Henchman Skill Bar Contest Winners!

~ PvXWiki for starters is not the only source for builds... there are plunty of other sites out there that have builds listed on them and have been noted to be a source for builds (Gamependium and Team Builder are just a couple.)

~ From the PvXwiki page: "PvXwiki was never intended to serve as a GuildWars Database such as GuildWiki. Rather, PvX was created for a single purpose: retaining Build Articles." There for, they only hold information about builds as articles, but do not claim ownership of those builds.

~ Gamependium Copyright Info: "Site design and source code is owned by Gamependium. All comments and forum posts are the responsibility of their respective authors. All games we support are copyright of their respective owners, all rights reserved. Guild Wars is ©2005 ArenaNet, Inc. All rights reserved. NCsoft, the interlocking NC logo, ArenaNet, Arena.net, Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions, Factions and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCsoft Corporation." The skills sets that we called builds are owned by ANET, not Gamependium. Gamependium only claims the website host and layout.

~ Since ANET is the only party that can claim any ownership of information, and PvXWiki and other sites do not claim ownership of the builds held on their websites because the skills are the properity of ANET. And since the contest was hosted by ANET, owners to the rights of the skills... NO RULE IS BROKEN.

True...but what I find even more disturbing is the SPECIFIC wiki builds that Anet picked. If Anet had picked builds that AI is competent running off the wiki, I would have less of a problem with it.

As it stands, the builds picked only show serious signs of not knowing how the game works by both the players who submitted the builds and the people who picked them as winners.

HAHAHA. You have got to be kidding me. Fortunately I don't have to respond to this...because Kisuro already did so in today's "post of the day":

Excuse me if I'm not convinced. They had HOW many years to fix the AI in HB and they didn't do it? Why remove HB if they planned on tweaking the AI and it is easy to do? I thought the entire point of this contest was to make original AI bars that they could use properly. The logic being used here is so ridiculous. Does this scenario sound familiar:

A. Anet implements a format with bad AI and never fixes it or even tweaks it much over the course of years

B. Anet removes the format mostly because of A

C. Anet makes a contest to pick original skillbars that the AI can use properly

D. Anet picks skillbars the AI can't use properly

E. Anet claims they are going to fix the AI. Repeat A anyone?

No.

Sabre, I think people are confusing the "guidelines" for the "rules". Obviously, it was impossible to break the "rules" because it was impossible to use skills that exist outside GW in a contest using GW's UI.

What people are upset about is the fact that the "guidelines" asked that we not use "niche meta" builds...and the word "original" was used about 4 or 5 times.

And obviously, several people are upset at Regina's recent post because she seems to be implying that players are upset because the contest winners disobeyed the "copyright laws" of the contest, which is obviously not what any of those players mean. They mean that the builds weren't "original" as was stated.

Now....can we get off the whole "breaking the rules" thing? It's a bullshit excuse and has no validity in any of these arguments. We know Anet owns their own skills. Move on.

I am just dealing with the complaints of the copyright laws and PvXWiki copy over with the posts above... this rule was not broken, so we can move on about that...

KJ... I am with everyone else on the fact that the guidelines set were to be original and non-meta based for builds... and ANET used meta for the winners... that I am still bent out of shape about. And I have said that 14 times in this thread...

sabre is correct, the originality rule clearly states that no build should infringe on other people's copyright. it in no way states that the builds have to be original, in the sense that nobody had ever seen them before. since none of the builds in PvX wiki are copyrighted, the winners did not cheat.

however, i too consider it a rather sneaky way for anet to cover their butts.

Exactly.

12 chars

A lot of people are still concerned about the fact that some of those builds are on external databases like PvXWiki. Folks are concerned that the winners haven't followed the rules of the contest because some of the winning builds are available for public viewing on websites like PvXWiki.

Let's look at the relevant sections of the official rules:

This rule specifically cover violating another copyright holder's rights, which is a standard rule for contests where you submit information. People who enter the contest, upon doing so, basically state that they aren't breaking any copyright laws by entering the contest.

ArenaNet, the company that owns the copyright to those skills, gave folks who entered the contest the right to use those skills to create builds that they would like to see incorporated in the game. By entering the contest, winners have given us our word that they came up with the skill combination they submitted.

Linsey explained things a little further in terms of why she and Robert picked the skills they did for the winners:

Magic: The Gathering has a similar situation to Guild Wars: good decks are good decks. Individual players do not hold exclusive copyright or trademarks to use those decks. Lots of people play the same kinds of decks (i.e. those decks are popular), sometimes with slight variations, for one reason: they are effective. There are sites out there devoted to Magic: The Gathering strategies, on how to build the best decks, what cards to put in those decks, etc. This information is available to the public.

Likewise, in Guild Wars, good builds are good builds. Linsey was looking for builds that would be competitive and effective for GvG and HA. This is why the contest rules asked players to "devise potent, effective skill bars for the new henchmen in GvG and Heroes Ascent" and to come up with "great, competitive, henchman skill bars". There are certain builds that meet all of the design criteria that Linsey and Robert were looking for. Linsey and Robert had to balance a lot of needs and wants when judging the entries for this contest. Because there are certain builds that are more appropriate for this than others, one expects a certain amount of duplication. Many of those builds and strategies are publicized on places like PvXWiki, but also in guild forums, alliance forums, strategy guides, etc. They are out there in public for a reason: players have found them to be effective. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that there's no room for innovation or imagination. Only two of the winning skill bars had more than 50 duplicate entries. All the rest had less than 10 others submitting the same bar, and 23 winning skill bars were completely unique in the contest. Keep in mind another fact: Linsey and Robert wanted those henchmen to be equipped with skills that they know players will know how to use and will want to use.

Linsey and Robert had to keep in mind a lot of different needs and goals for this contest. I've been keeping them in the loop with your comments and concerns.

I knew the contest rules was legalease crap, I'm surprised anyone fell for that.

What was misleading was when martin posted here and said they didn't want cutting edge meta or gimmick builds, that it had to be something useful in a wide variety of teams. In fairness they also said don't be held back by the AI, but most of us know that they can't possibly improve the AI enough.

Wow....just wow. Are we still ignoring the main reason the community is upset by this contest? Alright, fine then. I'll guess we all just have to let it go. Apparently, it was just copyright jargon....and something about Magic:The Gathering......and Linsey and Robert wanted the henchmen to use player builds......

Everyone move on about your business now. Nothing to see here.

What that they didn't win and are now trying to make up excuses that other people weren't "Original" and therefore don't deserve to have won?

I can understand people being upset that they misinterpreted the rules here, but seriously, the majority of people are only complaining because they are butt hurt they lost to wiki builds. You can try to deny it all you want, but the more people complain about the contest, the more convincing it becomes that people are just upset they lost to the wiki.

in other words... you have no real way of enforcing your rule other than to hope the submitter is telling the truth. i hope you do realize that the only reason this rule is being questioned is because the bars exemplify that the submitter has very little gw knowledge or has put very little thought into them. any experienced gw player can tell this; however, it seems that the dev team can not tell this because they chose them as winning builds.


fixed

Not really. Maybe a few, but the majority are just upset that they were trying to be creative and a build that anyone could put together in less than a minute won instead of theirs.

And so what if bad builds won? The whole point of removing heros is to remove AI from competitive PvP. If you actually give the henchmen effective bars, then we just went full circle and the whole thing would be pointless now wouldn't it?

Henchmen should be there for emergency purposes only. They should not be a warranted substitute for a real player. Making them good makes them a warranted substitute. Making them bad or mediocre, makes them undesirable to use. Which is good. We don't want people using them. so make them suck.

This hahaha.

I would have more to say, but this is basically the best way to sum it up :P

The rules won't change. The people who submitted successful bars won't be punished.
I don't see the point in further speculating and complaining about such problems.

Regina is obviously looking at these comments and she is even nice enough to respond to the many complaints (however rudely they may have been put) that probably should have been ignored due to the rude nature they were delivered in.

Appreciate the integration ANet is trying to create within the Guild Wars community. Certain rules weren't apparently clarified enough to satisfy the entire community. That will happen, and ANet will learn from it. They have to learn, this forum isn't comprised of 100% morons... (although some people may be happy to disagree with this statement) and ANet will have to keep up with the intellect that which it is trying to appease/entertain.

From looking at those bars, you should notice the bars that have been applied are familiar copies of what you might called "balanced" format.

It isn't like there are 3 mesmer heroes with tease and resto weapons or ritualist heroes with the same concept. You don't see a plethra of smite monks joining the ranks of henchmen either.

While I will agree with something said by someone over on teamquitter... (The use of company resources to improve henchmen AI is a waste in comparison to the other pvp formats that need attention...i.g. halls map, HB, TA, GvG tiebreaker)...

I think you are all better off not complaining and in fact utilizing this guru forum resource to offer suggestions in relation to the future updates the development team has planned to implement to correct the effectiveness of the bars.

I didn't even enter. Therefore, your argument is both invalid....and ridiculous. Go away.

Thanks for the wall of text about legal jargon that we already know about. Ofcourse we all know that there is no legal foot hold against Arena-Net, and even if there was I doubt anyone would be all that bothered however you see to be missing the point that most of the community is enraged about.

Despite what martin said, meta builds won (Primal Rage, Dev hammer etc etc), gimmicky builds won (Thumper etc), builds which are probably going to be affected by future metashifts/skill updates won (which tells me VoR isn't getting a nerf, yay )

Despite what we was told, builds that are commonly knowledged as meta/gimmicky etc won, many people actually put in a lot of effort to find bars that henchmen would use well, would adhere to all the so called rules, and would be balanced. And for all they did, they could have just chosen what was obvious builds for people and just clicked submit, and had a better chance at winning.

There is no way that AI is fixable to a level that most of those Builds will be properly usable by a henchmen, even to a low level of usability. If updating AI was that easy then Hero Battles would have seen many updates and would possibly be staying, but it isn't. You will never be able to program AI to work anywhere near on par with a human with some of those bars, simply because AI cannot understand when to use some skills (I think any of the bars with KD or KD prevention in them are a joke since AI has pretty limited response to KD, let alone how to properly use it).

If meta-esque builds had been chosen with adjustments to AI, then no matter how OP/lame the build would have been, I think people wouldn't have minded, since it is a viable option for them to take in PvP. But instead we have about 36 useless henchmen, and the other 4 will only work in very gimmicky builds (hexway notably).

If you wanted people to simply not take henchmen (which is all I can make out from the chosen builds), why didn't you just remove Heroes and Henchmen, and let PvP be PvP?

Anyway back to the point that you missed, bars that are meta/gimmicky won despite being told they most likely wouldn't, and bars that won are going to be very poorly run on henchmen, too poor to actually consider taking them in PvP.

/rant over since Reggie won't even read this :/

oh...i get it now...the point of this contest was to make horrible skill bars...why didn't i realize this earlier? i would have submitted my echo mending bar.

for reals though, a bar filled with mediocre skills that ai uses effectively is a far less of a crime then what anet seemingly intends to do: improve ai so that they can use great skills effectively. even if they leave the ai as is, i'd rather have a mediocre hench, then a useless broken hench.

Well, apparently Joe Kimmes is working to get the builds to work the way they're supposed to. So the henchmen wont be entirely worthless.

He's even said that he almost has one of the sin kd-chains working like it's supposed to....so hopefully we'll see that stuff work.

The point of the contest was to get the community involved and give you the illusion that you were a part of something important in Guild Wars. If you actually think upgrading PvP henchmen is an important update you seriously need your head examined. It is a pointless update and in order to make it seem not so pointless they decided to turn it into a contest to give the feeling that they actually care about the community.

They are really just trying to keep things interesting until GW2 comes out, while avoiding any major changes. They thought a contest would do that, and all it ended up doing was upsetting people.

so instead of picking decent bars as winners and have it be done with already, they picked bad bars so they can waste even more time on this pointless update trying to improve the ai? as dreamwind pointed it out...don't you think its kind of ironic how they choose to improve the ai after removing hero battles and also after stating that heroes do not belong in gvg/ha?

Except Anet has a notable track record of ignoring what the community says and instead goes out to do their own thing, with not-so-desirable results.

You seem to be missing (more like ignoring) the point that upset so many. Here they are:

1. Martin specifically told us that gimmicks/meta builds would not be accepted, yet most of the builds there are gimmicks/meta builds.
2. Martin also said that they wanted robust builds that would be resistant to skill changes, yet there is a Mind Blast Ele bar that just got recently nerfed.
3. Mis-communication or not, anyone can see that you making these legal jargon up right now is you guys trying to avert blame/refusing that you screwed up, and this ignorance (obviously) pisses people off even more.
4. You wasted valuable time and resources into this contest even though you could have been spent the time on more dire issues.
5. You now need to waste even more time/resources adjusting the AI to make them even remotely useful; except that given your record, this will likely either take ages or won't even work, period.

There are obviously more, but you guys would probably ignore this, like you ignored most of the stuff that has been said by the community.

EDIT: Also couldn't help but notice, at the beginning of this thread, you posted the guidelines of this contest and told us that we should have followed those instead; now you're trying to re-word your own official rules in your favor to wash your hands clean. Bravo.

Oh....my....goodness. I am going to try my hardness not to be a troll at this point because it would probably get my post deleted or nobody would read it. Instead I will try to make this as simple as possible.

The first part of the post about copyrights etc etc is meaningless. Besides the fact that it is ridiculous, it completely ignores the reasons everybody is saying this contest was a debacle. I would post the things that have been ignored, but that has already been done several hundred times. If you haven't seen it by now, you probably won't see it in this post either.

The part about Magic the Gathering appalled me quite honestly. This situation has nothing in common with the situation in MTG whatsoever. Until MTG has AI playing the decks, it will never have anything in common. The suggestion that "good decks are good decks" again completely ignores peoples' problem. But again, if you haven't read the problems by now you probably won't here either.

Lastly, it is nice to see Lindsey and Robert are working on GW1 still. But I would like to know the thought process that went behind choosing these builds. Please ask them for me directly if you can. Ask them this specifically:

If the contest wanted us to "devise potent, effective skill bars for the new henchmen in GvG and Heroes Ascent" and to come up with "great, competitive, henchman skill bars", why is it that almost everything we got was not potent, not effective for the henchmen, not great, not competitive, and not good for henchmen skill bars and AI?? In otherwords, why is it we got the exact opposite of what the contest was looking for? The design criteria makes no sense at all.

If the answer to that is that the AI is going to be updated to reflect the changes to the henchmen, then I have one last question. Why wasn't AI updated all these years when, you know, a format based around AI existed? Why remove a format due to AI issues only to say you are fixing AI after the format has been removed? It does seem like quite an odd jump doesn't it? It almost feels like you removed cars from the game only to then cause a car crash for the sole purpose of putting a bandaid on the victim.

To me it is almost nuts. But maybe not? Please...solve these logical problems for me. Thanks for reading.

Yes, let's do take a look at all the words in the relevant sections. Do you see where it states, "cannot be taken from any other source". Twice now, you've posted the same rules. Twice now, you've highlighted the same words; yet, failed to highlight 'any other source'. What you keep highlighting is only one part of the rules. The "any other source" is a complete and seperate rule from the "copyright" rule. All rules stated must be adhered to. Not just what rule(s) you wish. You fail to see them all or skip over what you want to. Granted, the builds in PvXwiki are not copyrighted. Anet may own the skills but that doesn't mean they were the first to think of the builds posted there or on any other similar site(s). PvXwiki, Gamependium, etc. are still 'another source' and whether or not it's copyrighted, if the build is copied from "any other source" or was thought of first by another (not original), it's a violation of/per your own rules.


The bars are a problem. Hopefully, Anet can do as they said and make them feasible. Time will tell. As to legalities, that's your opinion. I disagree.

Wrong. Again, your opinion...but not fact.

You've already stated this. Since you like numbers so much, have you also looked in to how many of the winning builds are very similar to ones posted on PvXwiki and other build sites? C'mon, 6/8...sometimes 7/8 of the same skills, including the optional or variant makes 8/8? That's just the first two of the HA winning builds I checked. Copywrited? No. Their "own original work"? Hell no. A lot of players here see what you do not...or will not admit to.

As to the bars, well, as it's been stated by so many...they suck. They are not the "potent, effective skill bars" the majority wanted to see. I'd much rather you spend time tweaking what you have to, instead of posting replies full of holes and, basically, with diversions such as MtG and how you feel it's the same as (or try and relate it to) the mess you've created this time around.

Yes, BUT good build played by human is not always good build when it is played by AI!!!!!! I have computer edition of Magic: the Gathering game. This one. And guess what? It can play well but some of good builds are unplayable because of AI flaws. Here we have the same problem.

Yes, HENCHMAN skill bars, not skill bars for human.....

Yes, but found them as effective FOR HUMAN.

Obviously, they did not keep in mind what Martin wanted:
Not meta bars, not gimmick bars, useful for henchmen. And what we got?

See? Blah.

And the whole "originality explanation" makes mi sick....

Like I said in my first post, this wasn't because they are "original", "unique", but because people didn't think posting meta builds would win the competition...

wow, just, wow.

Regina... no offense to you... you have done your best with the situation... but I think at this point what the community is looking for is Martin to post an explanation about his post below during the contest...

Whether its an explination... an appology... or something for the community to recognize why he said that statement above and Lindsey and Robert going the opposite direction. I feel that the community as a whole is actually looking for this and not a rules/law explanation. I don't mean to call him out persay... but I think at this point, the entire community is looking for him or Lindsey and Robert.

And will everyone else please stop the jabbing... we all get the point... I think this is what everyone truly wants... which is an unfortunate situation for everyone.

I think they have a lot more explaining to do than just that (which I have outlined in my post). Sure they don't have to, but the fact that they have not done so reasonably yet had just added to the problem.

This thread is deteriorating with overly hostile posts. I will give this another 24 hours (that does not mean a free-for-all) and then we will close it. The continued calls for Community Management to respond to this situation, when they have all ready which I will list below, is not helping as you can see they have indeed posted on this situation.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...37#post4880737

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...33#post4881133

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...87#post4881387

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedb...hmen_Contes t

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...55#post4885555

Please stay on topic and contributing. I know that if ArenaNet has anything else official to say we will pass that along but I am quite confident we all know the issues and the complaints. ArenaNet has responded, and though some may not be happy with the response, I believe they have given us all the information they can.

The problem here is the information they have given us doesn't actually respond to our problems at all.

If Anet had responded to our problems, this thread would no longer need to be open. The fact that it is still heavily populated clearly shows the issue is not resolved. Closing it early simply shuts the problem down before it is resolved. I disagree with your decision, but whatever...it is your forum and not ours.

I'm honestly surprised that this thread managed to stay open for so long. I guess thanks for bearing with our complaints Inde (although I still feel that they are valid and the last few pages are people getting impatient with Anet's ignorance and lack of a proper explanation).

Inde, but in every above response Regina is missing the most important points of this thread.

They were started by this contest's rules and were assured by Martin in a post I quoted.

Points are: builds should be original (= not meta) and useful for henches (= not humans).

Regina in every post is trying to defend unquestionable lack of originality of submitted builds and is talking over and over again about giving human bars to henches - we all know it will be epic fail because appropriate AI update will not happen in the foreseeable future.

I know all the points you 3 are making but I can also see that Community Management, by reiterating the same thing twice now, has taken a position on this. Quite frankly, I can see both sides of this issue and I do believe the community vs. anet is at an impasse. I don't think this issue has at all been hidden or swept under the rug from ArenaNet, but I can't see any new information being provided except for the dissection line-by-line of posts now and hostility. I said 24 hours and I'll give it that, if the conversation can take a turn or some discussion can still continue I can always reconsider. I did not want to leave all of you abruptly cut off from such a passionate stance and viewpoint which is why I gave the warning.

Are you saying the position they have taken is to not respond properly to the issue at hand? What they have reiterated doesn't do anything to answer the questions the community has.

I don't understand Dreamwind. They have addressed the questions. Just because the answers might not be liked does not mean they have skipped over any.

What about Martin's post/rules/guidelines saying builds had to be original?

What about builds that seem to be copied from the Wiki?

What about the AI not being usable in some of these builds for henchman?

Are you guys even listening to us?

I see most of the questions answered. As I said, we may not like the answers but they are there.

I would appreciate clarification on this:

By this comment, every single entry was "original", as I don't think anybody posted a build that used a skill from outside of GW...and if this was the definition they used when designing the rules, there was no need for that rule.

Smells like back-pedal to me.

I do understand the wiki comments...I doubt there are many (if any) truly effective builds that aren't on pvx somewhere.

Sigh...

I can't believe you of all people are accepting those as answers Inde. Those aren't answers to the questions. What has happened here is Anet has given a politician answer. The public has asked them 1-2 simple questions and they respond with extremely long answers that don't actually address the original questions. Not to mention, every one of those answers has an extremely obvious followup question (which I have posted previously) that has not been answered either.

If that is something you can accept, then so be it lock the thread. But I enjoy common sense and conclusions in my discussions.

lol you are doing a fantasic job Inde.


@dream.... what difference does it make if Inde accepts those as answers or not? I don't think that is the situation here. Inde has provided the questions that have been asked, and has given the responses by ANet.

Exactly what has been said, you don't like the answers. Asking the same damn thing again won't produce a different result.

And that is the problem.

What is the chance that a person that doesn't know any of the meta builds that ever existed and doesn't know about any of the build fansites TO COME UP WITH the exact build as seen on PvXwiki or in observer mode within the short amount of time the contest lasted?
The fact that the builds are nearly exactly as on PvXwiki means they DID NOT COME UP WITH IT THEMSELVES. That is breaking exactly what you said in the quoted part. THIS IS THE PROBLEM!!!!!!



The highlighted words is exactly what the "winners" DID NOT DO!

Exactly.

I understand this. But this still doesn't explain to me WHY Martin said what he said about "niche meta builds" and "common gimmick builds" etc. are not going to be picked.
That's what's been frustrating me, not what's been answered already.
If this has been addressed, please point me to it, I must have missed it.

What all of you want then? Take the prizes from the winners? Official apology from ANET and resignation of the live crew? Asking the same questions and making the same points for all those pages must have some purpose so what is it? Inde has a point that most questions were already answered and rest they will just not ignore. To answer them they would need to publicly admit to a mistake which will never happen. Admiting to mistakes creates much worse publicity than for the situation in which they just cover things up. Now it is all speculation but when they admit it then it all becomes official and they do not want that (which is kind of obvious no?).

People are treating this game much too seriously and get frustrated too easily. Everything what ANET does is now a good reason for a rant. Do they do anything ok at all? If not then just stop complaining and go play something else cause complaining will not change anything. What is the point in all of that?

@guy who wanted to go to court - please do and prove that people winning the contest copied the builds... Even with access to ANET logs you will not be able to do that. Then prove how originality was supposed to be understood. Since Anet has their own different understanding you will have to prove their understanding wrong (good luck with that).

Newsflash: PVP is dying and regardless which henchmen bars were/would be chosen and how it will not be resurrected. So lets keep arguing and share our frustration around another pointless element of gw1...


MTG had issues with players playing exactly the same decks so they removed some cards (being the root for those decks) from the tournaments. At the time I was playing MTG same decks were the issue in the tournaments (goblin grenade...). So ANET explanation is understandable (still flawed). When creating a MTG tournament deck you are limited to some subset of cards only. It is like submiting build with pve skills... not skills from other game.