Codex Title

I'm not terribly concerned about this now, but I feel that if it hasn't already happened, the 5 consecutive wins to achieve points is probably going to turn away a large amount of your playerbase.

While I don't have too much of an issue with this myself, I know that many potential TA'ers were put off because they'd win a few matches, and get steamrolled by a g9 pug on their fourth or so, and not actually walk away with anything. This said, I feel that modeling the title after Glad was a bad idea, in that many casual players will desert the arena due to the difficulty achieving title points against strong teams.

So ultimately I would suggest that the title be changed (sooner rather than later) to be similar in style to the Hero track, in that you achieve a single point per win, plus one point for each consecutive, minus one. Obviously the Honor points required per tier would need to be raised significantly, and there would need to be a cap on points won per match, but I feel that Codex would retain more of it's players if they felt they were actually getting somewhere with their title.

/signed i already gave up on codex cuz of cons wins lol

isn't that what the point of a title is? to show you're good at something? from those two responses i can tell it's working out wonderfully -- good players get points toward title, and badlets cower in shame.

I'm somewhat put off from it myself, but I think it's too soon to be changing it. Let the playerbase get adjusted to the arena first and then see if there's any reason to change it.

If you make the tiers significantly high, baddies are still going to take months to achieve ranks in it. It'll really be no different to currently, except said bad players are going to feel like they're progressing, and thus be more inclined to play. The point of this isn't to make the title easier to obtain, just to make it feel like it is, so that people continue to play and we don't have another dead format.

See above example.

The longer you leave a change like this, the shittier people are going to be when the change does happen. Would be good to get it out of the way before people start achieving higher ranks, if such a thing is found desirable.

My hatred for ANet demands I say /unsigned.

Well it is a PvP arena, so I'd expect the title to be somewhat harder to achieve. Besides, whatever happen to playing for the hell of it?

Honestly, what's happened to the community? Is everyone so obsessed with titles that they only want to play a format for the title, and if that title takes time to get (God forbid), they just say screw it?

No, the title does not need to be changed so PvE players can farm the title. If you don't want to achieve it, then go farm another title, and leave CA for people who actually want to play it.

This is why I don't PvP.

The hero battles format was active for almost 3 years and no one managed to get r12 of it.
RA format was active for 4 - 4.5 years and I don't know of one who managed to get r12 of it, and even if someone did, he's just one person.
Do you suggest we wait 3 - 4 more years and wait for people to try to get to r12?

Something is broken and obviously needs a change.

Don't get me wrong, I don't play for the title, it's just a nice aside. I'd just prefer if it didn't die after a month or two.

I don't think people are quite getting the point in this. Look at the Hero track for example, and compare getting even rank 4 via both UW farming, and >100 fame runs. Getting your rank 4 without progressing past anything beyond UW is going to take in excess of 700 matches, and that's not counting UW failures. Compared with the 40 or so it takes on streaks of 10, there is really no contest. If you're bad, sure you'll get a couple of low ranks, but it's going to take you a long time to do it.

So yes, the point in this is to make it obtainable for baddies over a long period of time. And said baddies are often PvErs who are in it to show off various titles, and will even go to the extent of playing a format they don't enjoy to obtain said titles. Obviously if the arena loses everything but it's high end player base, as I forsee happening with the current system, then said PvErs are going to find it exceedingly difficult to gain title points, and not bother with the arena. Obviously it is important for the arena to retain as large a player base as possible, especially as Anet has stated that the arena will be more supported based on it's popularity. (Ladder/AT's etc.)

I enjoy playing CA, I really do. I simply suggest this because I saw exactly how TA died out, and it wasn't entirely due to the shitty meta. I don't want Codex to turn into the same desert as it's predecessor did.

Edit:
For myself, no. For the community at large, yes. Sad but true.

So because no one has reached the max rank for PvP titles, somethings broken?

Guess what? PvP isn't about farming titles. You PvP to PvP, the titles are just a bonus. The titles weren't introduced to be maxed, they were introduced as a bonus. If you don't want to play CA because of the title, then by all means, don't.

TA died because the game wasn't balanced around 4v4, and it was stuck in the same shitty meta forever. It didn't die because the title took forever to max.

It died for two reasons. The first being a shitty meta.

The second was the fact it had no player influx. This was obviously partly due to #1, but it was also very much due to the fact that no one wanted to be consistently farmed by a bunch of G8's and 9's all day with nothing to show for it.

Edit: Also, I think you're confusing my post with another, because I mentioned nothing about maxing the title. All I'm saying here is that the lower end portion of the player base is more likely to continue playing if they feel they're achieving something from it long term. Perhaps I've worded it badly, but I don't really see why this point isn't getting across.

So it had nothing to do with the gladiator title track, ok.

Pretty sure that has everything to do with the fact that Glad only rewarded points after you hadn't encountered said G8's for five matches in a row.

No, that means people got tired of getting rolled by good players. Then being g8/9 has nothing to do with anything, it just means that they have experience.

I personally don't pvp, but I'm pretty damn sure today's most high end player wouldn't PvP if it wasn't for the rank showoff.
It's nice to play a couple of days\weeks, even months for fun, but when it's getting to YEARS - you know it's about the titles.
Titles aren't a bonus, titles are there so people will have something to play for in PvP.

High-end PvPers play GvG/HA. GvG has the ladder/cape trims, HA has rank (which was around before titles). So yes, I'm pretty damn sure todays high end PvP players would be playing if there were no titles. Titles are bonuses, and most people serious about PvP don't care about them. It doesn't show skill, it shows how long they've played the format.

Argue semantics all you like. Just read: experienced players if g8/9 is such an issue. The reason TA did not have a mid or low level player base during it's final year was the fact that if such teams tried to achieve anything in that arena they would be farmed. For your average Joe Casual PvP, or PvE, this is a serious turnoff, because said farming would likely have also prevented them from getting Glad points. Said farming is a lot more tolerable for average Joe Casual if he gains something out of it, like (even minimal) points toward a title track.

This issue does not particularly concern me, as I am happy playing the format for the experience, and because I am capable of holding my own in a mid-high range environment. But I can tell you right now, a great big chunk of your GW population does not share the same viewpoint, and I would like to keep as many people playing the format as possible so that we continue to see varied teams, and developer support. Giving players some sort of long term achievable goal IS going to make some people stay on who otherwise would not. That's all I'm trying to say here.

Oh, look, a thread about *titles*.
The only good title threads are the ones that suggest removing titles.

Five wins per point is the same as RA and the old TA. I don't see the problem.

In general, I'd reduce pvp titles to 3 ranks per format. 1,000 points for first rank, 5k for second, 25k for 3rd, or something like that. Just enough to show if you have experience with it.

I do think that in a certain sense, the average PvE player has little incentive to play PvP areas. The rewards for High end PvP are quite nice, but an average PvE player has little to no hope of winning high end arenas. The codex arena allows for a place which is a little more attractive to people who are not hard core PvPers, since there are bigger limitations and an ever changing meta. Still, what rewards are there for PvE players? There is balthazar faction but most PvE players have little use for it short of buying z-keys. There are various fame emotes, but at this point they're far from rare, and again of limited use from a PvE perspective. The other reward is in the title track which is also of limited use, except for the players going for GWAMM or just titles in general. Since many people (especially PvP players) complain about PvP being dead, at least in part due to a smaller player base, I would think it would be a good idea to offer incentive more more people to finally make the cross over to PvP. If making title points easier to obtain does this, then I don't see a problem with it. But I doubt this would really make more PvE players more interested, as its really only a title.

I think taking it's point system from an already broken title (gladiator) is a bad move. My reasoning is that although pvp titles are widely considered a way to ascertain a player's skill, titles still need to be maxable, at least eventually.

I'm sure many people would disagree with this suggestion on the basis that pvp titles show who is the better player. To that I would disagree simply because the only way titles could indicate skill would be if losing detracted points as well as gaining points for winning.

I was thinking the same. Glad title style just won't work in CA. You create a build, try with it, you get 4 wins and no reward, because someone had moar luck/play longer this day or whatever. I suggest one point per win + additional bonuses at 5/10/15/20. Because now, CA is as noob un-friendly as the old TA. If youre skillful, and you have core group to play with, you get title easy. If you are newcomer, that don't know wtf and stuff, without any form of "saw-able" achievment, you will just go away and screw that.

listen to arkantos.

pve titles are essentially meaningless because they're meant to be maxed and anyone with enough time can easily max them -- that's pve.

pvp titles, more or less, have a meaning to them. they are meant to show experience in that format of pvp. if pvp titles were as ridiculously easy to max as pve titles, everyone would be walking around with them maxed and what kind of experience would that show? not much.

they're made nearly impossible to max for a good reason.

and this is the main reason i love codex. because random pvers, who don't know how to pvp, can't load up the latest gimmick build from pvxwiki to farm title points. the players with playing skill and originality (somewhat) are the ones that you'll see win. sure it might drive some players away, but those players will most likely go back to running bsurge eles in RA, and as far as codex goes -- nothing of value was lost.

that's my take on it and that's how i believe it should be.

I say /signed because I really do feel the 5 consecutive matches to win are a lot, from my experience matches can be fought for so long becoming an attriction battle, that just isn't worth it. With one team I got a match that took 6 minutes to break even and got a 2nd one with a monk and a protting D/Mo in wich he simply couldn't out-heal the enemy team while our monk was having a relativelly easy time, that one lasted for almost 10 minutes. This kind of pvp format is pretty fun but it's own nature also makes it terribly slow, it's not the same like TA was and RA is to justify the 5 cons. wins for a point, they should have just kept it like HB, one win = one point ajusting the title track accordingly if needed (wich IMO it isn't).

CA isn't about making creative builds and try winning with it. If you actually want to win matches, you're going to have to run the build of the day, or else you'll get rolled. It has nothing to do with luck. CA isn't noob unfriendly, it's unfriendly to players who aren't good (same as every other organized PvP format). If you're a newcomer and don't know anything, you're not going to have fun and want to continue playing regardless of how easy the title is to get. If you get a point per win, but can't win, it's not going to change a thing. It's just going to make the title a hell of a lot easier for people who are decent, and newcomers are still going to say screw it.

The way it is, decent people get consecutive wins, and bad people don't. The title is meant to reward decent people, not bad people. Good players are going to do good, bad players aren't. You can't change a title to reward bad players. The problem I see here is that PvE players are expecting CA to be some PvE friendly format with an easily farmable title. It's no different from any other organized PvP format - good players are rewarded, bad players aren't. The closest thing to a PvE friendly CA would be RCA.

which will leave the mid and high range players left, then the mid range will be farmed by the high range, leaving it as dead as TA was.

Glad was the only title where you had to win consecutively, and thats a major reason TA died. Even HB had a bigger (actual non-RRing) playerbase.

HB had a bigger playerbase because forming a group with 3 heroes is much easier than forming a group with 3 players who want to play a format that had the same shit meta forever.

Even if the title was easier to achieve, low and mid range players are going to continue leaving because they're getting rolled by good players. Changing the title isn't going to fix this, the only way it will be fixed is a better match making system. If bad players play against other bad players, they'll have a better chance of winning and getting better. As it is, it's good players rolling bad players. That's what kills formats like this for the low/mid range players.

I agree the title track needs to change.

It should be like the old gladiator title track...you only get points for 10 consecutive wins. The title should actually mean something.

Also, you should be required to get 25 wins in a row in RA inorder to qualify for codex. That will get rid of all the scrubs that don't deserve to be here.

And if this was the reason, wouldn't all PvP formats be dead then?

I was saying that wasn't the reason.

I know, and I said what I did to reinforce that point vs the others seeming to think it was the reason TA died??

Oh, right, my bad. >.>

It's not broken. The reason for this codex arena is to buy time for anet to finish gw2 and it may possibly take 3-4 years from the way it looks. We all know hero battles was introduced to allow people the feeling of how good heroes are due to Nightfall's release. But this codex is to eliminate the need for anet to waste additional time on maintenance. It has nothing to do with skills. Sometimes PVP are so overrated that these players get the wrong arrogant feeling.

but isnt that exactly the point? your basically trying to get the attention of the average GW player, because they are the masses. because if your saying you need to get good or get out, i can guarantee %90 of players will get out.

one of the problems with TA is that you had to form the group. now if your a pve'r you wont play it, because you have to take the time and effort to form a group, and if you dont know anyone who is up for TA, you go to RA. which is why RA still has tonnes of players. because you can easily just jump in and go.

the codex arena is basically just sealed deck TA. and i also wonder how the skill rotations will work, (i havent actually bothered looking to see if its random, or a circular set of skills will rotate like the z-quests). anyways, point being, if it just goes into a lazy rotation, builds will be posted for certain days and you will create your own daily meta for codex. so your back in the position of, if you dont run this, you gotta go else where. pushing away the average player who cant run the build properly, or isnt as good as other teams who will just roll others. people will then stop coming to codex.

if the title were to award a point per win, people would be tempted to try and win a few points here and there, or the title wouldnt seem so unattainable. but as it is, you can already see by this thread, the average response is people want it changed. its a sad fact to admit that people are lazy. and dont want to get to 5 wins for a point. your gonna have to change the point system, or make the teams randomized like RA to get your playerbase.

i'm honestly surprised that this wasnt done from the start seeing as RA and HB were the most popular among the average player. a combination of the two with point per win/randomized would have gotten more players.

but... it is only early days, and from what i have played ive found it fun. but, thats my opinion.

Op describes it all. Getting steamrolled by a g9 guild is boring and is a big turn off for casual PvP'ers.

/signed

CA was destined for failure from the very beginning, live with it.

/unsigned

I don't see why anet doesn't make an RA version of this too, as has been mentioned before. That way everyone's happy.

I'm all for Random Codex arena.