Ban Heroes from HA and GvG?

/notsigned

People in guilds who are one or two people short deserve a chance to GvG. Casual play is just that.

we've been one or two people short the past 2 days... that's what friends lists are for (or you could go to HA looking for a pug)

we _are_ a casual GvG guild, yet we really can't enjoy playing vs all the heroway (I'd take losing from balanced over winning from heroway anytime)

/signed

If you must know, I am a CASUAL player. And I friggin hate how heros are really ruining the PvP play. Actually, I'd go as far as to say that they are also ruining the PvE play, but that's not for this topic.

Anyways...remember, the topic says no HEROES. Why no heroes? Its because they can fill in certain roles that even the elitest humans could never do as well (not even someone fictional like Kira Yamato). Its just the way the AI was programmed. Now then, I have no problems with unlimited henchies...at least they have medium builds that fill generalized purposes. But come on...leme give an example: Interupters. Tell them to target caster X. Caster X starts casting. Around 1 nanosecond later, Caster X is interupted. With a human, it would take at least .5 of a second to interupt.

And besides, its called Player vs. Player, not Guided Ai vs. Guided Ai (or GAi vs. GAi)

I think the number one advantage of Heroes is they do not disagree with command and follow orders. They would give teams that cannot afford high-end Teamspeak or Ventrillo the opportunity to compete. I have never had more than one other person in my guild. I only take people in who are learning the game, and let them move on when they no longer need my help. Had GvG been maintained like it was in Preview weekend I might have attempted to do battles in support of friends who had their own or belonged to other guilds. Because of the changes requiring so many players per guild, etc. I ceased any interest in it - I was effectively banned because I could not be coerced into either destroying my personal expression and subordinating myself to someone else's guild or trying to run a faction farming mega corporation for the purposes of PvE and PvP/GvG/Alliances. But if heroes put single and small family guilds on equal footing with major competitive zergs that is fine with me. If they actually turn the table in favor of the small guild then it can at this point only be a just compensation.

/not signed

If you lose to heroway, you're doing something wrong.

Maybe you should read the posts on this thread. It's not about losing or beating heroway. It's about heroes being in a Player vs Player environment in which they shouldn't belong.

HoH shouldn't control PvE access to PvE content but it does, and it still does, and PvP has done nothing to change that - while at the same time they have eliminated their dependence on PvE for obtaining their skills. If we are going to talk about what belongs in an environment you can start with severing the control of elite PvP professional players over PvE content access.

But what is amusing is you feel because a player is taking on the complication of micromanaging four heroes/bars with the assistance of artificial intelligence which makes bad decisions on skill chaining that you are being put upon to manage one.

Passage Scrolls ftw.

Passage scrolls are obtained from drops in FoW/UW and therefore do not count as elimination of the tyranny of HoH over PvE content area. One must first have access to those areas to get the drop, meaning they are still randomly subject to the elite PvP player, while the PvP game may be played without ever being concerned for the out come of PvE events. Maybe HoH should only be enterable when PvE players of their region have defeated Glint, Shiro, and Abaddon more than the other regions for that hour of that day. It would amount to the same thing.

When stating things so matter-of-factly, it would first help to be correct.

Ignoring the fact that any player can buy an UW or FoW scroll off of another player anywhere at any time for around 1-1.5k, passage scrolls do, in fact, drop from any boss in hard mode.

I have never seen one drop. But then I do not see any drops from anything that I would consider decent. In three months of play I have not once received a drop that completely meets my interest. And If I have to purchase something from other players, especially given the number of gold sinks that already exist against an economy of crap drops, then I do not now nor will I ever have access to these areas.

But I will stand corrected if you say these mythical objects fall from the sky in hard mode from bosses (which I have killed and frankly hardly see them drop anything except a body part or maybe 105g) then I will accept that this must be true.

All it does is increase the probability that I will continue to see Obsidian Armor and the like as things only for those that e-bay for enough gold to purchase anything they want.

Oh please, so you think that everone with obsidian armor has bought it on ebay? I think you should better quit guild wars... I got about a dozen of scroll drops from bosses. If you want money? Go do elite mission, go farm whatever.

That being said, back ontopic.



.

Heroes ascent and GvG battles are supposed to be the high end pvp part of the game. The fact why people love it so much, is because they have put endless amounts of effort in making their builds perfect, creating new ones, studying tactics. All this has come to a waste because of people wanting easy fame/wins with heroes. If you say you got the same skills of infusing at the right moment like a hero would do, ( well not with infuse but you get the picture of a N/Rt healer ) then I sincerely offer my apologies. But untill then I think heroes are just machines and they dont just fit the picture of pvp. The whole image of pvp is winning from your opponent, because you are the better one and take advantage of its flaws... But when you are facing heroes not even a perfect spike would kill your opponent, because it would be countered by a perfect infuse... And thats the whole point of this discussion, heroes do things that Humans ( the player in pvp ) just can not do.

/signed

In my opinion HA and GvG are just not fun with heros in them. If they were worse at their job then the avarage player it wouldn't be so much a problem, but there are builds they are so much better with then anybody else.

I'm not an elitist, in fact I'm a pvp scrub and do it casually. We've been preparing to do some GvG this weekend, however when we hit observer we discovered to our dismay that we'll probably not be facing teams of players, but imbalanced Olias' with their player pets.

Yes, I suspect that of the majority who have it and have no reason to believe otherwise. Farming for an entire day can raise a whole 5-10k. This is enough to out fit one hero if you are using bonus weapons. The idea that someone has produced all the necessary materials, pluse ecto, plus shards, plus cost to obtain Obsidian Armor while meeting the requirements of all the other gold sinks in the game in bewteen tells me said persons did not honestly come by any game gold.

[/QUOTE]Heroes ascent and GvG battles are supposed to be the high end pvp part of the game. The fact why people love it so much, is because they have put endless amounts of effort in making their builds perfect, creating new ones, studying tactics. All this has come to a waste because of people wanting easy fame/wins with heroes. If you say you got the same skills of infusing at the right moment like a hero would do, ( well not with infuse but you get the picture of a N/Rt healer ) then I sincerely offer my apologies. But untill then I think heroes are just machines and they dont just fit the picture of pvp. The whole image of pvp is winning from your opponent, because you are the better one and take advantage of its flaws... But when you are facing heroes not even a perfect spike would kill your opponent, because it would be countered by a perfect infuse... And thats the whole point of this discussion, heroes do things that Humans ( the player in pvp ) just can not do.[/QUOTE]

Obviously, if you cannot beat game AI, which is the same AI that runs the monsters in PvE, then your build is not perfect. When European players were having trouble with America always having favor the response by PvP players was: tough-$&$#, get better. So, the Europeans got better. Seems to me what your complaining about is an unwillingness to adapt to a new environment.

If you only get 5-10k from a day of farming, then you are doing something wrong... Check out the guru farm forums and stop complaining. I can make about 10-30k an hour easy. Farming has been nerfed blabla, find new ways in making money. And stay ontopic ffs...

So what you are saying is that some mantid monitor has the same AI as olias? I think not! Refusing to adapt? I just demand that pvp becomes PVP again. Is that so bloody hard to understand? As stated above heroes do things humans just simply can't. The fact that europeans got more favor now has got nothing to do with americans unable to adapt, as nearly all good players play in the international disctricts anyway. So even americans can join european guilds. Oh wait, guess what I just realised something... I am from europe, oh then why am I complaining? Well simply because 80% of the people are running heroway and from what I understand is that people want to have fun playing gw, is it not? Well then, why put heroes instead of humans? If people are complaining they can't get a team, why not merge 2 heroway teams into 1 and make a human team with the heroway build? Why? Because that way the build would fail against all decent builds. Simply because the build takes skills that only heroes got (eg perfect healing, using signet of lost souls perfectly, maintaining tainted on everyone ).

get a max of 2 heroes, this way they can jump in if you dont have enough players but you always face more players then npc's this way

/Signed on suggestion removing all Heroes from HA and GvG

Since when the problem has been builds or same skillbars than in PvE? Learn to read the whole topic before making such comments please, as discussion has been about abusing certain features Heroes are able to do, which are considered as impossible for most players. (Such as reapplying Tainted's at split second it's wearing off, putting Death Nova on several minions, knowing which hex is taken off from target etc. (all these mentioned before in this thread).) Counting all these and keeping kiting/positioning/tactics in form without single mistake in counts is imbalanced to have on 4 NPCs (that another team hasn't got) when it's about competitive gaming.

That is off-topic (and might lead to arguing), but to comment it you're writing on wrong matter. Then it was about builds and players own skills versus another players, when it comes to Heroes those opposite players have been replaced by NPCs and it's not as much player versus player as it used to.

If heroes were only add-ons on previous player-teams-of-eight and equal to both teams, then it could be said only to be "a new enviroment" comparable to Archers, Knights, Bodyguards and Guild Lords. But as you can replace players with AI that can be abused, it's not the same.

Let me state my opinion clearly: Heroes need to be banned from HA and GvG.

The arguments made in favor of their presence are laughable. Those of you who want to run heroway are elitists. Elitists who accuse people who want to play with (and against) other humans of elitism.

Behold your elitism. You shun real players because they are too weak for your taste. You shun other players because even though their rank/title suggests they have experience, they have the audacity to expect you to have some too. You shun others because you can't be bothered to make a full team; it takes too much of your precious time. You shun others simply because you can't get along with them. How dare people ask you to show your skillbar!?

Don't make the argument that you are playing for fun either. Fun can be had as Lorekeeper said: run 8 W/E with hamstring+firestorm. Run with henchmen. Go to a smaller arena. No. What you want is to get fame/rank on the ladder. You've heard about heroway winning a lot, observed it maybe... then you got the build off gwshack or wiki and carbon copied it. Not for fun, but so you can win with the absolute minimum amount of effort. An amount of effort that would otherwise not deliver much at all, if you were forced to party with henchmen or -gasp- other players; a route that was consequently rarely taken by the likes of you.

And finally, don't act like people want heroes out just because they are hard to beat. Heroes need to go because playing against bots (and always the exact same bots+bars) is stale. I actually don't expect "casual players" to understand this, but the essence is that the competition between humans is what makes PvP attractive. It's the reason for playing online (ignoring cooperative PvE for a moment), and the reason why I've not been playing single-player games much at all for a long time now: Fighting the computer opponent inevitably gets boring.
Maybe some play examples will illuminate this further. I like to play mesmer. One of the greatest joys of playing that role is to see how an opponent reacts to your interference. Sometimes you will see a caster stand still in frustration for several seconds, after being interrupted several times. Sometimes they will switch to a fast cast weapon set, or will start to cancel spells to lure your interrupts. Some will run far back and use party-wide spells from there. Whether I prevail or whether the opponent manages to overcome the disruption doesn't even matter... the joy is to have this battle of minds. Olias on the other hand doesn't blink when you interrupt him, he just casts the next spell. He doesn't get nervous whether diversion is on him or not. Sure, you can stop him, but it is a dead victory.

/Signed. Heroway can be beaten but why should they get such special treatment in a pvp environment idk.

@ Gods Ap, I understand now. No matter how someone voices an opinion you will be there castigating the "whiners"...Elitism spike in 3...2...1...!

Yeah I know I should, but I really just want these people to understand which they clearly don’t. Ok lets explain all the points raised:

For Heros:

Lack of Friends/Guild members – Yes you can still PUG with non friends/members however, if you have a group of close nit friends who you know and who you get along with really well and you are a few people down when it comes to time to GvG. You currently have a choice you can either: Add some heros who you’ve set up to fill the spot of your missing friends, or you can invite a random person to join, this random person, doesn’t know your play style, this person could be one of the numerous selfish self centred people who Rage Quit at the slightest look of defeat and who call any who doesn’t live up to his Perfection “n00b” I cant count the number of people ive met in game like this and im sure a lot of you cant deny you’ve met people like this. Yes there are still a lot of nice people out there, but you get to know them beforem invite them, you don’t just invite a totally random person to a GvG for example.

I cant find a party – I cant say ive ever really had this problems, maybe once now or again you cant find a PUG while the districts are quiet but generally its pretty easy to get a party. However once you join a Pug you have no idea what sort of people you joining in with.

Its all for Fun – This is one of the most important factors here. PvP is for Fun! Its not designed as a serious life style, the whole point of a game is for fun. Yes everyone finds different things fun. People call HA and GvG “high end” PvP, in a sense they are right, they are the biggest PvP form in the sense of competition and at the higher tiers but they are infact not “high end” Real high End battles are the battles that occur in the Large scale Anet organised tournaments. These are the High End Battles, and I have no issue with heros not being able to be used in such battles. However your bog standard GvG or Ha is not high end. IF 2 low ranked Guild commence battle its not high end. Its 2 groups out to have a battle for fun, with the possibility of gaining some guild ranking. There are ALOT of guilds that battle that never get high on the ladder, or even get on the ladder at all. Anet could perhaps remove heros from battles between high ranked guilds (any guild over 100th place) since they seem to know that the guilds are high ranked (since they end up on the observer mode) but other than that they should not be removed. Each type of PvP is different from the other forms of PVP, each one is unique not just in the number of players but the goals, the rewards, the winning conditions etc. Telling people that don’t want to spend every waking moment studying the current “meta game” that they cant compete in HA is biased and unfair. Such people probally wont get fair in the Tournament, but they have as much right to compete as you do, either you are using heros or not.




Against Heros:

I Suffered, so should you –Yes the world needs more arguments like this, ok I suffered x, because of that Everyone else should suffer x. Ok lets take this to a extreme example (this is not meant as a offence to anyone) You don’t hear people who have lost a parent while young saying “ I lost my Parent and suffered you should too”. Lots of people lose their parents while young, that doesn’t mean everyone has to suffer. Its part of the random chance of life, some people suffer somethings, others don’t.

Heros are too hard to beat – Nothing in this game is too hard to beat, well except maybe Mallynx but that’s PvE, but where talking PvP here. The whole point of having the huge selection of skills in the game is that there is no Super skill set, it’s A defeats B defeats C ….. Having problems with the MM with tainted Flesh etc. disable the skill (Diversion), Steal his minions(Veratas Aura) Use the Enchants against them (Desecrate Enchantment) etc. etc. Like any other player build you learn to adapt, if you cant adapt then your clearly not as good at PvP as you think you are. Heroes have rapid reflexes are awareness, sure ok you cant deny that, however that aside they are incredibly stupid. How do you beat humans? you take advantage of there IQ flaws or build. How do you beat Heros? You take advantage of there IQ flaws or builds, its no different

Heroes are too easy to beat –If there so easy, its an easy win for you, and onto the next battle, theres no real issue here, its just the same as defeating a group who are doing there first attempt at HA.

It should be Player Vs Player – Ok lets see : Guild Lord is AI, Bodyguards are AI, Ghostly Heros are AI, Ghostly Priests are AI, Base Defenders are AI, Minions are AI, need I really go on? There is NO pure PvP in GW with the exception of the event games. It has always been this way, nothing has suddenly changed with the addition of Heroes. If you want Pure PvP, simply your in the wrong game. Some argue the “environmental” NPCS don’t count, but really your just trying to ignore them because you know your contradicting yourself otherwise wanting Heroes removed for not being players and not wanting the “environmental” NPCs removed.

PvP is serious – (see its all for fun)

How did you make those other friends in the first place? You dont enter Guild Wars with 5 or 6 people on your friends list do you? You had to have met some at some stage and considering you want to GvG i really dont see the harm or difficulty in finding an extra 2 people to fill out the rest of your team. If indeed the ONLY alternatives you have are to either take Heroes or a completely random pug then i would say fine... take a hero or 2.

But i support a limit of 2 heroes in PvP. What i dont support is that you can have a team where 50% is made up of heroes. That is the build that we are currently concerned with. It has 4 human players and 4 heroes. The build would be extremely less effective if they only used 2 heroes. You dont seem to understand the precise nature of the problem here. People are concerned about Heroes when they are being exploited to carry a bunch of mediocre players into competition against a team of 8 human players of much higher calibre.

making a coordinated well knit party of 8 human players is not meant to be done in a split second. The same goes for real life in any sort of group situation... whether its at work... at home... with friends... the first time you start working you dont know yoru colleagues, you cant operate as a fully working team straight away, it takes time to get to know eachother. This is a basic fact of human interaction, we are not robots, we are all individuals and we need to learn to play to eachothers strenghts and weaknesses. If we were all the same, like robots are, this period of learning and adaptation would be unnecessary.

how can you expect to enter HA and be able to be competitive without making some effort to get to know the people around you? Its completely unreasonable an expectation. If you want to have a game mode where there is a minimal requirement to interact with your teammates go play in alliance battles or random arenas... HA is about organised pvp its not random arenas with 8 people instead of 4.


in response to a previous post of yours i asked you this very telling question that deals with the assertion that these people only use heroes because its fun.

If the current heroway build was not so effective would it be so widespread? If all these players running heroway only cared about having fun would they still run heroway builds if they lost all the time?

When you answer that question you will have understood the problem fully.






irrelevant, noone has used this argument to prove that heroes should not be in PvP. Dont pretend to understand the arguments against heroway because the ones you are presenting are NOT the ones that are being used by others. What has anything got to do with suffering? Are you delusional?

Dont you see the irony of your argument? If i wanted to play a game where i could exploit the pattern of AI i would buy a single player pve game. I would go pve in guildwars because pve in guild wars is full of just the thing you are talking about... AI that has flaws and behavioural patterns that can be exploited.

But the reason why people enjoy and want to play PvP is that you face human opponents who are not exploitable in this way. Human players are unpredicatable and every team of humans you face is going to be a fresh challenge, this is what makes PvP fun for PvPers. You never know what you might face next, you never know how your opponent will react, and so you must learn to adapt every single game depending on how your opponents acts.

If we want to fight an AI bot who behaves the same way in every situation we would play PvE all the time. Thats what differentiates PvE and PvP. The nature of your opponent. Is this really hard to understand?

The problem is... there are so many heroways in HA and GvG that its no longer a place where you are challenged by the unpredictability of a human opponent anymore.

You face 4 hero AI bots so many times, its like fighting against PvE monsters. This isnt wat people PvP for. They are so predictable, they all behave the same. Olias in team A will react exactly the same as Olias in team B, and team C, and D. Where is the variety? Where is the challenge? Where is the level of human interaction and competition that sets PvP apart from PvE?

there is an issue here with easy victories against the same opponent over and over again. Thats what you get in PvE, its what makes PvE appealing to PvE'ers, they face predictable opponents with predictable behaviours and skill use patterns so that they know exactly what to expect and exactly how to win before they even enter the PvE area. Beating 1 mob of PvE monsters is more or less the same as beating every other mob of PvE monters, and you certainly do not get a huge level of satisfaction from defeating PvE monsters who attack through spiteful spirit or do not kite from Searing flames. You really dont seem to understand the qualitative difference between PvE and PvP if you honestly believe that PvPers should be happy with easy victories against the same opponents over and over again.

when you face a team of human beings and you beat them, you gain much more satisfaction knowing that you had potentially beaten players who had some brains. Theyre not just going to ball up in your AoE spells, or stand there while you bash them with your hammer. Theyre not going to attack through spiteful spirit forever and kill themselves. Thats the added satisfaction of fighting against human players, you actually fight against equals, you actually have to outsmart them. And the best thing is, not one set of human players is exactly the same as the next set of human players. So you get variety, a fresh challenge almost every time you enter battle.

I dont care if if i can beat heroway with 4 heroes easily or not, i dont improve as a player by doing so, i get no practice at playing a mesmer in doing so, i get no satisfaction knowing that i beat AI that is exploitable and that has predictable behaviours and skill use patterns. Getting an easy win and easy fame is not what PvP is about.

if all you are interested in is farming fame for a title regardless of the value of the title you are not keeping in faith with the proper of PvP, rather you have succumbed to the title whoring gimmick that Anet has introduced to the game in abundance.

at the end of the day i gain much more satisfaction and enjoyment from fighting against a human opponent. And that is why we PvP.

You cannot draw parallels with NPCs that form part of the environment and Heroes that form part of the party themselves.

You have no control over the NPCs in GvG. You cannot control their skill bars. And in all honesty, you can avoid fighting near the NPCs at VoD if it was disadvantageous for you to do so. GvG is a fluid adaptive game, if an aspect of the battle is bad for you, you have options to avoid those aspect.

NPCs like ghostly priests and ghostly heroes have a minimal impact on the course of a HA battle. On the rare occasion a ghostly priest ressing an entire team could turn the tide of a battle. On the rare occasion a lucky Dshot from the ghostly hero could disable LoD and cause a full team wipe.

but these are environmental factors that almost all HA players and GvG players have learnt to live with. They can live with them because they have very little comprehensive impact on the course of battle as long as the fight remains 8 players versus 8 players.

You argue that we are contradicting ourselves when we advocate the removal of Heroes but not the environmental NPCs.

they are not the same!

seriously please just answer me this question.

if heroes were not as effective at running the curse necro bar, the death necro bar, the necro/rit healer bars would heroway be so much of an issue?

you have GOT to understand that people would NOT be running these heroes if they werent so good at these specific roles.

because they are so good at these roles, 4 human player can take 4 hero necros and run a high pressure build without actually being good at the game.

if the heroes werent so good i assure you that these human players wouldnt bother with heroes because heroes cant run any other bar to the same effectiveness.

dont get me wrong, people are trying. Ive seen a fair share of hero elementalist teams who bring large number of Savannah Heat elementalists and just Nuke the whole area with AoE and water snares. Why dont you see this everywhere? Because heroes arent good at targetting with AoE, they need to follow targets which means the human player in charge actually needs to know what he is doing and cannot just let his heroes go on autopilot.

for some reason the heroway build with the death necro and the curse necro by and large plays itself with very little to no micromanagement needed by the human players apart from the odd correction in positioning every now and then.

please dont equate footmen, archers, bodyguards to to Heroes; its a ridiculous position to take. For all the above reasons.

i urge you to actually read through this thread for a change and evaluate the points you keep making. If you bothered to read anything being said here you would have realised that several posters have already addressed your concerns. Repeating them tirelessly in the face of reason is a sign of immaturity.

if you want to engage in a discussion you should be prepared to do so on equal terms with others. Dont ignore what people say just because they disagree with you, thats the sort of thing 8 year olds do when they argue with their siblings.

If you haven't got enough players, you shouldn't go for "competitive" GvG either. If just looking for laughs with friends (going pve builds/"funbuilds" etc.) or wanting to go GvG for some other weird reason, there are always Henchmen.

Most heroes there just work as overbuffed henchmen made to win games for players which henchmen doesn't support and that shouldn't be the case.

That is why "Lack of Friends/Guild members" isn't a valid reason. There are already henchmen for the "casual GvG".

*Can't find a party for HA? That is a ridiculous comment considering International Districts. If you are too low ranked, there are plenty other posts which have advices for such players...not going to repeat those.

As this topic is about removing Heroes from high-end-pvp, what sort of people are you really looking for? PUG=Pick Up Group=Named as pug for a reason, you can pick up players to it but cannot know exactly what sort of they are (but you can get new friends there).

Again...build up your own contacts if you want more serious HAing.

Heroes are a bad excuse for not willing to do so and again for "very casual or fun HAing" there are Henchmen.

For them, there are the henchmen if the guild isn't willing to get 8 members for GvGs. They do have elites and other skills+AI, but they aren't made for higher rating GvGs.

And how are you going to get that happen when it's possible to end up r1-99 versus r100-? Implementing it would be impossible due to random opponents and also simply bad restricting some guilds to play with heroes while allowing others play hero-free.

Fixing the important sentence..."spending every waking moment studying the current metagame so that they can improve in HA is called as competition." You can compete in HA if you just get 8 of your friends there, or for the "very casual or fun pvp", henchmen.

Again...noone is giving you the expirience in this competitive pvp game instantly.

That isn't a valid reason to support either "for" or "against" and I'd say it's just a point of view from PvEr who doesn't really know what happens there when top guilds are losing much ratings for players abusing heroes. Though it gives more enthusiasm to mention the problems on forums like this if your guild has just lost to a heroway.

In that case you're forgetting 2 things.

1. Things in practice are far more complicated to put on theory than way you mentioned.
2. This game is not meant "player versus heroes" so making an anti-build for heroes would not come as possibility.

Neighter there is reason to keep them for possible future abuses (or taking to any serious level GvG), there are Henchmen.

Somehow I didn't get the message there...All NPCs you previously mentioned are equal to both teams (minions by the fact that you need to have a necromancer in your team with Animating skill). Instead Heroes replace members of party making it imbalanced by allowing over-buffed NPCs that are better than most players when put right in skillbars.

P.S. And the most important thing that also has been mentioned before:

Many players have bought Guild Wars to play the competitive Player-versus-Player gaming against others since the release of GW:Proph. Heroes turn it partially to Player-versus-Enviroment (NPCs) by replacing players with NPCs and that's not how it was supposed to be.

/signed

Think this pretty much sums up my opinion.

Yes because the builds on henchmen are super effective /end sarcasm. The whole reason behind heroes is because henchmen lack decent skill sets. The reason no one minds henchmen being in HA,GvG is because there an easy kill for the other team, infact id go as far as to say there no threat what so ever. Heroes who are exactly the same AI but with a different skill set that is as customisable as any players are as much a threat as a person, people don’t like losing, so they have people are limited to henchies so they have a greater chance of losing.

If you actually read what I put I said I too never had a problem of this, but this comment has been mentioned numerous times. The majority of responding posts are like Gods Apprentice, as in “we suffered, so should you”, you do occasionally get the odd person who makes an offer to help, which turns out to be an offer only for “hardcore” people committing to follow the ways of PvP only.


There you go again more “Serious” HAing, proving my point PvPers considering PvP serious business rather than fun. Anyone who does considering PvP fun is considered a fool and should go PVE and never return.

Have you actually ever tried to start a new friendly all around guild? (does PvP and PvE) It’s a hell of a lot harder than you think. We have a long standing guild that has existed since the early days of GW. We don’t want to give it up. We have on many occasions gone on recruiting sprees. However players either turn out to leave for no good reason, go totally inactive the day after joining, or turn out to be the type of person you would rather not have hanging around calling other members names.

Yes it is harder in practise than theory and yes I have mentioned it before. However that where the skill comes into play, you adapt, just as you have to adapt after every big skill update with the changing “meta game” Its more often than not has nothing to do with difficulty, its comes from a dislike of having to change your build. Rather than chance yours, You’d rather they were forced to change theirs so you can beat them easier.

In which case as ive pointed out several times so far this threat, then theve bought the wrong game, since there is no pure PvP in Gw except for the special event games. The NPCS I mentioned are indeed equal (generally although not all) however so are heros, they done have Heroes ontop of players they have then instead of Players. Having a Hero is no different than a ranger bringing a Pet. With the exception a Pet adds to the party total, Heroes cant allow you to exceed the party limit. Lets remove Pets and minions and all NPCS from PvP shall we? That’s the only way your going to get this Pure PvP.

Theres lots of ways to meet friends, friends come in lots of different sorts, for example have you ever heard of real life friends? You don’t have to meet people the instant you want to battle. HA once allowed 5/6 of the party to be NPCS, yup I agree that was too much. Having 4/8 Max NPCs is a lot more fair, since there must be 4 human Players minimum. Finding 4 friends free is easy, finding anything above it gets considerably harder.

Maybe it should be, no Heroes (so ur happy) no eliteism (so newbies are happy) there you go problem solved. No one side then has any advantage except there choice of skills and there individual playing skills. Ofc no ones wants that to happen, myself including, HA is about fun organised PvP its not about having a supreme build to kick other players to win a £100,000 tournament.

IF you know for certain that you had NO chance in winning HA you wouldn’t enter if you had heroes or not.

Actually there is, read post no. 14 by God Apprentice and some of the others and such like and ull see this was mentioned as it has many other times before.

Actually humans are very predictable 99% of the time, they respond to a set of circumstances. There is little difference between a computer following its programming and a Person following what he/she has been taught to do. Ai has flaws and patterns, humans have flaws and patterns, in that regard there is no difference. Face Olias 6 times with the same build (him that is) and its no different from facing a person who uses the same build 6 times. The only difference between the matches with be the external factors upon them.


You’ve clearly not tried much HM, its a lot more satisfying defeating clever opponents weather they are human or not. Why do all the people go against Mallynx in HM? Because it feels great to beat him because everything is stack against you for a greater challenge. Generally people PvP because those battles are harder than the standard AI and because there is some human interaction, Yes even in a 4 man 4 hero party there are 4 humans who can talk and such like.

Yes they would still be running heroes, they would just be using another build. If you have 1 member of your party who you know is the best monk you have, what are you going to do? Make him the Warrior in the party? I don’t think so. You play to the strengths of your party members weather their human or AI. If a party member is good at something you make them do that whenever possible. If another member is great at flag running, you make them the designated flag runner (something Heroes cant do and so you would never make them fill this role.

Prob is...you're mostly pve based. Anyway bored to discussion already, but had to quote one thing...

Never seen 7/8 henchway? I've lots of expirience of HA with randomway/henchway/mix of both...and almost always it has been some fun.

So yes...you would enter and that's the "playing for fun" part, not "desperately getting a bambi or next emote by herowaying" part...

This is basically admitting you are way too lazy and cant be bothered to make 7 friends in order to form a 8 man team. If you can find 4 friends i dont see why you cant go that extra bit further to find 3 more. Its not considerably harder.

And theres a solution outside your own guild. If you have a small guild that likes to PvP on occasion but being small you find it hard to form an 8 man team. Go find an alliance with guilds that go play HA, or find an alliance with guilds similiar to yours. Or is that considerably hard too? There are solutions to all of your problems but you seem too lazy to seek them out.

Once again, if you bothered to read my post (you really arent doing yourself any favours) you would know that i support a 2 hero limit in PvP like HA and GvG. Elitism is a pointless discussion which has no place here we are discussing heroes. Like you said HA is about fun organised PvP yet you seem to ignore all attempts by PvPers to explain that fighting AI is not fun and not what PvP is about.
This is exactly your problem and the symptom of the expectation that success in HA is your god given right, or something you are born with.

When i started PvPing i knew for certain i had NO chance getting to HoH and winning favour for my region because i knew nothing about PvP. I didnt have all that experience, i could only play my PvE elementalist. So by your reasoning i should probably have given up even trying. But you see, this is the difference between the attitude of someone who is actually interested in becoming good at something as opposed to someone who doesnt care about being good at something and just wants success for free.

like anything in life you are inexperienced at, be it sports, a game, relationships, practice makes perfect. I had no chance of winning HoH but the longer i kept trying, the more i tried to play with different people, the more i unlocked more skills, the better i became. The more versatile i became as a player, being able to play multiple professions, allowed me to enter more teams, i grinded each bit of fame until i reached rank 3 and then i could have a bit more choice in the teams i could join. Its the same process you go through in real life, perserverance gets you places. Practice makes perfect. You cant expect to get everything right the first try.

really, that part of your post sums you up so nicely.

Im afraid you will be disappointed if you believe humans to be 99% predictable. But real life analogies aside lets anaylse your suggestion that human players in GW are as predictable as Heroes. Whats even worse is that you suggest that a human player running the same build 6 times in a row is the same as facing Olias 6 times in a row.

ok first things first. Are PvP players predictable? Id love to fight against you one day in a pvp arena, ill take 8 skills and ill tell you what those skills are and you have to predict to the accuracy of 99% what skills i will use and when. Do you see the absurdity of the position you suggested?

What about the suggestion that an AI robot following its programming rules is the same as a human being following the way he/she has been taught to play?

What planet do you live on where humans do not adapt? In some countries people have learnt to look right first when crossing the road because thats where the cars approach from as you step onto the road. In other countries people look left because the cars approach from the other direction. Are you telling me that because you grew up lets say America... the second you step foot in Europe you are going to die when you cross the road?

there is something wonderful that humans do called adaptation, its a skill where we are able to realise that we cannot approach all situations in the same way and we might have to change our attitude or approach depending on the circumstances.

on top of that human beings learn. We make a mistake and if we are clever enough, we do not repeat that mistake again.

All of these qualities of human beings set them apart from Artificial intelligence. AI cannot adapt outside its own programming behaviour and rules, AI does not learn from mistakes but is doomed to repeat them over and over again.

This is why if i play olias 6 times in a row... i face the same opponent 6 times in a row. Olias doesnt learn from the mistakes he made against me in previous battles. He doesnt remember even facing me before. He casts through diversion without fail. No matter how many times you face Olias he never learns.

However, if i face a human player using tainted flesh, the first time i face him he might cast through diversion. The second time we face him, he will remember me and my mesmer, and he will remember what he did wrong the previous fight, and this time if i cast diversion on him he might not cast through it.

This is what makes PvP against humans the challenge it should be. Opponents who adapt, who are always improving, who are unpredictable. That is fun. Knowing that this human player has improved so that its not so easy to divert his tainted flesh is good for him and its fun for me because i have to think of another way of shutting him down.

I know enough about HM since i have guardian of tyria thank you very much. i know enough about HM to know that i got sick of it. The idea behind HM was to make the game more challenging for PvErs, but the way they made the game harder was to make monsters do more dmg, cast faster, have their skills recharge faster. This isnt what i call a challenging opponent. The methods of success in HM are just the same as the methods of success in normal mode, only you actually have to have good monks in HM now. People still use Spiteful Spirit, Searing flames, barrage, obsidian flesh tanks to tank stupid AI.

Dont quote HM as an example of defeating clever opponents the suggestion is comical to say the least.

Mallyx is perhaps the ONLY example of a challenge, but why? Because the skills and the enemies you face when you fight him are extremely overpowered. No wonder Anet had to introduce all those IMBA pve only skills, because PvEers were starting to struggle to defeat AI which you so confidently claim to be so easy to defeat.

You come here and tell us that AI is so extremely easy to defeat then you tell me that you get satisfaction from defeating enemies in HM because they are clever?

Do you have any idea what a contradiction is?

Do you honestly believe that the AI in HM is clever? Go start a thread making that suggestion in the general forums... no really go do it if.

The ridicule you will receive would be astonishing. Monsters that attack 50% faster... with 50% faster casting speed... 50% faster recharging skills. Is that your idea of a clever opponent?

The AI in HM was boosted in this way because making the AI truly smart and adaptable against a human player is something no computer or robot scientist has ever been able to do. Even programming AI to play chess against a human player requires a substantial amount of time to do and even then has great limitations. It would take Anet years to program the AI in GW to truly be 'smart'.

You feel good beating the AI in Hard Mode because they have been boosted to extreme levels of power in terms of dmg and dps. Of course you feel good defeating them. But to suggest that you have defeated a clever opponent is ridiculous.
Why do you think not 1 human player in ANY heroway team plays the role of necro? Because those are the roles that require the most skill. Heroes do a great job of these roles because they are far superior to your average human at playing those skill bars.

These players running heroway builds are BAD players. They cant and dont want to bother actually trying to learn how to play the game. They display the same attitude as you did in your post. Why bother playing if you cant be successful.

So they run heroway because it allows mediocre players to run a successful pressure build.

I promise you, if heroes werent so good at running a death necro bar or a curse necro bar or a necro/rit healer bar heroway would not be the problem it is today.

And to suggest that they would just run another build is wrong. Heroes cannot run many bars at the level of a human player. They fail at monk bars... they fail at melee bars... they fail at mesmer bars... they fail at AoE bars because they need to be given a target... they fail at trapper bars... they fail at ranger bars...

In PvE what bars do you give your heroes the most? Searing flames? Spiteful spirit? Minion master? Tainted flesh?

OH what a coincidence that the most popular hero bars in PvE are the same bars that they use in heroway builds in HA.

i challenge you to come up with another Heroway build using 4 heroes that is as effective as the current build.

go on.. suprise me

/signed a million times over, in the past few days we have faced this build at least like 5 times. Its terrible in every way you have described it.

OBVIOUSLY people dont use it just because they dont have a player that fits the role, because its the same damn heroes as the same damn professions every time. Heroes should be in HB and PVE where they damn well belong. If you REALLY NEED someone to fill in, use the henchies in your hall.

Keep heroway as a viable option please...i want my rank 12...

Why bother taking the time to get 8 people and get gayed on kill count over and over again? Why take the time to get to halls and get gayed in halls because noob teams don't know the objectives?

Heroway fame farm > real groups.

Tombs has been broken forever anyway...why fix it now?

BTW Dragon Lorekeeper, you said something about smearing the lines between the pvp types...its anet who is smearing the lines...capture points, kill count and relic runs = skills? I thought i was ABing for a while.

One last note:

Olias how2beet?

/notsigned

I might not have done GvG or HA in a while, but I do know that this game is about choice. Arena Net has stressed, over and over that they want, as much as possible, to give all of their players choices. For that reason, your suggestion will never become reality.

In case you haven't noticed, much of the community, is filled with arrogant, ignorant, morons. Every time you invite a random person to your group, you take the risk that they are going to be one of those morons. I've hardly gone a day in Guild Wars without seeing at least one person who I could tell was one of those undesirables. Frankly, that's the main reason I've always preferred to use Henchmen.

As has been said before, PvP in Guild Wars has always had some form of intervention from a non-human.

In fact, there is no such thing as PvP in it's true sense in any game. Real PvP would require people to interact with other people, directly, without a computer in-between.

So you want real PvP? Go outside and play Rugby.

Let's get something straight. I've been playing HA for quite a long time, seen the shift in the meta like others, HA during the era of IWAY and Bloodspike was a million times more fun than it is now. As for elitism I'm not an elitist. You can ask people I play with. I'm not like some people I know who rage if you don't prot someone "effectively". The reason my opinions come across harsh is I am tired of the garbage that Heroes Ascent has become, and how people who probably have not played over a period of time are defending Heroway. Heroes are not meant to be in a Player versus Player enviroment. There is a whole seperate area for them. If they were meant for it, why were they removed from Alliance Battles?

Before you bring up the Ghostly, Bodyguards, Archers, Knights, Guild Lord etc, keep in mind you cannot control them, they tie into objectives of those maps(defense for Lord/Killing Lord/Capping altar). Also they do not have customisable skill bars. Heroes do, and the skill bars they are given are simple, but can be run by them perfectly. Humans don't have the reaction time they do.

Your opinion is just that. An opinion. However reading through a lot of the posts in this thread, the majority are of the opinion that Heroes should be banned from HA and GvG.

Whine spike in 3,2,1?

Because you could have 4 people as well as 4 heroes, effectively making Alliance Battles 24 vs 24. The servers were never intended to hold that many combatants.

And frankly, it's much easier to get 4 people than it is to get 8 (especially in the HA outpost).

The elitism starts at GW who determines to break players who purchased the game into castes which they will treat separately and unequally. It does not begin with those who having been segregated because of age (affecting hand-ey coordination and speed), disability, personallity type (introvert vs extrovert), or time available to play as a professional elite contestant into the "you cannot be a part of" X group. I personally do not enjoy the braggarts, name-callers, verbal sexual assaulters, etc. which I have observed in PvP. Therefore I only go when I need to open a skill for a PvE character. Would fame and another option for an emote be fun, certainly. Do I give a ratz that I do not have them? No. Just as I do not show the titles I have earned in PvE play. I dont give a damn what you know or do not know about my character stories and achievements as they are for me and my entertainment not yours.

However, if after you have supported measure aimed at exclusion of those different form yourselves you suddenly find they will take advantage of an option to get their own entertainment needs met then too bad. It should not be changed simply because the bad behavior, exclusionary practices, and elitism of those in PvP have earned it. I have no sympathy for any of you who don't like it because every PvE monster is capable of perfect use of the selected skills. Further, they ahve fewer skills and so can focus on them faster. Their reduced options increases their output in and focus upon those perfect interuptions, perfect spikes, perfect coverages of their "party" with healing, etc.

But instead of attempting to increase the options of play for those who are excluded from your elite little clubs and emotes, you instead want them banned so that you may maintain your elitism. If you really gave a ratz about your fellow players you would look for ways to include them in the rewards when they do not want to party in your crowd. So, again I have no sympathy for nor support for banning players from HoH, HA, etc. simply because they found a way to play without having to deal with jerks.

I'm not much of a HAer, and i know a lot of people are morons, but how about do HA with a guild, how hard is it to find a guild of non-retards? Seriously, I never see anyone use heroes to fill roles because theres a person absent, its always the same role. Nobody actually uses them for their intended use, instead its for exploiting the AI.

Oh and "Keep heroway as a viable option please...i want my rank 12..." That better be sarcasm, otherwise screw off please. "LOL LOOKIT MY RANK 12"
/RANK
/RANK
/RANK
/RANK
/RANK
*CUM*

I've never had trouble getting 8 people, even when I was unranked.

So easy=lazy.

There were posts earlier in the thread by people in guilds. Those people stated that they would, on occasion, end up being a few people short.

My own guild is hardly very active, it's a very casual guild. We're lucky to have more than 6 people on at one time, and even then, most of them are only able to be on for a short period of time. But when we get together, it's to have fun. I would hate for that fun to be ruined just because we only have 7 people online.

Heroes are (apparently) used largely by casual players, who can't be arsed to be in game all the time. However, these people also take enjoyment out of the HA aspect of the game. They need the heroes in order to help support their gaming style.

Not wanting to spend over an hour just to get a party together is lazy now?

Seeing as that has been the way pugs have formed since Tombs began, then yes.

and the way you cured sickness was to bleed the person, and was since the beginning of medicine..... but you dont see that now do you, why cause its painful.... but they are just wusses because thats how it was done they should still be able to do it -.-

yes because using an analogy from the evolution of medicine is so relevent to an competitive online multiplayer game. Dont bother trying to explain the analogy, i know what you are trying to say, but using the evolution of medicine as an analogous example to backup your argument is just ridiculous.

dont try to be clever again, you failed spectacularly.

All these people who are arguing that Heroes give new player an easy route into HA and GvG. The point is... there NEVER was an easy route to HA and GvG. There NEVER is meant to be an easy route to playing HA and GvG. Your not meant to be great at competitive sports/game the instant you start playing them. There are hundreds of skills to learn when you start this game, of course its going to be hard to play when you are new... so deal with it!

If you want to be good at something, practice, put effort into it, take time to learn, learn from others, make mistakes, learn from mistakes. Is this not a simple lesson in life? Success doesnt come to people easily. This is how you SHOULD deal with the difficult task set in front of you. But this is unavoidable. You entered the game late. This is how GW works, you have an advantage if you bought the game when it was first released. You are at a terrible disadvantage if you didnt. Its not our fault, its not your fault, its Anets fault for the marketing strategy it put into action. New chapter every 6 months with new professions and new skills!!! WOOOT!!! Come buy our game!! You get new stuff every 6 months!!!

I understand that after 2 years the game has come along so much that for a new player it is much more daunting to get started into PvP... there are hundreds and hundreds of skills to learn.

But what solution is there to this problem? Should new players be given a way to win in HA and GvG in a manner that allows them to compete at a level that does not reflect their relative level of experience and skill? What about the players who have already put the effort into learning things themselves wont this free ride for new players discredit all this effort existing players have invested? Should new players be given this option as a sort of 'free ride' to success? Are Anet choosing to please new players over older players? Do older players not count because they have already spent their money on the game? Is the whole marketing strategy aimed at attracting new gamers? What are teh consequences of tailoring a game to suit new players rather than old more experienced players?

Theres a difference between making HA and GvG accessible to new players after the release of 3 chapters and making HA and GvG a place where players with mediocre level of skill can compete successfully without actually having to put any effort into playing the game.

I think if you are coming to the game late, and are faced with having to learn 3 chapters full of skills... you shouldnt begin to expect to be able to win the second you log into the game. You should expect it to be VERY hard. Expecting otherwise is completely unrealistic and unreasonable.

But this the problem Anet have caused themselves but adding such a huge variety of new skills and professions with each new chapter. Instead of finely tuning existing skills and professions so that they are much better balanced, they kept on adding more ingredients into the broth. Not only did they make balancing the game a nightmare job to attempt, but they also made it an incredbily difficult game to access unless you had been with it since the beginning.

Its not like people dont understand the challenge faced by new players. Its just that i dont think giving them a free ride is the solution.

What could be the solution?

How could the game be made more accessible to new players without giving them too much of an advantage over existing players?

should the game be made more accessible for these new players?

is there a solution that solves the problem without upsetting the older players?

the least everyone can do is be compassionate and understand both sides of the issue. There are far too many people on these forums who are incapable of taking a balanced view on things and the result of this is this endless bickering. All you are interested in is arguing your point of view, noone is bothered to actually understand the other sides point of view.

Im telling you, from experience, you can far more easily reach a compromise or an amicable agreement in a dispute situation if you open your mind to the other persons side of the argument.

But if you dont care about reaching a solution, then go ahead and keep bickering and keep restating your opinions in a thousand different ways and languages.

Thankfully i am a patient person and i rather enjoy a good argument so i rarely get tired or bored of repeating myself to someone until they get my point.

I just dont see how any of it is helping the situation. Noone seems prepared to anaylse the situation from a objective point of view.

Yes remove bots from GvG/Tombs, we want to play vs humans, not AI.

PS: Never argue with Lorekeeper, you won't win that!

AI is destroying PvP. Please remove them or at least put a sensible limit on them.