge should be rewarded, a noobish act punished...

We can talk about how it should be done, but nobody has anything about that. Problem is indeed to keep the morale in the team. Testing build? yeah right...so much skills will change... A dedicated GvG-core player of my guild said: "even PvE is more interesting now..." while he logs off to his lvl 3 char kicking ass in Elona...

I think you can consider the HA issues off-topic here. Maybe create the gigalionth thread about that?

And again: any information would be desireble on this subject! so Alex, finish your post... and stay on topic pls...

It's basically a question os priorities. I don't really know what they are working on at the moment, but since GvG plays a great part of the PvP community, I believe it should have top priority. At least brings us the old ladder system, it would be much fair compared to the now uncompleted one.

Point made so far: It has been decided that rather then short seasons that reset, we're going to have a long historical ladder. Long historical ladders, ironically, need some "history" before they are actually functional. Right now, it's obiviously a mess, because everyone is around same rating (around 200 rating from each other at best). Given time, good teams will accumulate much, much more, and then the ladder will work as intended, probably even on it's own to some extent. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if that's one of the reasons for holdup - waiting for ladder to become at least marginally meaningful before releasing automated tournaments.

Short version: Now is a startup phase, everything is wacky. Ride will get smoother when it's been going on for a while and warmed up. Patience is a virtue.

As for tourneys, I'd expect some unpredicatble glitches and some general tweaks in the system that anet folks want to fix before releasing the tournament system, so that no one could claim "unfair" when it's released, and has to be adjusted post-release, likely screwing some teams up. Skill balance could come earlier the tourneys if possible though, as this meta is honestly starting to get stale and needs a shakeup.

..............

no comment.

In the almost immortal words of Jim Rome:

Have a take, don't suck.

Fact: it's been 6 months since we've had a chance to qualify for an actual competitive season. Ever since then we've been fed fun season after fun season. The fun seasons got old 3 months ago. Frankly: I don't see any reason why I should still play GvG. The current system is half-arsed, we don't know where it's going to, we're playing on a ladder we don't even know the meaning off. What exactly is supposed to motivate me to play?

For me personally this is the biggest screw-up Anet has ever made. You do not change a working format to half-install another one and delay the next part (and actual info) by two months... What we have now is worse then a fun season, and fun seasons are pretty bad already.

From your OP. They were "promised" 5 weeks ago that around this time they may start around this time. They got delayed. Why? Only ANet employees know. Most likely because of:
a) HA changes and skill rebalances
b) possible upcoming Canthan New Year event
c) Another Xunlai House Tournament sceduled for late Februari

Or, it could also be there are still some flaws in the design, which could allow lower ranked Guilds to suddenly pop up to top 10 on the ladder due to a glitch in the system. You want it done right, or you want it done fast?

Very lame. GfG ANet

People should stop complaining. I highly suggest that you just don't support ANet financially. Don't buy chapter 4 and if people ask you about GW - tell them honestly what you think. They are not going to listen unless you hurt them financially.

Simple as that. Lame PvE wins.

Both. Although fast would not be the word to use, it needs to be done on time. The old ladder system was removed because it was to be replaced by ATs immediately, its probably going to be delayed till March (>2 months). This is pivotal to the competitive aspect of GuildWars, lets say a storyline mission was being worked on and couldn't be completed for 2 months, how happy do you think people would be ?

I'm almost hearing now:

1, March: "Oh I'm sorry, but it will be delayed one more month, instead here's another festival to cheer u up"

Well I do understand that ANet have a lot of stress.

They are thinking of chapter iv and want to attract people to play by dublicating some stupid droprates. Erm ... who cares?

Chapter IV is coming and number III isn't working as it should. Skills are still too strong and the metagame still sucks.

So what? Stop programming on chapter IV for a while. Try to fix those broken things. Give us back the game we loved once and give us a reason to play it. If ANet screw up the tournaments they will lose a lot of players. I'll also stop playing Guild Wars if those tournaments aren't working. Maybe the tournaments and a good balancing can save those game, but I'm not sure.

So, just wait and have some tea? :O

No no no... We need Chapter 4 to keep people interested... and from my understanding, the Chapter 4 developement, or even chapter 5 for that matter doesn't conflict with any other issues in the game as those issues are mostly covered by the main team! this covers PvP, skill balancing, etc!

"May" dosent cut it in a competitive market. The new Tourney system hasnt started, and the GvG community has no new information on a start date, or exact rules, or more specific format, schedules. It's a delay and an ignore!

Change HA, Im all for that. Get the skills balanced, YESTERDAY. I don't care about Canthan New Year, sorry. A tournament in late February would be so piss poor at this point it would be laughable.

But if there're more professions, more skills and so on ... what would happen to pvp? Anyway the day will come that too much broken skills are in the metagame - games won't last longer than 5 minutes at all.
New chapters? Yes.
New professions and loads of new skills? No.

ANet earn their money by selling add-ons and without monthly costs maybe it's impossible to balance skills and work on their pvp concept, but ... I guess that another two new professions will destroy the game. I play this game to play GvG and I don't care about PvE - I play it to get skills.

Please don't destroy this game ANet. - Nothing left to say at the moment.

Ok, quick guild wars chapter lesson

Chapter 4 will not have any skills for Assassin or Ritualist, and like nightfall will have very little for Paragon and Dervish, then introducing the two new professions, and like any major tournaments that happen after the release of chapter 4, only chapter 4 and core skills will be usable in GvG tournaments

What i personally think they need to do is make that skill ban a permanent thing for GvG, and that, until chapter 4 is released, only Nightfall and Core skills should be usable on the ladder at the moment... And before anyone screams at me about it, that still means that Rit's and Sin's are viable in GvG, well, until Chapter 4 is released anyway

oh, and on the note of not caring about PvE, fair enuf, its only 90% of the game and as a Hybrid player, i love both sides... I know that skill balance isn't really an issue in PvE, but please, don't be an elitest in your attitude that PvE doesn't matter as there are still some points in the PvE game that skill balance becomes an issue, Farming, for instance

I find it quite unbelieveable that you managed to pick the post most irrelevant to the OP's point and the majority of questions in this thread and answer that instead.

This thread is about the AT delay , about the huge problems in GvG at the minute that could be solved so easily - please don't tip-toe around the subject and answer HA related questions to make it look like your activley reviewing our concerns...

There's plenty of threads on here already about HA related problems.

Now we know anet are/were following this discussion , please take 5 minutes out your time and address the concerns of your customers.

(AT Delay / Current Ladder / New Ladder = Grind / Skill Balancing ect)

p.s
And for God's Sake , stop saying "Were still looking into 8v8 - 6v6" - what is there to look at ?????? there was a poll that clearly showed a huge majority of the community want it back ... so here's a suggestion , give the community what they want (you know ... those people that support your company financially and pay your wages)

Uhm, I think I'm quite ill-informed oO

I haven't ever heard those things about chapter IV and to be honest I've not been looking for it - so I didn't read any informations about it (you know ANet and informations ... :P).

But I think it's not a good idea that at any major tournaments only core and chapter iv skills will be useable. I don't know if this is only your opinion ... but I guess this is not the right direction. GvG should be balanced all the time and at tournaments there should be a big variation of skills - I know it's hard to balance all the skills, but it would be funier.
But don't you think anyone will play without a dervish in those tournaments - or without any profession which is limited.

A build will maybe look like this: <new profession - chapter iv>, warrior, elementarist, maybe another elementarist/mesmer, mesmer, backline, flagrunner. Because a dervish is useless without the chapter 3 skills and an ritualist will also be useless without the chapter 2 skills.

It's not getting better at all.

btw I see that some people loves PvE so I don't think PvE sucks or something like that - but it doesn't really matter to me, allright?

Actually that information about the tournaments is readily available on the guild wars website...

And you know why I also believe this is the way they are going? because the game is based on the M:TG tournament set up and the tournament plan is being run by the same man that used to run the M:TG tournaments aswell

How the heck does flaming PvE help anyone? Look, until you know what the delay is you got 3 choices apparently, 1: whine about gay a$$ pve ruining pvp (how?) 2: make wild guesses about WHY these fixes are delayed or 3: start coming up with ~constructive~ criticism and ideas for making everything better.

Everyone always wants to rush major updates to solve problem, but very few people ever think about the possibility that simply creating a patch and plopping it down won't cause more problems in the long run. This isn't just about you or 1000's of guilds, its about trying to patch it right so that you don't have to create another thread 2 weeks from now complaining about how much worse things are now that we have been given another patch that in someone's words would be "half-assed". Everyone wants everything yesterday but that is just not how it works, and history can prove that for ya if you want to take a look at it. Sure it was a mistake for them to implement a new system without it being fully developed, but hey wasn't that what everyone wanted yesterday.

So if this is in your opinion not about deadlines then why are we complaining about a past due patch ? You want Specs, you want information, you want to know what is going to change, sure as do we all, but information from what ? Hypothetical changes in an update that is still in R&D, changes that may or may not be completely possible without further research and development. Why would anyone want to know much less need to know what might change, a month, 2 months, before a patch/update/piece of software is even ready to be tested by the general consumer base.

I mean how many threads do we see on a daily basis were someone is complaining about something someone said would change, how often do we point the finger at Gaile or the staff and say you lied to us because someone said something MIGHT change. Why is everyone so concerned with what might be, why can't you just wait and see what really is ?

You might call me a troll sure, but I am fine being a troll if that means I can sit quietly and wait to see what might come, respecting the fact that in Development things fairly often do NOT work out as you plan them on the time lines you plan them. It is not an excuse for a company, it is a fact of the matter, though look at it how you will. Maybe they should just plunk another "half-assed" update down and call it day, seems like it would make some people happy.

If you feel this is flame bait then by all means have your fun responding, but i have said my piece, if you don't want to hear it, far be it from me to stop you from saying what you will. You will however note that NO where in this post did I ever say you didn't have a right to complain or work together to get more information out of the people you seek to get information from.

Rits/Sins are totally NOT viable with just NF skills, they would need some designated core skills then. Paras/Dervs will likely not be viable with just chap 4 skills, although it's possible if they are overpowered enough.

I could see them running a number of tournies with skill limitations like you suggest, but would find it hard to believe they would fully wipe the old skills from the ladder. I believe part of the reason they invest so much into new professions (which = new color in MTG analogy) is because they know they can't easily kick out the old skills and all the obscene combinations that devlop among them, so by sticking your ideas into a new class and making them primary-attribute dependent (as the para/derv mostly are) you cut down on the number of abusive combinations, as opposed to 50 new skills for each core class.

Cut A.Net some slack. TBC just got released and they have to level their toons in order to keep up with the rest!

you seem to have misunderstood me, this is actually their new tournament peoceedure as outlined on the website

Yep, I think you're a troll.

Look, ANet opened those crappy ladder - they said tournaments come and playing this you'll get rating. Allright, so where are the tournaments? Why is it that a lot of bad guilds are in the top100?

I know that it's not easy to patch everything, but then ... don't announce it. "NEW TOURNAMENTS - LADDER WON'T BE THE SAME!" <- in caps, that anyone knows it. ANet should wait until they will have finished their work in a few months and no one is "whining" as lennymon calls it.

Right now, we are waiting for the tournaments and hate GvG. All this is just because ANet announced the things too early. I think that there wouldn't be any complains if they kept the old ladder system.

I see double droprate of green items is more important ... but don't wonder if the PvP players quit.

Fact: Anet broke the ladder system and promised to install something new. Now a month later we hear that the fix to our broken ladder is being delayed by at least a month.

This isn't just about deadlines being delayed. This is about Anet changing a format and when they're halfway through deciding they should spent their resources elsewhere.

Imagine the outrage a similar thing would cause in PvE. Let's say Anet wants to change the loot system. From now on enemies won't drop any loot but instead you'll get your loot through the means of chests at the end of each quest/mission. Fine. A week later Anet uploads the first patch eliminating all loot drops and promises to work the chests in later. PvEers suck it up, mainly because of the anticipation of the promised, improved system. When their deadline is reached the info leaks that Anet is not working on that patch anymore and has relocated their resources elsewhere. PvEers are forced to just continue to play PvE without anymore loot dropping for at least another month. To make it even worse: Anet never had to decency to let the community know. The only reason why the community knows is thanks to one thoughtfull moderator that asked the right question at the community day. If it hadn't been for him everyone would still be waiting for more information.

That is basicly the current state GvG is in. We're playing a meaningless ladder with no actual competition in sight. Why? Because Anet, rightly, wanted to change the format but apparently decided to arse it up halfway through.

I'm all for changes, and I was cheering when I first heard about them but this is one of the most horrible implementations I have EVER seen.

Heh, an intersting and probably mostly accurate comparison. My guess is though anet ran into some 'difficulties' with the auto-tournament and with software in place already perhaps it'd create more work to roll it back than continue to plug away at making it work, I dunno. I agree that rolling back or even a new mini tournament to hold things together while they figure out how to implement the auto thing would be best IF they aren't 'very close' to finalizing.

I'm not finding this info, although there's a fair amount of stuff to ruffle through "on their website." You can't simply take Chapter 2 and 3 Tournies or anything said about them as precedent, since we are going to see a *lot* of Automated ones soon(ish) and the rules will likely be altered in some way.

Also non-core professions being just about useless without their respective chapter skills, is pretty much true regardless of what A-net says.

The information from Dec 22nd was a general scope of the project. It does not include length of tournaments, start dates, start hours, special considerations, map usage, and other important tidbits the GvG community would like to know.

It is difficult to maintain a core roster and the scheduling of GvG's when you know that you may have to extend or shrink the core and change schedules when the Guild Wars meets M: TG.

Think about it in this way:

Joe: Should we recruit or keep our core at 9 players?

Blow: Let's recruit 3 more players so if these tournaments are lengthy we can have enough on to compete.

Joe: What if they are short and sweet and we only really need our regular core? We will have 3-4 people not playing...well unless we play the free ladder...but probably not because it sucks balls and is exhausting after the tourneys take our scheduled time.

Blow: Good point, but then again if we don't have those recruits and one of the core quits we are screwed for 30 days, GfG!!! Plus what if the tourneys start at at time when we have enough on, but people really have to leave before they end.

Joe: Damn, that rule is so F'ing stupid, and who knows when these things will start...I guess just recruit and not play them or play them and have less synergy on the team.

Blow: W/E, I guess we will wait and see, it's been like 7 weeks now and Im sick of it. Im going to play CS until this shit is fixed.

Joe: Yeah this +2/-2 BS is getting so old and I cant even get the guild to decide on recruiting or not, what's a good schedule, what builds to run with overpowered skills, I just give up...guess Ill go to GoA and make more millions.

This is very true!

LOL.. indeed.. very nice visualisation of what is happening in many guilds. People are unsure what to do, should I change to that guild I always liked? or stick here?

I see also the most weirdest builds popping up... lets prepare for tournament grinding... for what? tournament? how, what?

...we just wait...and see how much members a guild have left when this is all normalized again...

Very good analogy!

I wouldn't be surprised if I saw them power leveling their chars in WoW...

I wouldn't be surprised If they are clueless as to why we're all upset....

Here is a little something to remind you that even though the GvG Daily Automated Tournament project might not be AWESOME...we still want SOME NEW INFORMATION!!!



Thanks

Information on the Daily Automated Tournaments has been posted by Gaile in a DEV thread in Riverside.

Lock this baby until April!