Why does the HoM fail?

This came up in a recent thread, but it kinda died and was largely off topic anyway, so I felt we could start this anew. Whenever a topic concerning the Hall of Monuments or GW2 comes up, invariably, someone has to mention the "failure" incarnate that seems to be the HoM.

Now, undoubtedly, there were some definite problems with it during the pre-release weekend, and for a week or two after release. There still are some problems with it; I still don't like the fact that we can't pick the monuments to display ourselves ("rearrange" keeps everything in the same order), and I recognize that the weapons monument is far more limited than everyone expected and hoped for.

That said...why all the animosity, still, after so many updates and fixes? It's called a failure so often, but I've never seen anyone back up their "HoM sucks" post with a good reason. It's said that it didn't match our expectations...what reasonable expectations exactly did it fail to match? And do attempt to keep the flaming to a minimum; any post that sums up to, "HoM sucks cause I say so" will at best be pointed to as proof of the OP, or just ignored.

I think it's cool. Especially the fact that it will affect GW2. I just hope we can take the armors from it in GW2.

I personally have enjoyed the Hall of Monuments. It has made me want to get elite armors for all my chars. And with the promise of rewards following in Guild Wars 2, I've chosen to max out my ritualist's hall.

Yes there is probably stuff that can be improved (i.e. any weapons instead of just destroyer on Valor). But who knows what comes in the next update.

I think that no one's expectations of the HoM will be met until GW2 comes out. So.... I don't see why people are arguing that HoM sucks or that it is good. You have no clue what effects it will have on your GW2 char.
The HoM wasn't a dealbreaker for me to buy GWEN. I think that some people thought it was and were disappointed because they cannot see the value of it until 2009-10.

It was overhyped, it provides few in-game benefits (People Know Me gets you the only one), and the implementation of a lot of the features was extremely poor initially. All of the updates have only brought the Hall to the point where it is poorly implemented.

1) As previously noted, the "Destroyer weapons" restriction on the weapons monument is beyond silly. At least open it up to req 8 or below weapons with perfect mods, plus all unconditionals.

2) The initial pet problem has been fixed, but the cap on the number you can display coupled with the inability to choose what is displayed where is problematic.

3) Ditto on titles. It's pretty much impossible to get anything close to your desired combination of titles displayed on the monument if you have a significant number.

4) In response to massive adverse fan reaction about the difficulty of putting titles in the Hall, now it's too easy. There's little sense of accomplishment about putting a title in the Hall. Rank 9-10 of HA, rank 6+ of the other PvP titles would have been about right.

5) The monuments for titles are mostly stupid. Every PvP title has a picture of the Battle Isles, except for Gamer (which actually has a good monument). There are a few good ones, such as the Kanaxai for finishing the Deep, but good titles and good monuments correlate poorly.

In fairness, it's difficult to judge the Hall until we see what its effects on GW2 are; we're judging it even though we're missing a major piece of data. But as far as the current game goes, the Hall is unimpressive.

It fails because players do not know the exact rewards they will reap for each title. This can only come with further knowledge of GW2, not to mention it'd suck to do one of those say "gold grind" titles such as incorrigible ale hound to find out it only gives you a one use Dwarven beer consumable.

As of right now I simply have stopped playing GW, if any info is given on what each title will equate to in GW2, then I'll probably start title grinding for my items of choice. Now note, no specific detail is necessary- I'd be content with Title X = Profession Wide Hat, Title B = Special Beginner Skill. Etc etc..

I like it. My only disappointment is the weapons display but that's forgivable. As for the people calling it some kind of massive failure... Well they can go ahead and complain until the day they learn that the world isn't perfect and that the sun doesn't revolve around them.

Constructive criticism is quite different from complaining.

this is easy
- technical bugs as mentioned above (as well as armor color screw ups when you add more than 1 armor and re-arrange)
- it promotes grindfest to the max and pretty much forces you to play 1 char since you're not going to griiiind to hell with more than 1 char which I think is against the original GW's purpose and a lot of people enjoy playing more than 1 char
- no one knows what the benefits are (could be just something lame as you don't have to grind to get fow armor since your daddy had 1 300 years ago same way you do in Gwen or some stupid thing like that)
- stupid pet that can be achieved in KobD lvl 2 only.
- weapon and mini pets dedication
- certain titles should be account based titles

Although I think the HoM mostly lived up to my expectations (excluding weapons), this is a good point. The only title that should have had a map as the model should have been the Cartography titles. I think it's a little weird that while most title rewards have uninteresting monuments, most of the new "accomplishments" (like clearing elite areas) have much more unique monuments.

The only other minor disappointment I had was that only the few "elite" pets translate into a specific statue of the pet, but I can deal with that.

I like it ok. I'd like to know what the GW2 effects will be, so I can know which part is worth the time or not. My only issues are:

Weapons.
This one really is silly. Destroyer Weapons? Come ON. At least pick a group of weapons that look COOL.

Rearrange.
This one is pretty bad. It should be a matter of asking you to pick the items from a list again. Not the silly "not quite random" setup.

The Rainbow Phoenix is really awesome, but I don't know if the People Know Me thing is the right way to go about it... I'd love it for my ranger, but she's got Nothing since I focused my efforts on a diff character.. oh well..

It's because of their lack of vocabulary and ability to think for themselves.

Although I will agree with the above two points. Only being able to add Destroyer weapons instead of your own Golds.. or at least greens seems like a very odd choice. Most of the Destroyer weapons don't even look very nice. And not being able to rearrange the monuments is just irritating.

I like the HoM. It could do with its rearrange system being reworked but other than that i dont see how it fails. I think people were just expecting too much out of it.

I really don't care a whole lot about it. Character basedness isn't too hot, though. I will say that I was real bummed about the armor displays - then they updated them, so boo yah!

Now that you mention it, I haven't been in my HoM since a week after GW:EN's release...

If done properly it could have been a success.

I'm suspending judgement until the release of GW2. It's premature to label it a success or failure before then, in my opinion. ANet has stated that the bonuses will only be cosmetic and not superior to normal gear anyway. I couldn't care less about the HoM in GW1.

The only thing I don't like about the HoM is the destroyer weapons, as have been noted. The weapons and shields look horrible at best but to completely fill it you have to buy them, and they are way over priced for how crappy they look.

There are (at least) 2 ways of perceiving the HoM.

#1: A place to "deposit" achievements in order to gain benefit for GW2.

By this viewpoint, the hall actually works fairly appropriately, given the update to the Monument of Honor. Even the Monument of Valor works, as such, as you still have the ability to fill it up with destroyer weapons to get whatever benefit GW2 is going to have (if you need to, you can sell those q8 Zodiac Swords, Tormented weapons, or other high cost weapons to buy the cheap destroyer weapons before GW2 comes out). The main angst with this viewpoint is that nobody knows what kind of benefit is going to be transferred, or if it is worth it.

#2: A place to showcase achievements and items in GW1.

In this viewpoint, people see the HoM as something that has value now, in that they can put all their shiny stuff on display. This is the viewpoint that my guildmates and I predominately subscribe to, and we often will bring others from the guild to our HoM to show what we have displayed. Strangely, I think this is the way ArenaNet wanted players to use the HoM, with the benefits in GW2 being a nice bonus. Yet, it is in this viewpoint where the HoM truly fails.

As discussed time and time again, the Monument of Valor just does not do what it should do, that is, to display valued weapons. "High end" is an extremely vague and, honestly, unnecessary term. Elemental Swords used to be considered "high end", now you can buy a q9 for 30k or less. Kanaxai's Edge used to be "high end", now you have trouble giving them away. Destroyer Weapons are apparently "high end" but they're crafter weapons that I've seen being sold for 50k. As other people have espoused, the Monument of Valor should accept _any_ weapon a person deems to hold value.

As mentioned many times in this thread and others, the inability to manually arrange monuments that have more entries than can be displayed at one time is a monumental (*heh*) flaw. If I am using the HoM to display things that I am either proud of, or like the look of, I am limited to just submitting those things, otherwise I likely will not be able to display the ones I really want because of the current clunky interface. This also brings viewpoint #2 in direct conflict with #1, as people want to put everything possible into the HoM for the nebulous GW2 benefits, but that makes it impossible to properly display what you'd like others to see. The biggest issue with this is that it shouldn't be hard to fix. Push the "rearrange monument" button and another box opens up listing all the entries for that monument with check boxes by each. You check the ones you want displayed and, voila.

Other people have groused over the generic pet monument. I can understand this as I have a Jahai Rat that became quite infamous within my guild during DoA runs. Putting him in my HoM would have sentimental value. Again, the HoM fails to allow you to put on display what _you_ find important or of value.


In conclusion, if the HoM is meant solely as a vehicle to obtaining benefits in GW2, it likely is performing adequately (given the updates to the Monument of Honor).

However, if the HoM was meant as a place to be able to _showcase_ achievements in _GW1_, then it is a failure, because it does not adequately allow one to do so.

I'll add my post from the other thread and respond to your criticism of it and expand on it
First off, your theory that it would require them to design "multiple models" for the armor monument, is just wrong. Armor is ALREADY designed peicewise. It would be no different displaying mixed sets then it is to already allow for mixed sets in the first place. It is not a problem with the models. It is a problem with the coding of how those models are implimented, which was done in a lazy, cutting corners fashion.

The limits to the number of titles and heros is arbitary.

Also, not all of the bugs of the HoM are fixed. There are many problems still in game involving the armor monument. Armor will still often display a headgear that you do not own. Also, the armor monument is automatically dyed the color of the chest peice of the armor you are wearing when you enter the HoM. Not only can you not have mixed armor sets, you can't have mixed DYED armor sets. There is NO technical reason for this. The monuments themselves can already display the armor in any avialable color. It just proves that A.net never bothered to code the monument to function by piece, but rather by whole sets at a time. Which is stupid since such a restriction doesn't exist on actual armor sets.

My answer to the title:

Because that is about how much <3 anet can spare to muster on a cheap expansion before making a new game. Maybe after GW2 comes out and people yell at them for 2 years about how much the HoM sucks and what a let down it was in that game as well, they'll get around to fixing it. Of course by then they'll be working on GW3 so the HoM won't be fully fixed as they won't have the time.

The pieces we wear exist as individual pieces, but that's not a monument. A monument has the name of the set, and your character's body. In order to make the thing work piecemeal, the monument would have to function like a player model that could be dressed up, and neither you nor I know the technicalities of doing that. Certainly it can be said that just making a single model for every ascended armor set is the simpler method...and an argument about the technicalities ignores the point that designing rewards for mixed armors in GW2 would be much more difficult.

The limits to heroes and titles is 5, so you can display decently sized monuments. If it were any greater, the monuments would be smaller. I don't see this being a terribly big loss; it'd be unnoticeable completely if we could just rearrange our own monuments.

The technical reason for the way dying is handled is clearly that, in order to not have to store the dye information for each monument all the time, the game just takes whatever color you're wearing at the moment and puts it on your armors. Simple, while allowing you to also change the dye job if you wanted to. I don't see the importance of a monument displaying the headgear of the set that you display.

I still see nothing that constitutes "fail" on the whole. Individual complaints, yes, but most are either minor or subjects of opinion (the level at which pvp titles should be able to be displayed, for example). The most consistent reply seems to be that people just want to know what they're working towards, which is very reasonable...but we'll undoubtedly get that eventually, when the game that the rewards are being made for is at a level where they're actually designing content for it. I mean, seriously, what's worse: not knowing what the reward is going to be, or having the reward change on you after you've completed the achievement?

To Winterclaw:
Consider yourself the former.

I' d like to see the weapons in a larger version like for the armor set. I 've put up my bow and you can barely see it. Being able to choose what to show instead of a scrolling pre-arrange choice for the achivements would also be really nice.

The hall is fundamentally flawed because it is character based, both in terms of recognition and achievement transfer.

I really like the HoM. Sure, it has some flaws, but nothing that would constitute a "fail". Most of the major ones were fixed shortly after release, such as the minipet customisation, and the armour monuments displayed as generic sets (I think this is a the main reason everyone thought that the HoM would be account based. When I first saw screenshots from that convention, I thought they'd made it account based too. I'm not particularly bothered that it's not, but some people obviously are).

As for the armour monument not allowing mixed armour sets to be displayed, I can think of a number of reasons why. Firstly, when does it stop allowing you to display these sets? There are thousands of combinations you can make with a full collection of a professions armour. For instance, there are seventeen elite armour sets available to the necro. That's 85 seperate pieces of armour, 68 if you don't count the headpiece. Now, I can't remember how to work out this combination stuff mathematically, but I do know that that is a lot of combinations. Secondly, imagine how much more work is involved in creating awards for these mixed sets in GW2. Thirdly, there's a lot more information needing to be stored if they allowed mixed sets to be added to the HoM. As Skyy High said, they would need to imitate the character paperdoll in the inventory screen to allow mixed sets. That means that the information that needs to be stored for that single character model would be multiplied by however many combinations of armour there is.

There is one more point I would make, but it's based on pure speculation as to what is given to us as a reward for the armours stored in HoM, so I won't bother mentioning it.

I think the decision to only allow Destroyer weapons is a very reasonable choice on their part. If they allowed other weapons, they would have to make them display correctly in the HoM, and they would have to create specific rewards for them in GW2. Even just adding each green would increase their workload substantially.

I do agree with everyone on the rearranging aspect, however. It is annoying that unless you specifically plan ahead and add things to the HoM in a specific order, you cannot get the displays the way you want it.

I think the one major flaw that I don't like about the HoM isn't actually the fault of the HoM itself. People seem to think that they need to fill up the hall because they are going to get great rewards in GW2. I have a feeling that some people don't realise that Anet have already said, that all rewards would be purely cosmetic. I'm not looking forward to all the whine threads created about that fact.

I only hate the fact you can't use Dedicated mini pets on different characters on the same account. Otherwise HoM is pretty cool.

/agree to this part

I discard all Monumental Tapestries, period. Nope, haven't hung one. Why? Because the HoM means nothing. Not in GW1 nor in GW2.

<rant>What is the deal with "OMG, *shudder*, we can't have a situation where one player can achieve above any other player!!!11!." GTF over it!!

If a player new to the GW universe who only has GW2 and can't get the uber PVE skill or PVE armor (with enhanced stats) that GW1 owners can get, I say... Too Bad. Buy GW1 like I did so you can get the skill and armor (and rideable [edit: Fire Breathing] dragon <--- I want this ).

This communistic, "First among Equals" cr*p is foolish, misguided and unrealistic. </rant>

The HoM doesn't fail... it's not relevant in any manner. The HoM is a worthless distraction.

If the HoM were removed right now nothing at all would change. For those who have grinded for HoM monuments -- you *still* won't get anything worth having in GW2 even if the HoM exists.

the HoM would be flawed if it gave an advantage to characters in GW2 the fact that it is only cosmetic already gives it a solid foundation. Anet just needs to work out some kinks, maybe after they are closer to gw2 beta

Why does it fail? Because you can't rearrange your titles manually and the weapons use certain weapons and not your favorite. COME ON ANET WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING HONESTLY?

I think that HoM is mistake in it`s present shape, if i build the monument for my char i would like to have freedom to put there everything that "I" think it`s worthy, i don`t like to be forced to have "elite" armor or "destroyer" weapon i don`t like any of the mentioned!
Anyway like many people stated nobody knows what will bring in GW2 (i really don`t need any more stupid hats) so if they implement just a posibility to visit the HoM in GW2 would be great (if the HoM was arranged by player, not ANET).That way it would be worty of his name, no special item or shiny armor is needed for GW2 i just hope the new game will expand horizons and get rid of NASTY (you must grind) practice, because grinding is so boring and kills the spark that game had on the beginning !
HoM needs a new polish, a one that will bring freedom of choice to a player!!!

- All. Can't be sorted manually. They should add a dialog option to choose the item we want to show in each slot.
- Miniatures. They are not shared by the account. But players do share them. They should be shared. It's almost impossible to get 20 miniatures with 10 characters.
- Heroes. There should be two legendary pets per campaign. The Rainbow phoenix should be in the list.
- Titles. It allows LDoA and Survivor. Those are non-reattainable titles. Yargh.
- Armor: You cannot add non-prestige armor. I like some non-prestige much more than many prestige sets. Even if they do not count for HoM comptetion, I want to show them.
- Weapons. More skins should be in the list that it allows. Any req9 inscribable gold with a high rarity or really high price should be added there. Like Crystallines, Elemental Swords or Torment weapons.

That's all.

Well that's kind of silly. It's not like you get anything for deleting them either, so the argument "It means nothing" shouldn't compel you to go either way. At the very least, I think they mentioned something about the HoM being the method of reserving your character's name for use in GW2. That's definitely something functional, completely apart from whether or not you want to fill it.

they cant allow any weapon you want in the HoM because it will most likely unlock only 1 special skin for each weapon you put in(probably not even the current destroyer weps)

It fails because GW2 isn't out yet, so nobody knows whether it's worth doing and it's created too much speculation on what we should get in GW2 and what we should be able to transfer in GW and this monument and that monument having this problem and that bug...

This will all be done when GW2 comes out, I hope. I don't believe you can necessarily pinpoint anything really great or really bad about each of the monuments, because it won't be until GW2 rolls around that I decide whether doing all the stuff on GW was worth it.

QFT. Exactly.

But not only that. Plenty of other reasons:
*It was overhyped and the final thing is far far worse than players' expectations,
*It's far far worse than what it *could have been* - wasted potential.
*It's all about PvE - PvP players get almost NOTHING! The PvP title statues are easy to get for a PvP player, then there's nothing. You can hold halls everyday, win tournaments, play and win in all kinds of PvP 5+ hours a day and there's still no recognition. A Solution would be a PvP equivalent of KaoBD title, increasing its ranks with increasing other pvp titles or just a separate monument for PvP achievements. Now an Eternal Champion looks just like an Eternal Farmer of Underworld. FAIL.
*It was very rushed. Proof: We knew about it 5+ months before release, we've seen screenshots of it in magazines but during the preview weekend it was so unfinished it was a complete joke. It looked as it was just added into the game, zero testing, full of bugs.
*It's character based.
*The weapons monument is a complete utter joke, it's just an Onyx sink. It's not about high-end or 'the best' weapons, it's about weapons They tell us are the best. Remember, other's don't
*It's character based, while it was supposed to gather player's achievements, not character's.
*It's still a mystery what makes a monument 'complete'. We've been told that only 'completed' monuments will get recognition in GW2 but nothing else. No rules made public - what makes a minipet monument complete? Just 20 minis, even the most common ones or need more, or need all of them?
*It's character based, so you have to customize Destroyer Daggers, Hammers, Bows, Scyhte, etc for a caster character.
*We still don't know if having more than 1 pimped out HoM will give more advantages in GW2 than just one. That would SUCK if they rewarded repetetive grind even more.
*It's character based, so if you have an old main favorite character created before any titles existed (before Factions) you're told to make a NEW one or be disadvantaged by not being able to add a Survivor monument.
*It isn't even possible to choose which monuments do you want to display and which you don't want to see anymore, instead there's a RANDOM system that required thousands of thousands trys to get a decent combination.
*If you have a Legendary Defender of Ascalon, a Legendary Survivor, or just a FoW armor on a character that is not your main, you're screwed, those achievements are completely meaningless, you can watch them in an empty HoM. Because it's character based.
*And maybe you have an old favorite pet? Get rid of it to tame 3 others just to put into HoM! What if your old favorite pet is a Melandru's Stalker from Pre-Searing? Owned, hahaha!
*Now go craft all 15k armor sets for just one character, that isn't going to even use them, doesn't have room to store them, and most importantly ones that you don't like (gw:en armors anyone?). It would be perfectly fine if it allowed me to choose which characters I want to craft those armors for, they all would get a use! But the way it's done it's just another bad joke - Craft, put into HoM, delete. How sucky.
*There are more minor annoyances.

*Epic Fail, no better way to describe it.

To: "EatChildren": Hmmm, could you elaborate? How would advantage hurt anyone? And how does "cosmetic-only" really help anyone?

To Skyy: Granted, Skyy. But on the other hand, what's the point of reserving a name... the options for new names are infinite. In GW2 we certainly will not be playing 300 year old characters with the same profession, titles and attributes so I wouldn't necessarily need the same name anyway.



;

I don't like it. There's just not much to it. There's no customization. It's just some stuff on a pedestal. It's about as deep as the rest of Guild Wars.

Rewarding grind is cool.

That is where I think the HoM failed.

Uhh... I'd like to know where you heard or read that. Because I've been watching for articles and interviews that contain information about the HoM and GW2, and I have never heard anything of the like. In fact, I've never even heard another player mention that aspect. I think you made that up.

And without that point, half your other points fall apart. Some of them have some merit, like the rearrangement thing. A few of the other points I thought I'd mention:
- Survivor isn't a necessary thing for a character to have in the HoM. I suspect that the titles monument will directly transfer over to GW2. So if you have Legendary Survivor in the HoM, your descendent will probably get "Eternal Legendary Survivor" or something. Sure, I'm speculating. I say you wait until you see exactly what characters get in GW2 before you start complaining about people unable to get certain titles.

Another thing is all this talk about how the HoM "forces" you to do things, like buy more 15k armours than you need, or like getting rid of a pet you've had since you started and that you've grown attached to. It doesn't force you to do anything at all. It's your choice whether or not you fill it up. After all, all you will get from the HoM is purely cosmetic. If you don't enjoy filling up your hall, then don't. Personally, I do enjoy it. Otherwise I would not do it.

I don't know how much of an impact having one game influence the other will have. I think it's a bad idea. I like the idea that everyone starts out on an equal footing, but some people can show that they are veterans. But enough about my opinion.

New players might feel a little bit intimidated by the fact it seems like they are being forced to buy both games to be as good as other players. Especially if they didn't buy GW1 because they didn't like some of the mechanics that are being changed in GW2 (such as the level cap and persistence). They'll feel that, to be truly good at the game, they have to go back and first play a game they may not enjoy before they can start playing the new one. It'll mean that some potential new customers will not ever pick up the game at all.

You see... there isn't ONE BIG THING wrong with the HoM. It is a bunch of little things that is wrong that makes it so bad. The sum is greater then the whole. All those little bits and pieces of sloppy coding and poor implimentation add up to a big problem.

- We can't display our weapons. Only weapons very few actually want for aesthetic reasons. My Ele's blue collectors staff or my Derv's req. 10 gold scythe is a heck of a lot more worthy of display than some destroyer weapon, and they would look better to boot.

- We can't display our Armor. And yes, I have four sets of 15k displayed in one of my HoM's, but most of my other characters use either a mixed set or 1k sets that I think look way better than the 15k sets.

-We can't display our hero's. Only heros that wear certain clothes. Who cares what they're wearing?? They helped me save the world at least three times! Are they not worthy of tribute unless I gussy them up?

-You can only display maxed titles, and there seems to be no recognition for the casual player.

- It's not account based. I was looking forward to it being a great display for my accounts achievements, a place where it would show off my characters with big statues and grandiose tales.


The way they hyped it up was that it was going to be a way for you to pass your legacy unto GW2, and as it is there's not really a legacy for me to pass on. In short, basically it's not really a display for your character, only an elite version of your characters that few will actually attain. The only thing that you can really do with it is fill it with titles, weapons, and armor that few want or have time to get, and otherwise disavows anything that gives your character, or account, a unique identity.

-Valor is ridiculous (I want to display the weapons that have meaning to me, dammit.).

-Fellowship needs to show what our non-"elite" pets ACTUALLY ARE.

That's about it, as far as I'm concerned.