HA in Crisis

So basically, as a good start, HA-oriented guilds might open their recruitation in the appropriate section of Guru and invite ~10 non-ranked HA rookies to teach them, effectively increasing the overall population.
A rookie might start his own guild, invite rookies and try to do the rookieway HA, but i guess more than 3/4 of the members would leave after first few losses and an impression of 'wtf no one knows what to do'.

Yes , it's quite a joke , but on the other hand , if you consider some addict guilds that play 24/7 ( i.e MATH , which are full guild team right now ( yes...), [time] too maybe ) , you might want an ok team to not get completly rolled out . Only fact is there's no other team to fight , whereas if more hench were allowed or 6v6, teams would fight themselves thus ...

p.s : and now code15 appearing , just wasted 1hour30 trying to find people ( took first logging ) and code15 disband... so fun yes...

To me this is the most important point. Yes rank discrimination exists, but it doesn't exist as a barrier to entry, it exists as a barrier to entry for the unmotivated to enter the worst groups that could exist.

Entering PvP requires effort and an investment of time. Not an investment towards groups that require a ranking, as that is a very poor investment, but an investment in finding people that want to play. The easiest thing to start with is activity, be that an active PvP guild or an active PvE guild, activity is the most important. As long as one is willing to play (activity), willing to listen (attitude), willing to play what is required and adapt(attitude), and can find people (knowledge/connections), then getting into any organized PvP (HA or GvG) should not be that difficult.

The first three conditions are based entirely upon an individuals natural state, the latter should hopefully be relieved by the new PvP irc channel. That channel is currently (as of this post) reasonable active. The people there are more than willing to help new players (though there haven't really been any that have bothered to sign on). The previous incarnation (#buildwars [now defunct]) had many opportunities for new and inexperienced players to get into groups with good players.

Failing all that, just find some players in high ranked guilds on observer and start talking to them. If they are busy or just don't want to talk, don't sweat it, but many of them are more than willing to spend time talking to new players and help those players find entrances into pvp. While many pvp hopefuls may not want to leave their guild, finding a pvp guild is the best single step. Put in applications for guild, or put up a player application (I am unfamiliar with guru's application/noise ratio, but QQ's application forums are pretty good), just don't try to sell yourself big and be honest about what you have done and are capable of doing (attitude).


EDIT: Also


Haha what? I haven't seen [MATH] in over a year (at least in my timezone). Sadly though just about every team we face are people that we recognize (often times on the very same vent server too!).

Thats like harvard opening their campus to the village idiots. Elitism is there for a reason. But then again there are community college(and most beginners dont wanna attend a "community college" and can only think "im harvard material"). Anyways I remember a buncha times these unranked guys begged me to join my guild and assured me that they would not ask to join any guild teams, that they wanted to join the guild for advice and to be able to join pug teams. Well the guys that joined only begged to join guild groups, it was pretty annoying. But the morale of the story is that most of the people want to be fed with a silver spoon.
And heres another thing, when I do help inexperienced players by joining their groups and telling them what they are doing wrong and need improvement, they just try to discredit me. Theres soo many noobs that think its impossible to get r12+ that it must be ebayed and many of them dont wanna hear that they are doing things wrong and prefer to be ignorant and pretend they are pro and that rank means nothing.

I've been playing GW near five years, and have beaten all PvE content, and tried all PvP, bar Heroes Ascent.

I sat in there half a day once and groups were forming, but everyone without exception want Rank something or another.

I was finally accepted into a group, explained that I was new to HA, but willing to run whatever build the group wanted, that I would listen to the leader and attack any called target or do whatever I was supposed to do. Group fills up and we're all ready to go, when another guy wanted to join the group who was rank whatever it was, I got booted and away they went.

Get rid of rank discimination somehow, randomise teams, whatever but no one has a hope of joining if not given the chance.

That practice is actually now extremely common and infuriating. So many groups now basically accepts someone, but behind the scene the leader is actually whispering like mad to other people or his friends list hoping someone would come by so that he could kick the lower ranked people. Its analogous to a job interview with HR lying ***** without the ability to look for more than one job at a time. Its actually worse than people who outright screams LF R9+++ because that way at least people know outright and wouldn't waste their time to begin with.

Therefore, another welcome change is the ability for people to be on MORE THAN ONE GROUP at a time while forming.

How is that a solution? That just changes the direction of screwing.

Solution: don't play in HA pugs that are trying to recruit in local chat.

I keep trying to say this, but people just refuse to listen.

I never said it was a "solution", just a welcome change, that's all. There's no way of knowing if the group leader is whispering to people behind your back...at least if I can join more than one group, I can "brute force" myself onto as many groups as possible and hopefully one of them doesn't have a prick that would kick a R10 for a R11.

Job interviews works the exact same way. The recruiter are as picky as can be, and that's why people who are looking for work generally send multiple resume to various jobs hoping for a response from one.

Of course there needs to be enough groups forming to begin with...which is why I said "welcomed change", among a list of other ideas that previous people have said. (Not that I expect that it'll be implemented in GW1, but this is a suggestion forum for a reason)

Those of us who don't have an HA guild or who's HAing friends dont play anymore dont have much of a choice. Then again, Puging isnt much of a choice either...

Your proposed suggestion would be the equivalent of interviewing and being hired at multiple jobs, then obviously only accepting one offer.
You're right, but you shouldn't go into a pug expecting anything other than abject failure and a lot of time wasted. Caveat emptor.

Message some folks you see on Observer and see if they want to play. Many will, and you'll build connections. Remember to add everyone you enjoy playing with to your friends list so you have options!

Did you let them in just so you could have someone kissing your ass, or are you honestly that sadistic? Why did you even let them in? It seems like you had absolutely no intention of playing with those recruits, right? What would your other elitist asshat friends think of you then? OOOH NOOO! Your precious name would be tainted by the presence of LOW RANKED people! Oh God, the horror...
Seriously, dude. People just like you ruined HA.

So much in diabiosix post is just glaringly and sadly the reason WHY HA is in such bad shape and why other PvP formats are fighting against PvE players thinking everyone in PvP is like him;

The was most people see it nowadays is more like HA is a Nightschool for Walmart Securityguards turning down people who havent shopped in Walmart and dont bother to explain anything in the school.

Why in Earths name would you even ever want to recruit an unranked player if you full intend to not show him the ropes or train him up to your standards?
Thats basically just another pathetic guild looking to fill the space and not bother to help or pass on knowledge imo. Either Recruit unranked players and help them build up your guild or dont recruit unranked players at all if you know you cant be assed to teach or help even if they are obviously asking for help learning and first hand experience.

This is the only part which Id have to agree with. There will always of course be bad players not willing to learn or addapt in every game and game format. You just have to learn to ignore them and not group with them once you notice that nothign is to be gained. However reading between the lines of the rest of your post it seems like your personality may have a deciding point of how people treat you the way they do if they group with you.


Whats so unrealistic about that? You apply to multiple job offers, they interview you and if you get a job offer at multiple companies you have to refuse all but one. If your skills are in demand, then you get to dictate the conditions of employment because you can always say that another company is offering better conditions. Either up your bid or I go to them even though Id prefere to come to your company for personal reasons.

Moving this scenario over to HA, you get to apply and reserve a space in multiple parties... your skills are you are a human player who is actually interrested in playing a dead game. If you find someone better you take them if not then im here, but dont forget that others may also be interrested in my presence to fill a team to actually play the game instead of waiting in this tastefully decorated outpost for another 2 hours before loging off.

Rank discrimination is not the systematic obstacle to getting into PvP that PvEers like to make it out to be. Attitude is a bigger problem.
Terrible analogy.
If you read what he wrote, he didn't recruit them, they came asking for advice. The implicit agreement in joining a guild to basically leech is that you shouldn't be annoying, and asking to play definitely counts as annoying in 99% of situations.
The problem is that most players are unwilling to learn, including every single one who complains about rank discrimination.
I'd imagine that it's pretty inconvenient for a company to be turned down after making an offer.
So, because somebody got kicked from an HA pug (the joining of which has been pointed out as being a dumb idea in the first place on multiple occasions), the solution is to make it harder for people to put groups together?

How can anyone generalize PvPers as QQing all the time when suggestions like this get posted?

So what , how are we supposed to play HA then ...?This means if you play just at some totally dead hours you have no other choice than playing only RA ?

There's some problem behind all that , if you consider the only reason all pugs fail is because of the 2 usual addict farming teams playing 24/7 and rolling those pugs. That's why they should have done something so that pugs fight themselves and don't totally waste their time ..;

You might want to read the post yourself again, especially the bolded parts.

What is even the point of leaching when theres nothing to leach? Do all members of a guild get free title points if a guild team wins?

Why would anyone even take someone up in a PvP orientated guild if not to get them to help the guild win in PvP? Asking to play and participate in the Guild activities is seen as annoying? Thats really pathetic.


If someone comes to you and generalizes HAers as being elitist snobs, it is not very helpfull if you yourself are accusing everyone who is complaining to be idiots even if this were the case. The entire idea of getting players to play HA and to show them that it is not as bad as they think is to contradict what the complainers say... not to give them a perfect example of the attitude that is being complained about.

Take the GvG crowd for example. I find it great that they are actively working on fixing a problem of players being scared off from all forms of PvP because of what even they call "Rank descrimination in the cesspit of GW".

In the end, they are giving the general populace in GW the chance to see what GvG looks like including comentaries from experienced GvGers over Observer matches. This shows what players can expect and could even get new players into the format if enough can see what the tactics, skill level and teamwork to expect and what they would have to learn to do.

What is the HA corowd even thinking of doing to get new players interrested in playing HA? Someone writes a thread with the title "HA in Crisis" saying that HA needs fresh blood and that rank discrimination isnt as badd as you think... and HAers come and bombard the OP efforts bay writing junk like this..


I take it you have never applied for a job or you would know what your talking about. Its called supply and demand. If there are more recruits than jobs, then the companies can pick and choose from the applicants and can therefore dictate the conditions of employment. If however there are more positions than applicants, then the applicant can dictate the conditions and choose which position he wants to fill, its as easy as that.

Ill even give you a theoretical example,
Theres a position open for one factory worker and 50 aplicants, the company gets to choose one out of those 50 aplicants and say, we will accept you if you work for 2000 USD a Month... if he says thats too little, then the company can say... cya we will ask the next guy in line out of the remaining 49 if he will accept the conditions.

Next up is the other way around. There are 50 companies looking for a Manager with at least 10 years experience in China... along comes a guy who has 15 years management experience in China and a few more years in other East Asian countries, can speak fluent Mandarin and knows how to set up business and what to look out for when dealing with Chineese companies.

All 50 Companies offer this manager a Job... who do you think will be dictating the conditions of employment and how many full time positions do you think this manager can fill?

If you read back... I didnt make the suggestion in the first place, but I do agree it would make grouping easier for the underdogs and a bit more honest for everyone. The suggestion was far from being optimal, but better than 2 players in an otherwise empty district looking for r9+ and r10+ each.

I didnt want to recruit them. When people constantly PM me 24/7 begging to join, it gets annoying. I invite them so they stop being annoying. The term of agreement is already set before they join. Leeching my type of guild lets ID1 players think the begginners are high ranked therefore allowing them to pug(a very valuable feature).
Theres nothing for them to ass kiss BTW, every1 knows leechers are annoying and needs to get kicked. Leechers are invited because
1 they are super annoying begging to join that the only way to shut them up is invite them and then kick them for being annoying in guild,
or they pay money to join.

Why won't I let them play? Simple I want to win. So how are they suppose to learn? Simple they go Pug higher ranked groups that they can now be in, and can ask me for advise.


You and along with other PvE posters dont understand anything about how HA works and how HA guilds work, and they can only relate it to PvE guild where any1 can get recruited.(Ignorant and think they are "harvard" material from my previous post.)

So Why do the two posters think I should let the unranked players play in my group?? Simple because they are the type of players I am describing in the two posts. They want to be fed with the silver spoon, are unranked, think they deserve to have rank, think they are pre-pro, refuse to think that they will suck, refuse to think that it takes a long time to get good in HA, think that its like learning to play FOWsc where one run you are experienced.

oh and not only that, reading that post with the prejudgice eye to see what they need to call out on the fault of HA players not wanting to help beginners.(in other words, in regards to your quotes, did you even read my post?!? LOL)
So you literally read between lines and not figuratively LOL

PS bolding a sentence in previous post to help you out.


WELL ANYWAYS YOU GUYS WILL PROBABLY PREFER TO BE IGNORANT AND PRETEND YOU KNOW HOW HA, HA GROUPS, PUGGING WORKS.

Btw , the point of the thread is to find or discuss about solutions to fix complete inactivity during 3/4 of the day in HA. Simply saying like : " get guild and that's it " , " play at 10pm gmt like me " , etc won't solve anything . The best it can do in fact is make more players play on those hours and leave others empty.
Having a guild team aswell is nice , but on these hours it won't fix opponent problem. Hour is still empty , so you will fight same 2 teams and then restart forever ...

At this point.. no matter what changes you do in HA it won't become more active. People just lost interest in it. There was new HoH map announced in the beginning of 2010. and it still hasn't happened. I think from that you can see where GW is going and where GW2 will go.

instead of just going , AWW I CANT JOIN BECAUSE I SUCK,
try talk ur way into it?
i never really did HA, but i started doing it now and im R2
i play ProtMonk (stick to 1role if possible) and try talk your way into group
i explain to groups that i can play the role fine even tho i am of a lower rank, that if they do not want to wait around for another monk i am setup and ready to go to save them time and ask if they can atleast give me a chance etc.

try something like that, rather than just looking at chat and going, Oh ...they asking for R6+ and im not even r3....

GrowSomeNuts!!!.

Way too much luck involved. Pretty much need to grow a 10 pound nuts of steel to do that and even then people still need to pray that they are on at the right hours and with the right group. Heck if a person is unlucky doing something like this would backfire on them.

Example: I pretended to be a low rank person once and tried to nicely talk my way into a group. The respond was something similar to "Get the F**k out, don't waste my time" on the local chat (as if I'm doing something horrible). Needless to say subsequent attempts with other groups was pretty much ignored. The funny thing is that once I turned on my title and flashed the damn emote around (and in their faces), I got like 6 random invites...including one from the same group leader who cussed me out (he didn't even remembered my name?! -.-). I just said "sorry, I don't want to waste your time" and joined another group .

Conclusion: Getting HA active again? Not happening anytime soon, if ever.

make a few friends then move your ass to gvg

But you know even IF you could get a decent hero rank for example r9 are you gonna search for people with no rank or low rank? ofc its anoying i had the same problem when i started but you cant blame them. they just dont wanna lose anymore couz most unranked or low ranked people dont know what to do.

I don't think you understood what was going on as described.

As much as I'm not a fan of Fierce's attitude (and I'm sure that you're not either), he's right. If they're trying to join by being ingratiating, they really shouldn't have any expectations.

As a side note, this always happens in active GvG guilds that allow leechers - some of them start thinking that they're entitled to join groups. It's incredibly annoying, especially since they always explain that they're just trying to get an invite to "learn" and are usually informed that they're not going to be getting any playtime.

My analogy was a bit incorrect. Joining a group is a form of commitment, so being in multiple groups would be like accepting multiple job offers with the intention of only actually showing up to one job.

Enough about the analogy, though. You're just asking for the power to be a douche to be shifted from the group leader to the group member.

The resources are all there for PvEers to dabble in GvG - avenues of communication with experienced players, a gathering place for groups and socialization, guides and commentary to further their understanding of the game. All that it takes to get started is a little initiative.

And yet, how many players have actually taken advantage of what's being offered to them? Less than a handful.

Why do you expect help in the form of handouts when it's not even going to be utilized?

No, it's not better.

In the long run, the only thing that can revitalize pugging is a critical mass of players, which just isn't going to happen.

I cant help but thinking...

If everyone that has been bitching "i cant HA because of rank" would just team up they would vastly outnumber the regular HA players, facing each other in UW etc plenty, and get rank that way.

Also, ive only been doing HA for little over half a year, started at ZERO, am as good as r8 now. Just form your own teams, it isnt that hard.... Although i will agree to the lack of opponents, but seeing how even AB is empty during euro hours sometimes ive come to the conclusion noone is playing PvP anymore since HoM calc

This game should just die. Then they can completely focus on gw2.

Gw1 will continue to be stagnant. No matter what new thing they do, it will not help. Only thing that will remotely do to help the pvp side would be to make a competely new arena that doesn't have the characteristics of the ones it currently has. But nothing like that will happen.

Because some people expect everything to be fed to them on a silver platter.

Doing what you suggest is the best way to get into PvP, whether it be HA or GvG. People need to get around the idea of PuG's being the only way, low rank HA PuG's are shit, they are arguably the worst gaming experience in GW. By my way of counting there are at least 8 players here complaining about their inability to get into groups.

Make a guild! Myself and nearly every player i know learnt with 7 other complete noobs and improved together. It saves shittalk between your team, the waiting to form a pug only to have it disband after 1st game. You grow as a team as well as individually, and most importantly have a shit tonne of fun.

It's sad to say, but there just won't be teaching guilds again. The community is just too small, and the attitudes of some of those coming across into PvP that are deluded into thinking rank is the only thing stopping them dominating the scene is incredibly offputting to anyone who tries to help.

Still , the problem is to expect to have an opponent. HA is at a point now where , on dead hours i mentionned , people don't even try to form because they know they will just lose 1v1 hall vs usual farming team( or making them get full run).

HA is dead, because ANet doesn't care. Besides elitism and rank descrimination (lol arguments), meta is degenerated to death and I'm not suprised when I see more and more guilds quit. Back when general meta was 3 SW sins, HA was much more alive. There were always pugs at any hour and it was possible to do a full run. It was just extremally pug-friendly meta. Now 2 sin/2 mes build seems to be new pug-friendly build, but when it faces BBway, there is no chance. This build is broken as RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO and one of the worst in history of HA.

So I'd agree with many of you that BBway pretty much destroyed this format. Is that really hard to nerf one RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing build, ANet?

Well, to turn that around, why should they?

There is very little incentive to go out and try to "save" HA, and I'm not talking strictly about rewards. On average, I could expect to spend an hour or two talking with disgruntled and belligerent players in an attempt to join a group. Of course, I could leave my guild to go find one specifically oriented towards a single dying format, but I'm just not willing to do that when a decent PvE guild has so much more going on. Within the game itself, I can enjoy a stagnant metagame of predictable play, during which time my group will either fold like a wet rag and dissolve with swearing and cursing, in which case I just wasted an hour or two, or they will achieve victory, at which point I will gain one point in a title track that goes up to one hundred thousand. And all the while, I can enjoy the lovely company of the vocal PvP community, hearing about all their frustrations, dislikes, and irritations.

Quite frankly, I have better things to do.

I know that's a little harsh, but the simple fact is, I play games to have fun. Hero's Ascent is not fun. It's not any individual element, but the combined experience of a belligerent community, a complete lack of experience-appropriate challenges, a boring and stagnant metagame, no practical rewards, and a hostile environment for newcomers adds up to a bad experience. Sure, I could take the time and effort to finally experience it in all its frustrations, but I could also go do something more interesting and enjoyable. What's being offered to new players can't be analyzed in a vacuum, it has to be compared to other offers being placed for everyone's time. And if there are better things to do and better people to play with, there's no reason to go save Hero's Ascent.

What is confusing is that there is help being offered, yet people seem to keep ignoring it and instead branching out on their own to try HA. This is why we have several people that have come in here and said "Went to ID1 to pug..." People apparently still want to try HA.

What is so confusing is that rather than try something new that is promised to have better results, they instead retry the old method that has never and will never work.

But yes, some people don't enjoy PvP (for that matter, some don't enjoy PvE). However if you know that you don't enjoy PvP and you know that you aren't going to be trying it again, why are you in this thread?

Because I have way too much time on my hands.

Because that's what the PvE community was clamoring for.

So yes , just logged in HA , we're exactly 2 players non afk , rest are mctiggers. Can they do something or ...?

People have lives and cant play 24/7. Americans are sleeping at that time, euros are going to work/school

The same can apply for people who cannot play from 9pm till 12pm GMT.
What i want to mean is that any player should be still able to at least do some form of PvP at any hour. Before , you had more players in HA , you could still do RA or do some HB fights ( tournaments at these dead hours). Now you can ONLY do crappy RA ...., and that skill update coming soon will clearly not change anything

i dont play a lot in ha but when i want to play i found easy team and opponents so i dont understand your problem

or you can cut the LF r8+ BS and there will be A LOT of people playing?

Farming UW isn't fun at all.

Ranks are made for some reason. Get it over. If you don't have a decent rank, you are not going to pug with a decent group. Instead of trying get your fame with pug, create your own guild, grab your friends and start playing... And I know what I'm saying, I followed the same path. At the begening we were all r0 PvE scrubs, now we are r9/11 guild. HA isn't easy to access, you have to put your own efford to achive something.