So What Are We Doing at the Moment?

WoW, these heroes must donminate in GvG and the Hall of Heroes with this super coordination that smite heroes have! *presses "B" key on Keyboard* Looks through the "Top GvG Tournament battles".

Man I don't see a single team with a hero on it here. let me check "Top Guild Battles"
OMG I don't see a single hero here either. Surely this must be referring to the HoH alone.
mmmm Let me check "Top Guild Heroes' Accent Game" mmm well I see the 46th ranked "We are the Hardmode" team running a build with 3 sins and they have won 3 in a row.
Wait I don't see a single Hero on this team either.
Clearly the 46th ranked team "We are the hard Mode" doesn't know about the "Super" coordination that 3 smite heroes have and their real players can't coordinate as well as heroes.
maybe you should tell them?
Also, you would think if this coordination of Heroes was so great that someone would of found a way to exploit it and dominate GvG and HA by now.
Surely with all these complaints and insults, Heroes must dominate somewhere.
WAIT I see a team with 3 heroes on it. OMG the team with 3 heroes won. You can watch it in "top 1vs1 battles."

Well I can't find a team any where with 3 heroes on it that won in GvG or HoH.

This brings many questions to mind?
What builds, are the people, who are complaining about heroes, using?
What is their experience level?
When the Heroes are gone from GvG and HA as they surely will be gone soon What will they complain about then?
Roj, Duel Shot, Mind blast?
Will these people ever stop complaining?
This last question I know the answer. The answer is a big fat "NO".

Nice post you got there. Shows how clueless and retarded you actually are. You don't see top guilds running three heros for a number of reasons. The obvious ones being, they are actually good and don't need to abuse Hero AI to win. They can put together builds that are more effective that heros can not execute well.

And as far as heros being better at running smiter bars like Ensign was saying, he's 100% correct. The second a hex or condition is put on, the hero removes it. It is the same with why people run Gwen in Halls. Hero AI allows for perfect reaction time so they can interrupt or twitch anything faster than a human can. Trying to argue that fact is idiotic since it is a FACT. So when put in a role where their entire job is based off of twitching, heros are better than humans. Top guilds don't rely on heros because having a character dedicated to one facet and nothing more is gimping yourself in matches that actually matter. Not to mention you can only have 2 heros in an mAT so why spend all month practicing with 3 or 4 when you can't use all of them when it matters?

And don't try saying your point was heros aren't overpowered because you can run more effective builds with 8 people. You stated that in those hero builds if you replace the hero with a human they would be stronger, and Ensign's comment was that they wouldn't. And he is right, they wouldn't be with that build.

Normally people who open their comments with insults have no aurguement with substance.

Also, if you would stop insulting me long enough to press your "B" key you will see that people who use heroes seldom ever win the HoH.

The fact is most Guild teams who do HA regularly beat hero teams with no problems. Heroes are far cry from being dominate in the HoH. But, you can spin it anyway you want to spin it.

Some people will not be happy no matter what skill or feature of the game they nerf, they will continue to complain and insult no matter what.

lol more and more this sounds so much like more epeen!

People wanting hero teams out because they claim the reduce the titles and pts gained,

then

Other People wanting to keep them because they claim not having them only will discriminate people because of not having this or that rank and are therefor noobs

...

It was exactly the same with ursan, and see now: it is a wasteland mostly now in doa except for the uber team, grinding peeps.

Trust me gw is way to old, and whatever is done: more and more people will not bother anymore resulting in even less people.

Already so many people have left, people that actually knew the inside about this game!


I'm really against the test crews, it will only screw over alot more, of that I'm already sure. I have more faith in A.net people that try to be unbiased.
If you play this game, your already biased on things what so ever, what you think is good, will be bad to another, and vice versa!

Every skill update, there are people pro this X skill and other contra said X skill, that is enough proof of failed future test crews.

Heroes are more of a problem in the middle levels of tombs or GvG, where 0 reaction times can actually make a difference between teams. On a recent note, do you think the guys in GENI are top 100 material?

yes, based on how the system is set-up, I think the quanity of games they have played is the main reason they are in the top 100. Almost 50% of their games are defeats. They have played alot of games. over 900, I have noticed in the past that teams who compete in GvG a lot make it into the top 100 even though their winning percentage is lower than that of teams with a much higher winning percentage but have competed in far less games.

so, this is not a unique situation. Do I think they will be in the top 10? No
Do I think it's possible that there are better teams than GENI who are not in the Top 100. yes I do.

Do I think the system is the best one? well, there are so many people that play this game I believe that no matter what system you use there will controversy. Just look at College Football.

I agree.

Most everyone has a favorite profession, team build or set of skills. If you change skills that affect any of the afore mentioned there are going to be unhappy people no matter what actions Anet tries to move ahead with.

This also applies to heroes. Heroes have been around for a good while now. Many people have spent a great deal of time getting elite armor, weapons and equipment for all of their heroes. I just don't think it's right to take them away after they have been around for so long. I personally don't use Heroes in PvP. But many of the people who do have put a lot of time and effort into their Heroes. excluding them from PvP at this point does not strike me as the the right thing to do. Also, many people have put a lot of time in HA working on thier Hero title. What if, they took the hero title away? no more emotes to show the time and effort you have put in to obtain your Hero rank. I think it's very possible you might be upset. This applies to Heroes too. Not only have they put in the Time in HA, they have also put the time into their Heroes. I think they should keep them based on these facts alone.

The GW community is very diverse, I'm sure there are going to be people who disagee. This is fine as they paid there dollars for the game just like I did. One big difference is I'm going to stay with GW no matter what they change. I'm not going to quite becuase of a skilll change or heroes.

Now, if you think what I'm saying is going to sway Anet to keep the Heroes. I would say it's not. They have already announced that they intend to replace Heroes with Henchmen in PvP. I think this is a step backwards. As the player has very little control over henchmen. As I've stated before,it is much better to have a full team of real players. it's exetremely hard to win with Heroes, Henchmen will increase your chances of failure and at the end of the day exclude people who have spent great deals of time working on there heroes' builds, weapon, armor and equipmet.

Test server is a great idea really. It certainly makes patch days in WoW.... well... POSSIBLE. They are still horrible, mind you, but the PTR Servers allow developers to get feedback from players directly, and it helps make the game just that much better. Step in the right direction for sure.

As for the PvP changes... uh.. lolGW. The PvP in the game has been dead for over a year now. Let it rest in peace already...

put 2 hero max in high-end PVP, instead of non-changing henchie builds...

I don't think the test krewe will have any say in game balancing. I think all they are going to be able to do is test the update for bugs before it is launched and maybe provide minor suggestions and tweaks. Honestly I'd prefer this too because I doubt they will get the most capable people to do the job, so the less responsibility and power they have the better.

There has been one closed balance feedback group, which is still running. It has had ups and downs, but it's still a useful resource for Izzy I'm sure.

The very idea of balance is a flawed concept.

If creating a build is supposed to be meaningful, there has to be a reward to being good at it, i.e. having a build with above average strength. But with people trading builds in a second that gameplay element depletes in a day or two after each skill change.

If it all comes down to the hyped Rock-Paper-Scissors then it might just be random, because RPS is exactly that, randomness. GvG mind games, do I play a Rawr counter build or will they know that I do and run a Counter-Counter and so I have to.......

If the balance is perfect and people know the best builds, it all boils down to execution determining the match 90% of all times.

But it is that focus on execution which will make the game unattractive for many people. As fun as that might be for the Top100 players, the rest of people will have a rather miserable time playing the game. If rank 1800 plays against rank 1700, then what is their motivation? They sure won't earn any money and the thrill of victory is not really existent down there.

So before we talk any skill alterations, Henchmen or Heroes, we have to talk how to even excite a huge number of people for PvP. Who really cares if the Top16 in the monthly mat have a slightly better experience. EVERYBODY has to have a better experience for PvP to draw in larger number of people again.

I don't think you quite understand the concept of balance, or Izzy's goals with skill updates.

Balance in Guild Wars is about promoting diverse and interesting tactics. How is the game fun if everyone is pushed into running the same set of skills to win? How is it fun for the people who try to be original and get beat again and again by the same overpowered build?

Look at it this way. Spike builds are considered lame, but they aren't categorically nerfed unless they are severely imbalanced. The same goes for hex builds, condition builds, dedicated split builds... and so on. The goal is to have an environment where each match is different, and people can make meaningful decisions about what they are going to run.

In an ideal environment there are no 'best builds'.

As for getting less experienced guilds excited and motivated about competitive play, I'm not really sure what the answer to that is. It is a very valid point, and one that merits consideration.

Perhaps (as lame as it sounds) there could be something like a Guild Chest that appears when you drop the Guild Lord, with random high end items. I don't want to sound like I'm fixating on PvE rewards, but no better alternative springs to mind.

Sure, the community has the idea of 10 totally different approaches being in balance. But there will always be a real or perceived imbalance forcing players to copy builds and gravitating to one tactic on a grand scale. Either way, the "constructing" a build gameplay is removed from the equation early on. Hence we will see a shift to sealed deck play to fix that.

In a balanced environment, your approach is equally valid to all others and an expression of your mindset. In GW the approach is slave to your competitiveness.

The Guild Chest is certainly something that would be overfarmed and exploited within ten minutes of the update going live.

In 20 years of board game experience I learned this: You need an equalizer that can bridge the gap between players training 4h a day and players who are only averagely skilled. A board game rewarding only those who train a lot has no future. A board game in which an average player can beat the best player in the world due to use of the equalizer (usually dice rolls and random card draws) has a future as tournament game (even regularly and local), it will draw more people, it will sell more units at the store. If the average player is hammered down by the pro because the equalizer turned up in the wrong hands will only lead to the worse player saying "you were just lucky on your card draw or dice roll, let's have a rematch". That's not something you hear in GW a lot among average players. You hear it all the time among average players of best selling board games. ArenaNet just needs to remember their Magic The Gathering sessions, how often did they blame it on bad luck, I wonder.

These changes don't really affect me, but I'm glad to hear about them all the same, because it means Anet is finally making good on their promise to keep us more informed and involved in what's going on. I consider it a very good sign.

I can't really agree with that. From my experience of dealing with competitive video game players they almost universally despise elements of chance.

That statement is true. Competitive video gamers despise elements of chance.

But competitive video gamers are also not a market big enough to sustain every competitive game out there. Just look at the trouble of converting from CS 1.6 to Source. Look at the long list of failed PvP only games. Hardcore is a no-go area. For every success there will be at least three failures.

People might look down on Average Joe, but only he yields the power of total profitability. I've seen it over and over and over again. Games may have a competitive component, but as soon as it is the only factor determining victory or loss, the game won't sell. At best it is making back its money, but it will always be pale in comparison to the more "random" games. How many units would Prophecies have sold if there was only hardcore PvP to it? 40.000 at launch at best I'd say, and with that number there would have been no sequels. Turn it around, ask yourself how many copies GW-PvE only would have sold and you know the answer which market to cater to.

Board games still rule supreme over multiplayer online games when it comes to being attractive to a really broad audience. You can take any modern boardgame to almost everybody. The boardgame will provide a pleasurable evening because it can mix up the relative playing strength of the players with the big three: Dice, random Draws, shifting social alliances. Play a round of Junta or Shadows over Camelot and you will see how even more complicated games can totally excite newbie players.

On some level, we really need that hardcore PvP base. If it wasn't there, the game would fall apart easier. But at the same time PvP has to be made more digestible for normal people who do not play 60 minutes a day. Take Settlers of Catan, a super experienced player in a tournament will thrash you badly. But if that same player is forced to play with newbies, the luck can conspire against him and the newbies can socially gang up on him. That's why that ultra competitive player will always find people to play Catan with. The same cannot be said for that player in GW. Perfect execution in GW-PvP is failsafe and that scares away most people.

Like many have said before, the removal of heroes is too late. It would've helped back then, but now that its already established its only going to hurt the already declining player base.
Last I checked, the top 100 teams in GvG are almost exclusively humans. Even on the lower end of the ladder most of the teams are still 8 humans. The only time when heroes were really a problem in GvG was when smiter's boon was in play. The problem is HA where heroway and the like have become the norm. If you decide to remove heroes it should be from HA but not GvG. Why?

1. starting up:
Correct me if i'm wrong but there are at usually 2-3 districts in HA from which to draw players from. There is no such centralized area for gvgers making it very hard to pug for gvg if you aren't an established player and you have tons of active gvgers on your guestlist. This is besides the fact that you need 4 of those players in your guild in order to gvg.
REALLY? It seems like I spend just as much time looking for decent gvgers as I do actually playing because of the low GvG population (alot of people left this game in case you ddnt notice). Some of the gvgers we DO get end up leaving because we're not a 'srs bsns' gvg guild or 200+ rank. I'd honestly rather add a hero running with a homemade build who's performance I can count on than spend an extra half hour every time looking for a pug to guest from HA or GTOB, or taking a henchmen whose build will probably become dated with the next major skill balance or metashift (though I doubt they any good to begin with, that remains to be seen).

2. gameplay:
The most prevalent hero builds in HA aim to abuse the hero AI (such as the notorious tease heroes), whereas the commonly used smiter in Gvg (post-smiters boon) acts as more of an extension to the player's own build (Knocklock+RoJ).
The main difference though is that in GvG you are given more tactical options to fight the enemy - this is why smart, flexible teams win in GvG. There is only ONE heroway guild I can think of that is in the top 100 - there is a good reason for this. Heroes are bound to a player, and they lack the judgment needed on splits. However, they're right at home in the 8v8 fragfests in HA.

Removing heroes wont fix the meta. Heroes or not, gimmicks will still dominate the low-mid level pvp. Only fewer teams will actually be playing.

Then you just don't know how to recruit. I was the leader of a guild for about 2 years. During that time we were never srs business top 200. We were a casual GvG guild who ranged between top 400-700. We set up specific days and times to play the game based on the real life schedules of our members. I built up a large and respectable guest list through various alliances and friends I had made playing GvG. When I would get holes in my roster from people leaving the game, I would come to guru and Team Quitter forums and put out recruitment posts explaining my guild status and what I hope to achieve. Within two days I would always have at least 6 people interested in my guild. Not to mention throughout those 2 years I trained PvE players with 0 experience in GvG and turned them into respectable mid level players. The only time my guild fell apart was when 3 of my members had other accounts in a more competitive AT guild with some friends they had played the game with back in the "Old Days". My guild fell apart because I now had holes to fill but instead of filling them I joined their competitive AT guild because I wanted to take the next step in improving myself.

So don't tell me it is impossible to recruit people. I've been doing it for two years and just did it again back in May. There are people on this forum every single day saying they want to PvP but no one is giving them a chance. You are saying no one wants to join you because you aren't rank 200, well then maybe you are searching for the wrong type of players. You don;t recruit people better then you. You recruit people at your level of play or below it and train them up to your level. It isn't my fault you are impatient and would rather abuse hero AI. Honestly that option shouldn't even be allowed and it is good they are finally getting rid of it. Maybe now the GvG population will increase because people will take the time to train new players who are dedicated and want to learn to play this game.

Since when do you speak the Queens Englsh down there.It is armor right no it is armour.There is nothing wrong with saying I got both covered got it.You wouldn't upset the Queen believe me.

I wouldn't mind Crew part but I am little busy atm.

A personal idea to re-energize pvp and have alot of pve even take intrest in it would be with the introduction of some new elements, these could be:

* unexpected weather conditions (which effect both teams) completely random, some for durations ..., even unexplainable phenomena: like extreme winds (that blow projectiles away, less far, ...); blizzards (causing blinds, ...); earthquakes (kd's anyone); ..., chaotic energy surges (energy draining surges that hits all people in the area of its effect) ...

*balanced maps, but not like now with only guild vs guild, get more guilds battling on the same maps like four guilds, that way you could have 3 vs 1 but als 2 vs 2 and even 1 vs 1 vs 1 vs 1, it all would make it alot more fun then for what its now.
Even the maps could be that every participant guild (for lets say gvg) get a certain area assigned with its guild layout, a central stage, combining with the above weather conditions.

* war engines (again totally random): lets say before you can into another guild area you need to construct a war engine and there are only 3 engines to construct on a four guild battlemap, what will you do try to kill the other guilds temp and then construct in ease, or construct under the war pressure in the hopes you can hold out and break into a guildsbase and destroy its lord, killing the guild from that battle. But by then you could have two guilds engage you with the two other engines ... so much more intresting.


* ...


All these things can add a balanced effect on all participants of your pvp match, it would be a lot livelier, even the skill balances wouldn't need as much adjusting to tone down the only uber efficient builds (off course there will be some minor skill adjustments necessary to keep it fun).

and now we come to the rewards:

* make sure that all rewards can be used in both pvp and pve, make sure there can be no whining that x thing can not be gotten except in pvp while player y is a pve player (or makes sure the item can get sold between people if its not accessible in one of the other playstyles).

rewards could be:

* hero's: for pve quests and pvp stuff again in a kind of letter of recommendation so its sellable between people. And yeah those hero's can be used in pvp and pve, those ai hero's will just have the same struggle with the random conditions in the pvp battle (see above) ... it would still be fun and enjoyable.

* armor, weapon skins (lets say as a recipe for this or that can get turned in at this or that npc which will unlock the item for your char - wether pve or pvp) actually make it maybe salvageable, and add option to salvage into recipe that can get sold to people then.
This way it wouldn't lose its weapon value drop if it gets craftable (these craftable weapons would have to be customized as result and not have the recipe option when salvaged).

* guildhall extensions that don't get included into the pvp map layout, it would personalize the guildhalls.
Have an npc that can get you to any players guildhall for gold fee (500g lets say), and add a personal area to the gh (with the extensions) where the guilds features can be put inside like the guilds crafters we have now and only that area is exclusive to the guildmembers.

while we are at it: have it possible to add houses (maybe in form again as pvp gh extension rewards) so guildies can add private area to there gh and invite people inside (only for temp access). In those houses have gear racks .... only accessible to the owner but show it as visual throphies to the visistors of the stuff the owner have collected ...


plz plz put all this in GW2 and you'll bridge the gap between pve and pvp
the people only wanting to do pve will still only do pve but can buy pvp reward/stuff from the pvp people
the people only wanting to do pvp will still only do pvp but can buy pve reward/stuff from the pve people
and the pvx people can do there pvx stuff and all will be happy ever after.

But trust me alot more people would be pvx'ers