Henchman Skill Bar Contest Winners!

Henches are there to provide so-so replacement for missing players, not to provide accurate simulation of "noob".

All this buzz for that ? I can only join the people that are dissapointed by this contest...

I mean when i saw they published winners, i was really excited to see what good skillbar people came up with... clicked on GvG winner bars then erm...

WTF ?

So much for originality, AI playable skillbars (yeah they'll tweak AI, but they can do it for any bar really)... Why, just why won't you try to give some more hype to underused elites ???

As much as you can try to defend the idea that Anet is putting effort in such an old game (and yes they are, been playing almost since the first day, and i'm a big anet fan) this sounded to me like a big fail.

We're aware of the criticism that some of the winners have builds that are popular. It probably wasn't that surprising that players were going to submit builds that are proven and commonly-used. Popular and commonly-used builds got submitted by many, many people, and they are popular for a reason: they're effective. The designers did extensive in-game research on what builds were being played and what builds people were looking for when forming a party. Many people submitted the same build to the contest, but a significant portion of the winners had unique bars that no one else had submitted. There were a lot of factors the designers had to keep in mind: whether those winning henchmen bars will get play and if players would want to use them, whether those bars will be effective, how those builds fit with overall design goals, and so on. They weren't judging the winning bars based on only a couple of factors. So while we're aware that not everyone is satisfied with the results, the team just wanted to let you know about the balance issues they were wrestling with when judging those submissions.

So next time Regina, plz drop originality rule and all will be fine.

By the way: can I submit some nice google graphics for halloween contest? In this contest there is also originality rule, but it will be very popular one, I promise.

I think the problem here is that the winners are being awarded for going on pvxwiki and pretty much directly copy/pasting.

Crippling slash henchman - http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:W/an..._Slash_Warrior

Exactly the same, except on pvx the conjure slot is optional.

Magehunter's henchman - http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:W/an..._Smash_Warrior

Clearly directly copied from pvx.

Primal rage henchman - http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:W/E_Primal_Rage_Axe

Again, all the same skills.

VoR henchman - http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Me/D_VoR_Mesmer

One difference here.

WoH monk - http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Mo/any_GvG_WoH

Again, very little differences.

RC henchman - http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Mo/W_GvG_RC_Monk

Yet again, exactly the same, except pvx has an optional slot.

I think you get the point. I understand that when it comes to making henchmen that are going to be used, the builds are going to have to be effective and already powerful. However, it's pretty dumb to reward players for entering a submission that they simply copied off a website. So yeah, congratulations to everyone who won by copying builds of pvx.

Then why didn't you pick those? If there was so many? It makes little since to us.

The only people that are satisfied is half the winners.

The other half is wtf? Why did they pick that? I wanted to fill the 3rd spot so I copy and pasted... I thought my Beuilgering haze assassin was 10x better than my MB ele.

So your going to update the AI, that's good.
But you completely ignored the originality rule, which some players followed and submitted builds AI can use well to start with.

The contest was a great idea and could have ended great. What pisses everyone off is you went against your own rules.

It reminds me of the recent Total Drama Action episode. (For those that didn't watch it)

They had a hero costume contest. Judged on super powers, looks and originality.

The winner that was picked was Wonder Woman, who's super powers is to wonder.

The reason is, "I'm a fan of wonder woman."
Completely excepted of the ego eater host who is the rules.

But your ArenaNet, our expectations are high. Now they are very low.

But this should never have been considered in the first place. You were removing the AI for a reason, people clearly don't want to see heroes/henches in HA and GvG. Instead of just selecting mediocre builds that nobody would have used (and nobody would have complained about), you ended up focusing on popular builds and gimmicks while often disregarding whether or not the AI can even run the build. I honestly don't understand what Anet tried to achieve with this entire contest.

I think there are a few of us that expected to see new builds that could build off of. Builds that haven't been seen before that haven't necessarily proven their worth, but would allow teams to work off of them. However, once we saw the builds that have been used already and work in specific team builds, it kinda erased the fun of playing with new toys.

It's kinda like going to the ice cream store for the new flavor of the month that has been hyped up, only to find out its Double Vanilla... Vanilla has been proven to be a good popular flavor, but Double Vanilla is just the same ol' thing with a slight change. And even if you fix it and put it in a cool green cup instead of a normal white cup, its been seen before and its nothing new.

Even if the builds were not the greatest (they were going to be criticized whether they were original or not), being something different than PvX wiki would've been a lot more acceptable. There was a misunderstanding between us and the contest rules on what is "original" and "unique", whether it be something that hasnt been seen before or something that wasn't submitted by 50 other people.

It would be interesting if Robert Gee (or whoever picked the winners) would write something in defense of these builds, or another Dev Post, but that would probably take a lot of time and effort and solve very little.

On the brightside, it definitely brought the community together in discussion, and i think all of us (both community and Anet) has learned from this situation.

(And my apologies to Vanilla fans for using your flavor as an example. I like Vanilla...)

Hi Regina

My problem with the contest and the winner skillbars is mostly the fact that the contest rules clearly said "no builds that are in the current meta, no popular builds" etc. and one just has to be blind to not see for instance the UG ele skillbar or the MB ele skillbar is as popular and current meta-ish as it can get.

Whether Anet can tweak the AI (I would be surprised to see a tweak that would make henchies use some of those skillbars effectively, see the many times mentioned Frenzy) or not, the fact remains that contest rules were broken, and those people who have really gave it some thought and spent days testing out skillbars get left in the dust just because their submitted builds is not one of the "populars".

Although, I submitted a slightly tweaked Tainter skillbar (one of my submissions), there is not one tainter necro among the winners even though it's such a build that the AI could use easily and effectively.

To be honest, I don't even care about the prize anymore (though that's what inspired me to work on skillbars and enter the contest), I'm just very frustrated to see the rules being broken so obviously and the rewards being given out to those people.

I'm really trying not to be bitter over all of this, because the contest itself was fun, I was excited to enter, I had nice discussions with guildies and friends about the skillbars I submitted, and overall it was a very nice way to involve the community in something so unique.

The ending results (winners by breaking rules in most cases) of this fun contest is what turns it all sour for so many people.

As you say in your post "Many people submitted the same build to the contest, but a significant portion of the winners had unique bars that no one else had submitted." I'm sorry but the "rest of the portion" can still win by breaking the rules (UG ele, MB ele etc. (lol, does it show a lot that I usually play midliner? ))?

I can't say I understand the judges' ruling in this contest, and I'll be still talking (lol, make that complaining) about this to my guildies and friends today, but I'll get over it eventually and concentrate on making my 3D models for the Halloween contest before too long.

Anyways, sorry for the wall of text but I just had to.

Cheers!

Wait so how did they choose the winners out of the 1000s of players who must have submitted those identical warrior bars? Shock axe and conjure cripslash? Must of been submitted by god knows how many players.

Yeah, I thought that copying pvx was so obvious that they would automatically disqualify anything from there so i submitted stuff that was original... bad, but at least original. {Sigh} I should never try to out think these things. The path of least resistance wins 99% of the time.

Total lack of creativity.
These buids are easy to find on wiki lol. Nothing of new. Blahhhh

I wanted to make a list with cons and pros for this project but after seeing how few pros i could come up with I just stopped and... hey didn't the devs thought of making this list BEFORE starting the project??? I really feel like the time invested in all this was just wasted. I have a small guild and we play GvG as many times we can but most times we miss that last 1-2 players. In HA you can shout for a pug but we all know that for GvG it's not the same. IMO this will only kill the smaller non-pro GvG guilds, but hey Anet will have to use less servers so guess who wins here?

I think people are overreacting just a little bit.

AI: The AI for these current build suck, but it is extremely doubtful that even fixing AI will make the builds viable. For example, AI is generally superior at interrupting, but has -no- idea how to prioritize interrupts. AI -could- be edited to learn to cancel stances like Frenzy when taking too much damage, or Flail when opponents flee, but It's unlikely that the AI will even know when is a good time to flee. Generally, there probable was more general, useful builds posted within limitations of the current AI, and Yes, Henchmen will never and should never be a substitution for human players.

Where I think people overreacting is the last part. Anet could have just dumped heroes, never added henchmen, and said "Deal with it". In fact they probably should have. But they didn't. What are you guys losing out on? Absolutely nothing.

Originality: From someone whose main interest in GW is creating and making builds, I have to repeat what Inde said. NO build is EVER going to be completely original with a game as old as this. period. Though where people are pissed is the misleading rule that winners were going to be picked based on non-meta builds and the assumption that winners would favor builds with CURRENTLY working AI.

So basically, your excuse for choosing blatantly meta builds is that they are effective, yet balancing clearly focusing on eliminating overpowered, meta builds, or at least bringing them down to speed. With at least one of these builds you guys picked ALREADY nerfed by you guys, we are getting extreme mixed signals here. Not to mention that if your intention was to pick EFFECTIVE builds REGARDLESS of meta, you probably should have said that instead of saying not to pick meta builds.

It's pretty much like... a popular musician having a signing at one place, and then while everyone flocks there, announce that you are actually at this other place across the entire city.

This. I think the majority of builds can be found on pvx, maybe not exactly but definitely in some form. In which case it can still be complained that people took wiki builds and changed 2-3 skills, it's hard to avoid. I think it would make sense that they chose the most popular builds, because it's obviously what people want. Though I do agree that them asking for original builds wasn't the right thing to ask for. Anyway...


I was honestly unaware that the build I submitted (Pseudo Antipathy) was in the GvG section of pvx until I checked yesterday, so I do apologize for that. I've never observed a GvG where Xinrae's Weapon was being used, and I pretty much love the skill. As for the rest of the bar, it's basically typical ritualist healing skills. I thought it was original in the fact that I've never seen people running it (I guess they must've at some point now) since most rits are the flag runners (which obviously can't work for heroes, so I put together an all healing bar) but unoriginal in that fact that there are only a few decent ritualist heals to chose from, which can't really be helped.
So again, I do apologize to anyone who has a problem with my build. But I'm not going to feel sorry or bad for winning, Anet chose what they wanted and I can't help that. I'm happy.

In order to not totally wreck the Henchies, you can be pretty sure these popular skillbars won't be nerfed or anything for a fair bit. Have fun with MB Eles guys. They are apparently pretty balanced.


And I think we all learned from this. Don't think outside the box.

I don't think the sourness is directed to the winners but more so towards ArenaNet. They blatantly broke their own rules regarding this contest and chose builds that anyone could have made via pvx or obs mode. Something they could have easily done themselves which would have saved time and resources that could have gone towards other parts of the game.

And now, more time and resources have to be spent "tweaking" AI so henchies can shadowstep properly, not overwrite weapon spells, sustain aggressives, and so on. And what about weapon sets? 40/40 earth for the necro snare (I'm interested in the att spread on this one too since it has profane)? A proper modded sword/scythe for conjures? Etc, etc.

... Which is exactly what I was saying :P

Perhaps those are things that should've been done anyway. People have been complaining about hero AI for how long now?
Would people have complained if some popular builds didn't win? I'm sure there are people who would like some of the current popular hero builds to stick around, which is why so many of them were submitted. Perhaps that's why Anet chose them? Because it seemed to be what most people wanted. Like I said, I agree that they shouldn't have asked for original builds, but there's always going to be as many people happy as angry, so I guess they just did what they thought best or what they wanted.

Agreed infymys. It's almost like Regina doesn't understand why we are mad.

We understand you wanted good skill bars, and that many good skill bars are popular. But then why a) have rule against violating intellectual property law b) not enforce that rule c) have a contest at all if you could have done it yourself

They aren't hero builds, they are popular human builds. Many people made builds assuming they had to bend to poor AI function, along with not copy pasting from PvX.

even with an improved AI, these builds are not adapted to heroes / henchies


for example, the shock warrior :
- won't use shock or bull strike properly (there are so many different situations, how could a bot do that ?)
- won't switch from casters to lineback when his monks need it
- won't use frenzy and his cancel stance like a real player would
- won't call spikes

even if the AI gets decent, it won't be anywhere close enough to what a real warrior should do

same goes with all other builds

Ah, sorry, my bad. I've always said heroes/henchies are retarded, so yeah I guess it does make sense. I'm not going to complaing about it though, and hopefully updated AI will make it at least a bit better. I never really expected the henchies to get used no matter what the build though, honestly.

Regina, here is one of the conditions from the contest:

Source

In other words you guys did not throw out entries based on what Arkantos said. I'm going to take it a step further and suggest you should have taken the time before hand to make sure that pvx builds couldn't have been eligible to submit. If submitting pvx builds were allowed, and many people assumed it wasn't based on the above general condition, it should have been explicitly noted... which as the CR is your responsibility for getting right.

This is what I think has people the most upset: Anet publicly stated the rules to be one thing and when it came time to judge they did what they felt like. Going back to an earlier criticism, if you were going to pick the wiki builds because they were the meta, why did you even bother running a contest to begin with. Why should we try to follow the rules and enter contests if you guys are going to change them at your own pleasure? You guys said you wanted originality, there's even a quote from Martian saying as much, and after that you took some of the least original builds possible. The fans are anrgy because anet intentionally lied to us!. If you said you wanted original builds then even if they weren't the most effective things you should have stuck behind your words and picked the best of the original builds available. You didn't. Thus you guys are liars.

Secondly there is the complaint that a lot of the builds Anet has chosen can't be used effectively by the AI. AI is difficult to get right so we can't expect it to be fixed rendering some of the builds useless. Furthermore there is a "human element" to playing some classes that make it even more difficult to try to make an AI for so not everything can be programmed in with current technology. A lot of people put effort into trying to create builds that the AI could use well unlike some meta bars that it can't.

Now you have said that the AI will be fixed to run the builds well, but seeing as we have proof you guys are liars how can we believe you on that or on anything else? How do we know you aren't just trying to shut us up when you say that? Considering how anet failed to make the AI better for HM, that seems to be beyond you all.

wait what? most of those builds are never used on heroes, and the others are rarely used on heroes. good luck on that complete ai overhaul to achieve that status of "effective" your aiming for.

Good grief, I keep seeing this thread pop up and was like, "What's this all about, anyway?" So I clicked it to investigate, and was in a state of shock. I didn't enter this contest, and it sounds like it's a good thing I didn't. I can't believe ANet broke their own rules and that PVXwiki builds won. Ouch...I'm really at a loss as to what else to say here.

Nice originality rule. Getting old but no less true.
Hands up all those who have faith in Anet's ability to 'fix' AI yet again.

wut
No, no, no, badly, fuhgeddaboutit.
It must have been a mighty wrestling match. My local petting zoo calls dibs on whichever donkey approved of those Warrior bars.

I would say more but it'd get personal.

I wonder if ArenaNet knows that not one person is happy with their decisions, besides the winners. And even some of the winners aren't happy. Good job, you royally pissed off the community. With all this time digging through build after build after build to find your favorite PvX one, you could have done so much for the game that people would actually care about/use. I don't really mind the builds (Nobody would use henchies anyway), more that you broke your own rules. I might accept an apology...might....

Y'know, if they were going to settle for gimmicky, well-known builds...

Why not just let people use the Norn Fighting Tournament versions of assorted NPCs as henchies?



ANet cracks me up.

The point is that most of the "copied" builds are not even HERO builds, even less so HENCHMEN builds.

The AI is not good enough to do that. They should know the limits of their own Hero/Henchmen AI better.

Basically, they would require human player control to make sense. Especially the "Frenzy/Primal Rage for Heroes" builds.

So when do I get my prize and when do I get to name my henceman ? ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^

What's your point?

You aren't happy until the AI is on par with or better than human play?

Glad to see Anet pour resources into amazing contests like this btw. The biggest problem in this game is the henchmen skillbars. Skill balance, gvg tie breaker and the 4v4 v 8v8 format issues don't need attention.

Bring on the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing costume brawls already, the only honorable format left worth playing.

Is this a joke, no?.

I mean the builds, for example Mo/D don't work anymore....

How exactly does the Mo/D not work (apart from AI obviously)?

LOL. One of the funniest things I've ever read on this forum.

LOL again. This alone completely obliterates any Anet response we have gotten so far.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Well put. There goes Inde's attempt to make this look less bad than it actually is.

Exactly.

Its quite amazing when I agree with all these people I normally NEVER agree with. I've never been prouder of this forum for exposing one of the most hilarious things ANet has ever done. I know you tried Anet (and you are loved for still trying)...but seriously this was a failure on every single level I can think of. GG.

In GvG/HA they're pretty useless now, since condition removal is more prevalent.

In RA it works.

It's kind of funny, but this outcome of meta-builds winning was almost predictable. Except for the conflicting statements made in the other thread by the devs, concerning general purpose and not niche/meta
("- We do want robust, general purpose builds, not some niche meta builds or builds that will not be immediately made obsolete by meta shifts.
- Common gimmick builds are not very likely to be picked "post #97).
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10398136

Also, right off the bat, they could have said they were only going to take healer/prot monk/rits, so no time was wasted on DPS versions (a smiter with knockdowns/reversal/hex/cond support was out from the start, yet the AI handles this sort of build fairly well, and it provides decent healing and some DPS to boot).

My warrior bar for HA was almost identical to the 100LOLz one, except my build had better adrenaline generation and mana usage - oh well, at least that build was somewhat non-meta and general-use...

My (non-pet) ranger builds were also almost identical to the winners, except for different elites (2 interrupts and no more than 1 stance). Given the use of pin down/crippling and lightning reflexes, natural stride seems fairly redundant...

well its not the first time Anet has done this...........any of you long time PvPers that have played PvE EoTN notice a similar failure by Anet on some of the AI enemy bars? werent some of those builds old PvP builds they tried to adapt to PvE?

although i agree its sad they picked builds that have known skills that the hero AI cant run. we havent been able to get Anet to improve on the current hero AI why do they think they can make us believe that they will get the AI to run these builds correctly?

I beg of you, try to come up with a decent build for PvP that isn't in some way up on PvXWiki, then come back and try to prove how ANet violated its rules. Quality of builds >>> creativity of builds, kthnx.

Also, if you don't frickin play HA or GvG, stop complaining.

You mean balance issues the development team is so notoriously bad at?

A handful of builds were truly classified as "unique" (the Lyssa's Bar, the Cripshot Bar) and are all absolutely horrendous. If you want to state that the Cripshot bar was chosen because "other, more powerful skills, would have made it not so good for balance" and you wanted 2 bad skills that actually do something, then why are other bars stuck with absolute AI garbage (e.g. Make Haste, Song of Concentration, Infuse Health, Illusion of Pain, Death's Charge)? Why not replace them with skills that AI use properly, like Signet of Rejuv, Conjure Phantasm/Nightmare, etc?

It's clear that the actual AI was not taken into consideration in selection of the bars. Even if the AI is improved, you'll stumble into another problem - an AI infuser being too good or too bad (really, there is no middle ground here), Make Haste/Song Conc used correctly (unless you can literally micro your henchmen, neither of these will be useful) and a variety of other things.