Henchman Skill Bar Contest Winners!

Pheenix Down

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Apr 2007

Lush

Imho, yes.

Anet told us explicitly not to copy/paste wiki builds for the skillbar contest, and yet a large portion of the winners are wiki builds.

People like me who followed their rules were punished.

People who copy/pasted builds were rewarded.

Your thoughts?

MMSDome

MMSDome

Raged Out

Join Date: Sep 2005

I mean honestly wtf.

Frenzy and shock on a henchmen??? I can't wait to watch them exhaust themselves to zero energy while taking double damage.

Why even bother having a contest if you are going to take bars already in the meta.

Inde

Site Contributor

Join Date: Dec 2004

*sigh* I'll say it, because I know a lot are thinking it. This game is nearly 5 years old... what originality? And if you hold the notion that you possess an original build give me 5 minutes with google and I'll prove you wrong. If you hold a combination that is so truly original there can be found no mention of it... it's probably that way for a reason.

I know the community wanted builds that weren't a dime-a-dozen, but it's my sincere foolish hope that most people actually KNOW what works and doesn't (to a small extent) at this point in the game. So they submitted builds that they believed could work aka proven/popular/tested/known builds. With the statement of AI being tweaked it seems that these submitters hopes were justified.

So 'originality' arguments are quite "out there" in terms of this contest.

Personally, I like the fact that ArenaNet is trying to keep the player base interested (yes, argue and flame that if you want but know it won't be 'original' once again). They are doing contests, trying to at least involved the community. This contest was a no-win for them from the start. They probably realized this. No matter the build that was submitted, a good build (cries of no originality/gimmick/copy+pasted), an original build (cries of it being bad/LOL/detailed analysis on why this has never worked and will never work), or even a bad build (sum it up with LOL again) maybe the point was to keep you all talking. Let the community know that even if this was an arguably failed attempt at a contest it was still there.

We know ArenaNet is short on resources for this game (maybe not short but let's not argue community perception) and that the community really just wants involvement. So this didn't work. Well I welcome them to keep at it! I thought the concept of the contest was a cool idea. So it didn't deliver to some people's eyes, hey, coming up with ideas to keep the community involved is indeed more difficult then you'd like to believe. And no, you don't really have control or even foresight to know how they are going to be received and the end result. Everyone has a criticism to offer on any subject but rarely are they the idea makers. Let's at least try to thank them for putting it out there. I would like to see more contests that involve the community like this.

moriz

moriz

??ber t??k-n??sh'??n

Join Date: Jan 2006

Canada

R/

i don't see how the AI can be adjusted feasibly. all this means is extra work on top of an already overworked live team. i'd rather the live team picked builds that work properly on AI. unfortunately, that pretty much leaves only caster henchmen, since the AI for melee characters is horrible.

MMSDome

MMSDome

Raged Out

Join Date: Sep 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Inde View Post
*sigh* I'll say it. Because I know a lot are thinking it. This game is nearly 5 years old... what originality? And if you hold the notion that you possess an original build give me 5 minutes with google and I'll prove you wrong. If you hold a combination that is so truly original there can be found no mention of it... it's probably that way for a reason.

I know the community wanted builds that weren't a dime-a-dozen, but it's my sincere foolish hope that most people actually KNOW what works and doesn't (to a small extent) at this point in the game. So they submitted builds that they believed could work aka proven/popular/tested/known builds. With the statement of AI being tweaked it seems that these submitters hopes were justified.

So 'originality' arguments are quite "out there" in terms of this contest.

Personally, I like the fact that ArenaNet is trying to keep the player base interested (yes, argue and flame that if you want but know it won't be 'original' once again). They are doing contests, trying to at least involved the community. This contest was a no-win for them from the start. They probably realized this. No matter the build that was submitted, a good build (cries of no originality/gimmick/copy+pasted), an original build (cries of it being bad/LOL/detailed analysis on why this has never worked and will never work), or even a bad build (sum it up with LOL again) maybe the point was to keep you all talking. Let the community know that even if this was an arguably failed attempt at a contest it was still there.

We know ArenaNet is short on resources for this game (maybe not short but let's not argue community perception) and that the community really just wants involvement. So this didn't work. Well I welcome them to keep at it! I thought the concept of the contest was a cool idea. So it didn't deliver to some people's eyes, hey, coming up with ideas to keep the community involved is indeed more difficult then you'd like to believe. And no, you don't really have control or even foresight to know how they are going to be received and the end result. Everyone has a criticism to offer on any subject but rarely are they the idea makers. Let's at least try to thank them for putting it out there. I would like to see more contests that involve the community like this.
Why involve the community when they are using bars that they could have gotten from obs mode?

Inde

Site Contributor

Join Date: Dec 2004

Quote:
Originally Posted by MMSDome View Post
Why involve the community when they are using bars that they could have gotten from obs mode?
............

Pheenix Down

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Apr 2007

Lush

Quote:
Originally Posted by Inde View Post
*sigh* I'll say it, because I know a lot are thinking it. This game is nearly 5 years old... what originality? And if you hold the notion that you possess an original build give me 5 minutes with google and I'll prove you wrong. If you hold a combination that is so truly original there can be found no mention of it... it's probably that way for a reason.

I know the community wanted builds that weren't a dime-a-dozen, but it's my sincere foolish hope that most people actually KNOW what works and doesn't (to a small extent) at this point in the game. So they submitted builds that they believed could work aka proven/popular/tested/known builds. With the statement of AI being tweaked it seems that these submitters hopes were justified.

So 'originality' arguments are quite "out there" in terms of this contest.

Personally, I like the fact that ArenaNet is trying to keep the player base interested (yes, argue and flame that if you want but know it won't be 'original' once again). They are doing contests, trying to at least involved the community. This contest was a no-win for them from the start. They probably realized this. No matter the build that was submitted, a good build (cries of no originality/gimmick/copy+pasted), an original build (cries of it being bad/LOL/detailed analysis on why this has never worked and will never work), or even a bad build (sum it up with LOL again) maybe the point was to keep you all talking. Let the community know that even if this was an arguably failed attempt at a contest it was still there.

We know ArenaNet is short on resources for this game (maybe not short but let's not argue community perception) and that the community really just wants involvement. So this didn't work. Well I welcome them to keep at it! I thought the concept of the contest was a cool idea. So it didn't deliver to some people's eyes, hey, coming up with ideas to keep the community involved is indeed more difficult then you'd like to believe. And no, you don't really have control or even foresight to know how they are going to be received and the end result. Everyone has a criticism to offer on any subject but rarely are they the idea makers. Let's at least try to thank them for putting it out there. I would like to see more contests that involve the community like this.

I understand where you're coming from and I do appreciate that Anet is in a tough spot regarding (bad) original builds vs. (good) wiki builds.

However, that doesn't negate the fact that the rules were not to use wiki builds.

Inde

Site Contributor

Join Date: Dec 2004

And my argument continues to be, how can you not? This game is nearly 5 years old. The good, the bad, the ugly are all on the wiki.

Lex

Lex

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Dec 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Inde View Post
We know ArenaNet is short on resources for this game
So why they are adding themselves some work to tweek (to me untweekable in short period of time) AI???

It seems they have a lot free of time!

Martin Firestorm

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Dec 2005

Louisiana

E/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by Inde View Post
And my argument continues to be, how can you not? This game is nearly 5 years old. The good, the bad, the ugly are all on the wiki.
Nailed.

I don't see how anyone can argue with that, or any other points made by Inde on this topic.

Kashrlyyk

Kashrlyyk

Jungle Guide

Join Date: May 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Inde View Post
And my argument continues to be, how can you not? This game is nearly 5 years old. The good, the bad, the ugly are all on the wiki.
Then they should have made a different contest. One that doesn`t let you win by effectively stealing another persons idea, while at the same time breaking the rules of the contest.

Another possibility is to remove the rule before you start the contest, but then the reward of basically immortalizing yourself in the game is just not justified.

"Copy and Pasters" are now going to be immortalized inside the game. ANet you RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing suck at doing contests.

Martin Alvito

Martin Alvito

Older Than God (1)

Join Date: Aug 2006

Clan Dethryche [dth]

Inde, what he's getting at is prioritization.

Lots of ANet employees invested a good chunk of time in this contest. They met to discuss the idea, met to discuss when and how to implement, met to delegate tasks. Someone had to program the NPC and the submission tool. Someone had to set up the database to accept and track the submissions.

Once submissions were completed, someone had to go through the submissions and toss out the obviously unacceptable ones. Then someone had to narrow down the remaining submissions to a manageable level for the judges to pick from. Then the judges had to meet to pick the winners.

All of this takes up a lot of time for a lot of people. You could have gotten the same functional outcome for 75% of the bars if an ANet employee had logged onto PvX and selected from the bars listed under "great" for GvG and HA. This would have taken one employee a couple of hours.

The other 25% of the bars are just plain bad.

People are complaining because they don't want more contests. They want persistent balance issues addressed. They want to see a GvG tiebreaker that works and is fun. They want to see SF gone.

Instead, ANet chooses to devote scarce time to a contest like this. This would be fine if that time investment had produced a more viable product - bars that are suboptimal on humans but that the AI can successfully run. Given the outputs, the contest looks like a colossal waste of time for all but the forty direct beneficiaries of the contest.

In short, people are upset because ANet does not appear to understand what the community wants. They are also upset because ANet does not appear to understand its own game and the limitations of its own AI. If the AI will be updated to use these new bars, that's great but also takes away time from fixing glaring balance issues.

EDIT: A final point. If people are shrill about complaining, this is because ANet has repeatedly demonstrated that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. This monster of a griping community has been created by ANet repeatedly rewarding those who yell loudest and longest.

Zodiac Meteor

Zodiac Meteor

Imma Firin Mah Rojway!

Join Date: Aug 2008

At the Mac Store laughing at people that walk out with anything.

E/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lex View Post
So why they are adding themselves some work to tweek (to me untweekable in short period of time) AI???

It seems they have a lot free of time!
I have to agree, AI isn't easy.

I create games as a hobby and it's all about events.
If this happens, do this etc.

I use a program that is just like the above text. Coding is an entirely different story and a few mess ups can cause huge problems.

The idea for the contest was great, the results weren't.
They are going to have more problems by picking meta builds than original ones.

Lex

Lex

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Dec 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Inde View Post
And my argument continues to be, how can you not? This game is nearly 5 years old. The good, the bad, the ugly are all on the wiki.
Yes, the game is 5 years old, but heroes? They did come with Nightfall. Also most of build on wiki are for peoples, not for henches.

Also, why giving human bars to AI? We all know AI is faulty. I think a lot of peoples were trying to build some bars for henches to use with minimal effort from ANet side (also because ANet is short on resources). These ppl knew bad/good sides of AI, and were trying to find out good results. Also I think many of them were testing these builds.

Why awarding ppl who spent like 1-2 minutes using copy/paste over ppl who spent sometimes a few days tweaking his hench build? I dont get it, for real.

IronSheik

IronSheik

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2008

Wolfenstein: Goldrush

Zombies Go Nom Nom [Nom]

N/

I'm not mad that it was necessarily from the wiki, but a majority of the builds are the wiki meta. You know, the ones that say 'This build is in the current PvE/PvP Meta' Those are the ones that won. And are the ones Anet said not to use.

Oh and regina, please don't "Fix" the AI to use these bars.

Henchies can't cancel stance, and no one is going to use these miserable bars, Just keep heroes FFS.

Another Edit: if you're going to fix the AI just because of this bar that's pathetic.

Heroes have been using these skills wrong since day 1, only fixing ones on these bars just shows incompetence. No hero can use Wastrel's Right, especially a spike assassin. No hero uses death charge for a surprise spike, they use it for healing.

No hero can know when to cast make haste or song of concentration, no hero knows when to frenzy, or flail, or whether to use magehunter's or hammer bash first. They see hammer bash is full, mage isn't they use bash, mage never gets around.

What are you going to do? Make them cast make haste on something moving? Like you know, the frontline so it ends after 2 seconds.

ceolstan

Elite Guru

Join Date: Feb 2005

The Amazon Basin [AB]

Mo/

I've always been a huge supporter of ArenaNet, but the winning bars left me very disappointed. I've also been much more of a PvX player, and recently playing PvP has been the most interesting part of the game that I've spent literally thousands of hours playing since E34E. I know that Linsey enjoys PvP, so I know that she knows skills and AI. The only thing I can think of is that the H1N1 and a deadline resulted in what we see here.

I agree with Inde that it's laudable that ArenaNet puts so much effort into a 5-year-old game. They're trying to keep the community engaged, hoping to keep a solid base for when GW2 comes out. Contests are useful here.

However, the issue with Heroes in PvP is that there are some skills that Heroes can use more effectively than humans. Hero interrupts are always faster. They don't have to contend with server lag. I can certainly sympathize with those who want to eliminate any NPC from PvP venues, since in some cases, bots are just better--unless your team is very good. Good teams rarely have to worry about Heroes. Average teams--and there are more of these than good ones--do need to be concerned.

On the other hand, in a 5-year-old game with a diminishing PvP player base, it's just plain old hard to get 8 people to play PvP at the same time. Yes, HA has a Party Search function. If you need the 8 players, you can get them. GvG is a different matter, though, if you're not in a top guild. Say you have 16 players you know like to play GvG. Only 6 of them are online. Your friends list shows offline.

The bars on these Henchmen roll back GvG to the days when it was 8 people or pull in one of the standard henchies. The result was sitting around the guild hall, trying to get people from friends list, gwp, gwpickup, or other irc channel to guest. Two hours later, you're still sitting around the guild hall. It's either grab a fail henchie and lose or not play. Not playing isn't fun, but losing because your henchie has a bad bar and no sense of how to play it is worse.

It's not a case of tweaking the AI. Heroes don't infuse well. They don't know how to cancel stances so that they don't kill themselves with Frenzy. They don't know how to apply the majority of enchantments.

Congrats to the people who won the contest. I bear no ill will toward any of you.

With respect to the actual henchmen bars, I can only hope that the concept of some of the bars remain the same (i.e. that there's an axe warrior, a hammer warrior, etc.), but the bars are reworked to skills that the AI has a hope of using within a PvP context.

Pheenix Down

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Apr 2007

Lush

Quote:
Originally Posted by Inde View Post
And my argument continues to be, how can you not? This game is nearly 5 years old. The good, the bad, the ugly are all on the wiki.
Make wiki builds allowable.

Would there have been whining about allowing wiki builds? Of course.
Would Anet still be in a tough position by allowing wiki builds? Absolutely.

But you know what? At least they wouldn't have told us one thing and do the exact opposite. As a company, I would much rather hear whining about the virtues and vices of original vs. wiki builds rather than whining about why my company lied to its customers.

Zodiac Meteor

Zodiac Meteor

Imma Firin Mah Rojway!

Join Date: Aug 2008

At the Mac Store laughing at people that walk out with anything.

E/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by rex
My guildmate just told me: lets google out some halloween graphics and send it to halloween contest! It would be the same "original" thing as on this henchman contest.
I claim this one.

I agree with Iron Shiek
Quote:
the problem isn't they are from wiki, but wiki meta.
Makes me wonder why we have a suggestion section...

HawkofStorms

HawkofStorms

Hall Hero

Join Date: Aug 2005

E/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Alvito View Post
Inde, what he's getting at is prioritization.

Lots of ANet employees invested a good chunk of time in this contest. They met to discuss the idea, met to discuss when and how to implement, met to delegate tasks. Someone had to program the NPC and the submission tool. Someone had to set up the database to accept and track the submissions.

Once submissions were completed, someone had to go through the submissions and toss out the obviously unacceptable ones. Then someone had to narrow down the remaining submissions to a manageable level for the judges to pick from. Then the judges had to meet to pick the winners.

All of this takes up a lot of time for a lot of people. You could have gotten the same functional outcome for 75% of the bars if an ANet employee had logged onto PvX and selected from the bars listed under "great" for GvG and HA. This would have taken one employee a couple of hours.

The other 25% of the bars are just plain bad.

People are complaining because they don't want more contests. They want persistent balance issues addressed. They want to see a GvG tiebreaker that works and is fun. They want to see SF gone.

Instead, ANet chooses to devote scarce time to a contest like this. This would be fine if that time investment had produced a more viable product - bars that are suboptimal on humans but that the AI can successfully run. Given the outputs, the contest looks like a colossal waste of time for all but the forty direct beneficiaries of the contest.

In short, people are upset because ANet does not appear to understand what the community wants. They are also upset because ANet does not appear to understand its own game and the limitations of its own AI. If the AI will be updated to use these new bars, that's great but also takes away time from fixing glaring balance issues.

EDIT: A final point. If people are shrill about complaining, this is because ANet has repeatedly demonstrated that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. This monster of a griping community has been created by ANet repeatedly rewarding those who yell loudest and longest.
Exactly. They could have not involved the community, done it themselves, and then involved the community in something else using all the manhours they saved.

The whole "they were in a bad spot no matter what they did" argument is flawed since they are the ones who put themselves in that situation in the first place.

If they wanted to involve the community Inde, they could have done so in better ways.

I wasn't that mad at this when I first saw it. But Regina's completely oblivious post that ignores the concerns of people is just infuriating. I agree though with Inde that "creative" builds should not be submitted. You want stuff that will actually help your team. But the lawyer in me really doesn't like violations of IP law.

Edit: As for that winning Halloween contest analogy, one of the winning submissions from 1 or 2 years ago WAS plagiarized. But guru called them out on it and Galie responded that they revoked the award. Stealing an image is a lot more blatant then stealing a build.

lutz

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Apr 2006

Battery Powered Best Friends [Vibe]

Me/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Inde View Post
And my argument continues to be, how can you not? This game is nearly 5 years old. The good, the bad, the ugly are all on the wiki.
That Cripshot bar is uniquely...

horrible.

Qing Guang

Qing Guang

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Nov 2008

California

Lucid Spirits [LIFE]

N/A

Quote:
Originally Posted by Inde View Post
And my argument continues to be, how can you not? This game is nearly 5 years old. The good, the bad, the ugly are all on the wiki.
Except they're not. Take a look at the builds I've got here: http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/User...un_with_builds.

Okay, so most of them are crap, or mediocre at best (and only like 2 are for PvP, but I'm just proving a point here). I admit it. But guess what? None of them are on PvX - I just checked. The closest thing would be the necro builds, simply Gui's a generic MM. But anyway, my point is that not everything is on wiki.

I'm not saying they should have picked bad original builds, but... couldn't they at least have not picked observer mode builds?

The Cake Archer

Academy Page

Join Date: Jun 2009

Mo/A

I don't think that choosing meta bars was bad, its just that the AI is terrible at using these bars. Frenzy and rush? infuse? Ward against foes? Song of conc? The AI is terrible at using these skills. Theres also some skills on bars that the AI wont even touch. Even if the AI was 'updated' to use skills better, it still wont get around the fact that heroes are terrible at bodyblocks ( I'm looking at you LC snare ), and cant split (cripshot bar). Therefore the devs should've chosen more bars that are AI friendly.

Winterclaw

Winterclaw

Wark!!!

Join Date: May 2005

Florida

W/

Here's what I would have taken for "original":

1. Something that is not in the current meta but still solid.
2. Something that uses skills not likely to be buffed or nerfed.
3. Something the AI can run.
4. Something that doesn't suck.
5. Something that wasn't ripped directly from the wiki/observer mode.

While there probably isn't much left to be original with, they could have done better than a combination of straight rip-offs and some that are unplayable by the AI. And no, I don't believe that Anet will be able to fix the AI to use all those bars properly.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Symeon
I am annoyed about two things. Firstly, how much unnecessary effort the Live Team have put into this. If they hadn't had the contest and simply copied PvX bars, unless they included Tease/AoD mesmers or Tainted necro, I wouldn't have complained, because of the minimal effort required. But since they had a contest, sifted through thousands of bars, and ended up picking ones they could've taken skill for skill from PvX, as well as several bad ones - valuable developer time has been wasted. Secondly, the contest rules stated that builds should be original, not taken from another source. Only a handful of the winning bars comply with this. So not only was the contest not needed, but it turned out to be a complete joke.

The man-hours spent on all this could have produced a decent balance update, or even implemented Sealed Deck. I think ANet lost their sense of priority a long time ago, but it just hurts to see such an utter waste of time.
QFT. The only good that came out of it is a couple of people got an item and the ability to give the henchmen names. The bad of it is they picked a number of bad or meta builds and we got lied to about it from the very beginning.

Does anet have any wonder why people are calling GW2 vapor or threatening not to buy it since those that play have to be subjected to this kind of nonsense every few months? There really needs to be a dev shake-up from the top and to bring in people who have GW's original vision and purpose in mind.

snaek

snaek

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2006

N/

Quote:
Originally Posted by inde
*sigh* I'll say it, because I know a lot are thinking it. This game is nearly 5 years old... what originality? And if you hold the notion that you possess an original build give me 5 minutes with google and I'll prove you wrong. If you hold a combination that is so truly original there can be found no mention of it... it's probably that way for a reason.
disagree. many heroes have rarely seen play in pvp, i.e. wars. therefore many hero pvp war builds will be different from the ones found on pvx (aka either pve hero bars or human pvp bars). you have to consider the following 2 outliers when creating a build: 1) is it pve or pvp? (better yet, specifically which area/format) and 2) is it human or hero? the end results of the build will change drastically. you'll find that when mixing pvp+hero, the build will turn out to be a lot more original. heck, even simply asking to make a sin gvg bar will likely to be original due to the fact that sins, human or hero, are not currently used in gvg.

a lot of times people will ask me, "can you give me a good necro build?" and i always give the same answer, "for what?". being generic simply does not cut it due to the fact that each build serves a purpose and therefore will be good in some circumstances, but bad in others. these contest builds are not necessarily bad (although some of em are questionable), however they are terrible for the intended circumstances and i do hope they reconsider.

El Presidente

El Presidente

Forge Runner

Join Date: Nov 2005

Lookout Post #1, Andes Mountains

Custer Was Ganked [7th]

R/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Inde View Post
And my argument continues to be, how can you not? This game is nearly 5 years old. The good, the bad, the ugly are all on the wiki.
Yet, one of the rules was:

Quote:
Originally Posted by GW.com
Originality: Entries must be the submission of the contestant and cannot be taken from any other source. Your submission must not infringe on any patent, copyright, trademark or other intellectual property right, or any privacy, publicity or publishing rights of any third party, or be libelous, obscene or otherwise contrary to law.

By entering the Guild Wars Henchman Skill Bar Contest 2009, (a) you agree to all of the terms and conditions of these Official Rules and Conditions, (b) you warrant that your entry is your own original work and that it does not violate any rights of any third party...
So, let's hold a contest with certain rules; yet, select the winners even though some (all, by your statement, Inde?) have violated said rules. Reward the fraudulent?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Alvito View Post
People are complaining because they don't want more contests.
No, contests are great, time permitting and when the other issues you mentioned have been addressed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Alvito View Post
In short, people are upset because ANet does not appear to understand what the community wants.
Uh, an answer as to why they set forth rules and then didn't follow them???

zwei2stein

zwei2stein

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Jun 2006

Europe

The German Order [GER]

N/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Inde View Post
............
Yes, i get it. People got involved

But what kind of involvement this is? Everyone slowly gets this idea that there could as well have been none constest, that devs could simply havw taken wiki builds and be done. The contest was pointless, the community involvement was pointless.

It community participation is pointless, it sends really bad message ... Add the fact that people were directed to stay aways from the very builds that won, feeling of betrayal here are quite understandable.

Next time, if there is hero contest for PvE, Discord necro will win. That is pretty much granted from my pov. And that is pretty bad result of this 'participation' contest as you can see.

...

I have no idea what they wanted to really achieve, but happy community did not result.

FoxBat

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Apr 2006

Amazon Basin [AB]

Mo/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by zwei2stein View Post
.
Next time, if there is hero contest for PvE, Discord necro will win.
That actually wouldn't make me so mad. But if they followed the methodology shown here, it would be an AP-curses caller winning.

Martin Firestorm

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Dec 2005

Louisiana

E/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by HawkofStorms View Post
I wasn't that mad at this when I first saw it. But Regina's completely oblivious post that ignores the concerns of people is just infuriating. I agree though with Inde that "creative" builds should not be submitted. You want stuff that will actually help your team. But the lawyer in me really doesn't like violations of IP law.
Well what were you expecting her to say?

"Yep, the builds are both unoriginal and suck, but we had to go with what you dimwits actually submitted."

If you had no problem to start with, there was nothing in her post that should've got you going.


I don't get some of you people. Are there ANY builds which are both useful for gvg/ha and original?

Winterclaw

Winterclaw

Wark!!!

Join Date: May 2005

Florida

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by snaek View Post
disagree. many heroes have rarely seen play in pvp, i.e. wars.
That's because melee AI isn't that great and to play warrior really well you need to know how to switch targets properly, proper ade use, and chizuu dancing if you can pull it off. Then you have to consider whether or not you are going to lineback, if so you have to adjust your build and playstyle accordingly.

Quote:
Originally Posted by zwei2stien
I have no idea what they wanted to really achieve, but happy community did not result.
Ego buffing. They pretended to get the community involved, the community responded, some people submitted wiki builds making their job easier, and at the end of the day they have an inflated sense of self-worth.

Squishy ftw

Squishy ftw

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Aug 2007

Your backline

W/

The result of this contest is just too funny, to say the least. I expected anet to be at least a little bit original in the builds they selected.

Grats to the winners though...

Jensy

Jensy

Site Contributor

Join Date: Apr 2007

Phoenix, Arizona

Blinkie Ponie Armie [bpa]

N/Mo

I think that the purpose here was to give players who don't have a full 8/don't have a pvp alliance/don't have pvp friends a chance to take 1-2 henchmen and go. While they do now take heroes, one could argue that a hero could play better than most AI (with you pushing their buttons, after all).

Sure the hench will kill themselves with frenzy - so will bad real players. Sure they'll get bars of exhaust and not be able to split - again, so will bad real players. I don't see much difference in terms of clueless noob/clueless hench. At least the hench might have a chance and being better at interrupts.

You can argue that people this bad shouldn't be playing anyway, but if they have a desire to play pvp, and a desire to get better, they're going to have to suck balls at the start. You usually can't just instantly get an N list full of people that will come and help.

Some of these bars baffle me as well, but in terms of them being able to work as intended for people that fall into what I described, they'll likely be fine with some AI tweaks (as long as said tweaks don't take 12 billion months).

fwiw - I didn't copy my bar from wiki; it just so happens that anything that doesn't suck total ass is there anyway.

snaek

snaek

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2006

N/

Quote:
Originally Posted by winterclaw
That's because melee AI isn't that great and to play warrior really well you need to know how to switch targets properly, proper ade use, and chizuu dancing if you can pull it off. Then you have to consider whether or not you are going to lineback, if so you have to adjust your build and playstyle accordingly.
which is why a human war skillbar will look different from a hero war skillbar. since hero wars are not used, it will automatically likely to be an "original" bar (and by "original" i don't mean something that hasn't been created or done before, but simply something that is not in meta and/or popular on pvx). it is not saying that the hero skillbar will be effective in gvg, but it will be more effective for the hero war to run rather than giving the hero war a human skillbar. submitting a human war skillbar into a henchie skillbar competition makes no sense to me.

I Angra I

I Angra I

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2007

Napa, CA

Inadequately Equipped [GeAr]

R/N

Quote:
Originally Posted by pansy malfoy View Post
fwiw - I didn't copy my bar from wiki; it just so happens that anything that doesn't suck total ass is there anyway.
the people who are angry just because they're "wiki builds" confuse me greatly lol ;o

Coast

Coast

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jul 2006

Belgium

Whats Going On [sup]

Mo/

+10for originality

Karate Jesus

Karate Jesus

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2008

Texas

Reign of Judgment [RoJ]

Me/

Quote:
Originally Posted by I Angra I View Post
the people who are angry just because they're "wiki builds" confuse me greatly lol ;o
Maybe it's because the rules of the contest said we weren't allowed to use them.............................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ............:/

Vazze

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Aug 2006

They are a lot better than the original henches so I don't really see the problem. I would normally say that if you get satisfaction from tweaking AI builds then go play HvH but since it is gonna be shut down: AI does not belong to pvp, f you enjoy playing with heroes, have fun in pve.

Artisan Archer

Artisan Archer

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2007

Free Wind

R/

I can imagine people came up with some of those bars but;

- RaO Thumper,
- MB ele (2x),
- TPIY para,
- VoR mesmer,
- LC necro (2x)
- UG ele
- MoI ele
- Coward sin

That's just pushing it.


I think there are about 2-3 builds people actually thought about instead of JUST ctrl-c ctrl-v

I mean; SoC, Frenzy, Primal Rage, Hammerbash+Dev Hammer, Shock, Wild Blow, Wards, Make Haste, Aggresive Refrain.

That better be one helluva AI update...

I think we can classify this as a big failure, especially since they admitted it actually took more time than when they just would've copied the builds of wiki themselves.

ALSO:

I do appreciate the enormeous effort put into this project; people coming on weekends and stuff, really. I'm just saying it might not be a very good idea to do this again in the future.

English Warrior

English Warrior

LEET HAXXOR!

Join Date: Feb 2007

Random Arena

N/A

Some Henchmen have interupts RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing glorious Gwenway revamped mrite?

coil

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Aug 2007

Quote:
Over the past couple of weeks, Robert and Linsey have been looking at the Henchman Skill Bar contest submissions and deciding which of the bars you submitted should go into the game. The Henchman Skill Bar contest took up more time than we predicted, due to the overwhelming response of the community (more than 30 000 submissions!). We view this initiative a success, despite the fact that it's taken a little longer for the team to select winning skill bars than if they had come up with those bars themselves. The in-game submission tool was something that Mike worked on and it's something that we may find use for in the future. Robert has been taking point on this project, and has been coming in on the weekends for that....I’ll try and grab Robert when he’s not ridiculously busy to give me a few more tidbits.
nice joke...

Igorputski

Banned

Join Date: Oct 2009

Quote:
But yeah, those are obviously all minor things, just like GvG, HA. You can easily ignore those
Now I do agree with this as those two arenas are highly overrated.