HvH State of the Game - My Analysis

Before I start, anything I say can and should be debated. Friendly discussions are encouraged but no whining or ranting PLEASE! As an experienced and avid player, the main purpose of this topic is for me to express my views of HvH.

Many people complain about HvH because there aren't enough builds. Why's that? Because hey, if the best HB'er is running a build, that must make it the best right? This isn't completely true, but it is still a proven philosophy. New players can just rip off top players' builds from observer mode and play it and easily make it to the top 1000 without a sweat.

Build Wars? I think more like Skill Wars
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10182091
As stated in another topic. The truth is, the way the current HvH meta plays out right now, matches ARE BASED ON SKILL and NOT BUILD WARS. In order to win the July Monthly Tournament, Half of the builds I faced were very close in party setup to my own. My last three matches in the single elimination all had the Assassin, Ritualist, and Monk setup, yet I won each by a large margin (20-1, 14-0, 20-4). Yet many people complain that I won the tournament because of my over-powered build? How is it over-powered when the other opponent has the same general build. Granted, this does make it harder for people to play builds who don't lead as an Assassin, Monk, or Warrior, that is what makes HvH it's own region. It is what essentially makes it unique and different from the rest of the PvP forms.

I can't specifically quote this, but I have actually heard many people complain that many times in a GvG, the victor is determined by the build, not the skill of the player. Maybe it might be an inbalanced one-sided team just there to undermine the other team's weaknesses, or a map that makes a split team unsplittable. In HvH, because the options are so limited, the meta has constantly developed in the past four months to create new perfect balanced builds that can beat all other builds (to varying degrees of success). As soon as a new counter is introduced the meta yet shifts again.

Does HB really deserve to become something like TA?
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...7&postcount=17
Before the Hero Battle Ladder was even introduced. The HvH style consisted of 4v4 builds designed to just hold the center shrine. People complained, and eventually this was changed in the March 7th update so that all shrines contributed to morale. Yet five months later, people are complaining to change it back? What's the deal? My thoughts, are because five months ago only the people wanting change spoke out and now the people who wanted the changed are satisfied, while others appear to want change. In my opinion, this is an unbalanced representation of the Guild Wars community. It's quite funny how the system works. But to my opinion on this matter, is what is the deal with people fighting 4v4. Are you trying to prove your manliness? In war, would you fight face to face and risk many casualties? Or would you send an assassin to assassinate their leader and thus reduce the risk of casualties? The same concept applies to HvH, though in war you can't always do that, in HvH, you can. The concept of running and capping and ganking lies in the very essence of Hero Battles. To take this out would be stripping it of its essential characteristic that makes it fun.

Hero AI, is it really a problem?
In addition to the major HvH bugs (see last bolded heading), there are many minor details people complain about. Things like heroes not stopping if they get spiked to heal themselves. Well, if this were to be changed, then I would be the one complaining. What if you didn't want him to heal himself and you wanted a monk nearby to do it for him because you wanted your hero to quickly move into capping range to stop yourself from losing a shrine. Many moments like that are equally important. But the remedy to things like assassin spiking is easily done by merely controlling your heroes.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...7&postcount=19
It IS possible to pre-prot against an assassin spike. In a GvG, how does a human monk do it? He may watch a warrior to see who he is following and quickly throw on a SoD or guardian, for example. In HvH, this is much harder, because the assassin can teleport around, but logical targets can be assumed from factors such as health, motivation, and necessity. Many of the top HB'ers are able to do this through experience. Essentially, you can think of playing HvH not as just the leading character, but as all four characters of the build. Even though all the skills of an individual's heroes may not be disabled, it is still easy to force them to use skills.

Assassin and Player Skill, those two words actually do have relevancy with each other
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_...ce_tim ing.3F
Many people ask, is there really any skill to being an assassin in Hero Battles outside of picking the right target? I say yes. So what happens in HvH if your heroes are on the opposite side of the map, and so are the opponents and the two assassins are forced to fight 1v1. What determines the victor? It surely cannot be merely luck. It involves who can time and pull off the combo faster, and even the build. Also, a good assassin in hero battles is able to micro his/her heroes even while he is spiking. For example, if I am a moebius strike assassin and I frenzy in order to try to spike down the monk, but then another assassin jumps in to spike me while I am spiking their monk and I can't cover my frenzy. At this point, I have a couple of options, but the most skilled assassin will be able to keep spiking down the monk while he/she orders his own monk to cast a spirit bond or guardian to protect himself/herself from the opposing assassin's spike. In most cases the spike on the monk can even be successful. The secret to the assassin is because the skill order is much more simple, an individual is able to control three other heroes simultaneously for maximum party efficiency.

A few important HvH bugs
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10133396
MOST of these bugs are still seen throughout hero battles. And the catch? This topic was posted way back in March. There have also been complaints about slow reaction (sometimes in the upwards of 1-2 seconds) of heroes when you force skills. I agree with this problem, but it is manageable once you get used to it.

That's also why we see nothing but the same builds again and again. Of all PvP formats HvH shows the least diversity in builds. Watch a battle on observer and you can be almost certain it will either be between A/X or Mo/A. If someone that doesn't play HB watches observer he probably won't feel like playing it after watching two W/R heroes beat each other to death using riposte or a Mo/A run a marathon around a map.

Fun for some, not so fun for others. Personally I consider the capping and ganking to be the cause for the lack of diversity in builds and the reason why assassins dominate the format. Simple 4v4 battles like in TA would open up a lot of options for new builds.

Indeed it is. The more complex your own build is, the less time you have to control your heroes.

True enough, the current format does what it was supposed to do: the better players are the ones that control their heroes the best. It's just a shame that the gameplay itself is so limited.

Do you really think that? The simple fact that the Hero AI sucks would be utilized EVEN MORE then it is now. Can anyone say spiritway vs. fire eles?

Completely agreed. I too wish that there was some way to win every match outside of the sin, monk, rit combo. Thats one of the reasons why I've tried to stay away from the rit all together.

HvH probably the most skill reliant of all PvP. Why? Everyone runs the same build. If everyone has the same build, clearly the only things that can win it for you are luck and skill. Winning consistently must mean that you are more skilled than other people. Compared to HA and GvG, where people have different builds, and having different builds will give one team an advantage, even if it's a slight one.

Congratulations. You just tried to argue smashing your buttons faster is skill. Long live the "skill" of HvH.

Making the game about skill (and I use the term "skill" loosely here) by making only one build viable is just turning Guild Wars into a really bad strategy game. It removes almost everything that makes this game attractive. If I wanted everyone to have the exact same tools, there are a lot of far better choices out there than this.

Care to elaborate on this lol, its killing me how the delay happens and interferes with the heroes own desire to use other skills.

Your right, but the problem i think is that certain skill disabling and using manually affects this. Unfourtunatly, the trick is to know which :P. Maybe all?

I respect Ekelons point of view. He is clearly one of the better HvH players and proves that skill does matter there. But that does not mean the gametype is any good.

The biggest problem with HvH right now is that the metagame is AWFUL. I orginally ladder farmed HvH when it first came out, and then realized that roughly the same build dominated the format. I also found out that assassins were ridiculously overpowered. This made the format UNFUN. I knew that there were good players involved, but it didn't matter because the metagame made the thing virtually unplayable for me.

If you look at a game like Magic the Gathering (which GW is based on), you will see that the best metagames contain SEVERAL different build choices all of which can win. If there is a metagame with one dominant deck, nearly every pro player complains that the game currently sucks and is inbalanced. Thats what we have in Hero Battle...one build dominating the format.

As was said before, if I want to play a game where everybody is using the same tools, I will go play a FPS, or Starcraft, or something else. Hero Battles does not cut it until the metagame gets more wide open.

The second problem is of course the list of bugs that have YET to be fixed, and may NEVER be fixed. I have lost far too many games due to AI stupidity than I care to talk about. You could consider it skill that you have worked around the stupid AI, but I just consider it poor programming that adds to the poor gametype.

That being said, congrats on your win Ekelon. You deserved it.

After reading everyone's posts, it seems to me the biggest concern is the lack of a variety of possible builds. That is also my single and biggest goal. To be able to switch between 2-3 builds based on my opponent during tournament play. I was actually planning to accomplish this feat for the May championships but was unable to attend. But if ANYONE has a creative and intuitive idea for a build, please send me a holler in game! I usually test out my builds under Savior Mesmerized (my smurf account) and I would be glad for the opportunity to test out the build.

Savior=Ekelon???? WHAT???? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS??????

I think now you got my post/thread finally right.
It was never about "every Assassin Player in HvH is a Noob" or something like that.

It is simply about the overpoweredness of Assassins that destroys the possibility of Playing any creative builds.
(therefore I called it "overpowered-easy-going build" ; and of course it is quite natural that in a mirror-match, the winner has to be better than his opponent...)

I play Balance-Builds since I started playing HvH (what was before the ladder-start) and tried almost everything already. The result is: you can't play any Balance-Build that is really competitive as long as there are no Skill-Fixes.

In my definition when relating to HvH though, is a good assassin combined with three other heroes that is well suited to take on any other build. When I said I wanted to create 2-3 interchangeable builds, I meant playing as an assassin and finding 2-3 different set-ups of heroes. I have pretty much taken for granted the fact HvH comes with the sin, monk, or warrior. I think though, as much as anybody wants to get the assassin nerfed. You can't. The assassin lives up to its name because it serves it's purpose well in HvH... it assassinates.

I really don't mind if people like HvH.

That being said, let's face it - HvH is utterly boring format, it beats HA when it comes to boredom. HvH would have 50x less people playing it if it was like TA - no rewards other than title, no observer mode; so in essence you get no 'glory' for winning like you do now (getting on charts, getting IRL stuff I think if there's still that.. etc). People play HvH for the same reason people played HA - not because it was interesting or fun, but because of the need for attention. Really. Yes, there are people who play HvH for fun, just as there were people who played HA for fun, but they are exceptions.

I did try HvH BTW. I really did. I even tried observing. The truth is, Fort Aspenwood is .. at least 50x better and more interesting. At the very least. And that is even with all the leechers, bugs, etc.

I dont think HvH shows skill at all. I think it shows IQ. The highest IQ you have, sooner you quit HvH and go to other areas which are more challenging and fun.

It has to be nerfed for hero battles to ever be good in my opinion. Right now I watch observer and 90% of the games contain the human as an assassin. The thing is ridiculous...it can pick off AI like its nothing. At least expose defenses has a 15 second recharge though! :sarcasmbutton

Don't forget the AI bugs though. Is anet EVER going to fix that? I find it a bit sad that they offer real life prizes for the format but don't fix the obvious bugs that have been around since the beginning.

I actually don't mind that they offer prizes for the format though. Skill clearly matters, and I think it has potential. But it is not living up to that potential because Anet isn't letting it.

I wonder how hard it is and how many resources are needed to establish observer mode in the first place. Sad thing about it is its a double edged sword.