Codex Arena....

When I played Hero battles when RR day was around, around 85-90% of people didn't resign, however my rating wasn't 930, so I didn't face those types of people. Maybe if my rating was 930 rating, i would have a different outlook. Regardless, red resign was a low scale problem that became problematic to a small scale in the population of the hero battle community.

The reason why Hero Battles was removed is because Anet completely gave up on Hero Battles and they were going to stop, if they ever even did imo, making serious balance changes for Hero Battles, and the word got around to the competitive HB'ers, and they became outraged and started throwing the mat finals since the mat rewards for hb was a complete joke, which looked horribly on Anet, so they pulled the plug. Saying that a low-scale maybe problematic situation that affected the bad rating hero battlers is why Anet completely removed Hero Battles is foolish.

*toning down language*
You can't farm champ points that way. Not without building your rating up a bit, first. 1 win = 1 title point, in HB.

Um...no? Winning in HB had absolutely nothing to do with being a good player in any other format. I bolded that last bit because it was difficult to actually be a top player there. I certainly couldn't do it. Why do you think AB is a terrible entry-level arena for new players if they want to learn the game? It's easy to get a group, and it's certainly a lot of fun, but you won't learn much there. HA is probably the most accessible arena in terms of letting new players work their way up from scratch, because it's at least possible to run some meta s***way build until you get enough experience with the format to try something better. And, by then, hopefully you'll have at least r3 to get into better groups.

No...no it was not. It was all about micromanaging, avoiding combat, capping shrines, and collapsing on trapped heroes when possible.

*cross fingers*

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you claiming that all of those people saying - within hours of the April 28th update, mind you - that there were tons of districts of people telling everyone else to do RR is somehow not indicative that it was a big problem?

Isn't that what I just said?
Given what you just admitted, how the heck would you know?

I'll go ahead and say that I don't think RR was the primary reason HB was canned. What I am tired of is the hardcore HB crowd shamelessly denying that it was ever a problem until mean ol' ANet told everyone the arena would be shutting down, like all of RR was just some massive grassroots protest against that grave injustice. It just smacks of revisionism, meant to make the actions of the community - who had been exploiting the arena for rewards for months, years if you include those who did it for title points since the darn thing came out - somehow defensible.

As for HB being dropped because it was unbalanceable....yeah. Pretty much. Everyone knew it, except the people who didn't want to hear it (and, probably, ANet, because they tried to fix it for a long time). The fact that the arena got any attention was vexing to most GvGers, particularly once it became clear that that arena would never amount to much beyond being a gimmicky capfest. I suppose it's not fair to say that the arena was completely unbalanceable, but it would have required a complete overhaul of the maps and a reworking of the base objectives of the arena. Considering how ANet could do those things and still have been left with an arena where the majority of players just /roll-ed or RR-ed for title points, I'm not surprised they decided to say "f*** it, no more solo PvP formats". They're just way too easy to rig.

Is it worth saying that I might actually enjoy an HB format that was just about fighting? Maybe two cap points?

those demanding formats became victims of many failed balance decisions, toppled by the final decision to just remove them. new players came in the past, until it became too shitty to bother.

if a game format is good by design, it doesnt need skyrocketting rewards to attract players (at least not those with some feel for pvp). rewards ought to be scaled up properly though (unlike the relation between jq+fa vs ab and ta vs ra is), but seems anet didnt quite figure that one out yet.

you must understand that gw2, unlike gw, will be a pve game with some pvp (whilst GW is, or was, meant to be the opposite), so its obvious they adapted everything to that aim.
competitive pvp, however, will always be about learning from mistakes and suffering defeats on the way up. and its never pleasant and (can or cannot be, depending on what your aim is) fun at the start - the fun comes when you're starting to improve, execute things properly that you couldnt before, stand a fighting chance vs opponents that annihilated you before.
but if losing alone would be fun, why on earth would anyone bother getting better? trying to improve and get somewhere? why would you put up with the frustration that most players face, when you could still enjoy yourself just by being at the bottom of the pvp food chain? sure, some relaxed and dynamic arenas are needed just to loosen up from the competitive atmosphere generated in high end arenas (and AB/TA were just the arenas designed for that in gw), but they ought not to replace the competitive aspect of high end places altogether. or if they do, then gw2 will really be nothing more but just another (though probably good) pve game that tried itself at pvp.

GW used to have a rep of one of the best pvp mmorpgs overall. I wonder what gw2 will become known for, apart from having an innovative approach to pve. If the 5v5 format wont be as demanding as gvg/ta used to be, I see little incentive to ever bother with the game, apart to pve with some of my gw mates (thou by buying the game i support anet, but i wont advise or recommend to anyone they should try it out, as i often have in the past).

on a side note, TA didn't really die, its been killed. shot to the head, one could put it. CA did die though. a slow and painful death.

People in the 930 rating bracket are the very small minority. So i don't see why you think it was an overwhelming problem. And you saying how would i know this and you saying that's what i just said doesn't make sense.

Skyy High: We are talking about Red Resigns. We know very well about /roll being abused, you don't need to post links regarding rolling in HB. We know. We also know that RR was though up right after the /roll nerf. We knew very well that people had attempted red resigning and do paper, scissors, rock, however, it was not widespread and therefore, not a "problem" because it didn't pan out and was gone by May until gaining huge popularity in late August, when it actually became a problem. Get me some proof of RR during the May-early August range and I may believe you.

Being high ranked doesn't blind us from what is going on throughout the ladder.


Hardly a nerf.


That was from 2007 dude. Anet has never updated their website other than it's homepage.


It's interesting that you LOL at a 2010 thread yet post links to threads from 2007 and 2009.

Re-read what you quoted:

Not reliable I'm afraid.

And since we are posting other's comments . . .
All chat =/= the game and almost all your sources comes from all chat.

I was actually tanking at the time of the anniversary so I definately would have noticed if everyone was red resigning but I didn't. I did notice people talking about it in all chat though.

If that were true, 4v4 encounters would have never occured - but they did. Capping shrines also involves killing/overpowering any foes that happen to be there you know . . .

Only happened after the announced removal.

I'll go ahead and say that I don't think RR was any reason HB was canned. What I am tired of is the non-HB/PvE crowd shamelessly denying that it wasn't a problem before mean ol' ANet told everyone the arena would be shutting down, like all of RR was just some massive grassroots protest for that grave injustice. It just smacks of revisionism, meant to make the actions of the non-community - who had been exploiting the arena for rewards for months, years if you include those who did it for title points since the darn thing came out - somehow indefensible.

As for HB being dropped because it was unbalanceable....nah. Pretty much. Everyone didn't know it, except the people who cared about HB (and, definately not ANet, because they never tried to fix it). The fact that the arena got any attention was vexing to most GvGers, particularly once it became clear that that arena would never amount to much beyond being seriously in need of love. I suppose it's not fair to say that the arena was completely unbalanceable, but it would have required a couple of small balances here and there to make it considerably better. Considering how ANet could do those things and still have been left with an arena where some players just /roll-ed or RR-ed (towards the end) for title points, I'm not surprised they decided to say "f*** you, we're too lazy". It's just way too easy to delete it.

What's the difference between 2 cap point and 4? The fact that you don't have to be as skilled?

1- I hope you realize that the point of RR was to abuse the repeatable zquest right ?? You get 2 fights then 6k points ... That could be the same in GvG , you would win 1 fight then 9k points.... Aswell , i can't remember many players did RR on non-quest days...( a few did , but really not a lot compared to quest days...)

2- Quite pointless post... You mean entry level in HA is easy because you just play meta get points , then get higher groups , etc..... Did you ever heard of builds in HB such as dual meld , mo/w + 3r/p , 123 sins , etc... Ok those had to be perfectly played to get top rank , but it was shown than complete beginners could get around 1150-1200 rating in a few time thanks to those builds.........

By the way , if HB and GvG got 0 link , can you explain me why guilds that appeared after it's delete such as new [LaG] or [Est] are full of top HB'ers and yet got very quickly very good results ??But well , if you believe GvG has nothing to do with micromanaging , collasping on trapped heroes , etc... you probably never played those formats .....

BS. See: every competitive FPS game in existence. You go into a PUB server, you're playing the same game with the same weapons as the pros. Maybe there are a few rules changes, maybe team sizes are a little bigger to make it less easy for one terrible player to completely ruin his team, but that's it; every other skill is immediately transferable from intro-level PvP to high-end PvP. Oh, and yes, rewards shouldn't be necessary if the game is good enough, but GW is an RPG, and every PvP format gives rewards to some degree or another, which means that if your players aren't feeling rewarded in one format, they'll move to another. Hell, even the FPSes have figured out that "playing just for fun" isn't really the best motivator to keep people playing, that's why the newest generation of big FPS games has levels and ranks and perks to earn.

As for GW2 being focused on providing a better PvE experience...well, if you're comparing it to Prophecies, yeah. That's what most players played, and Prophecies was pretty bad for a pure PvE player. I fail to see how "improving the PvE game" necessitates that the PvP is going to be terrible. This BS has come up before, and I've said the same thing before: the features they're promising are exactly what dedicated PvP players have been asking for for years. Instant UAX? Yes please. Integrated tournament and ladder support? Beautiful. Merging competitive formats to keep the player base large, strong, and (hopefully) encourage people to actually move from low-end PvP to high-end? Yes, yes, yes. Cries of "GW2 PvP will suck" are about as nonsensical as the old cries of "GW2 is vaporware".

The two are inextricably linked. They represent the same attitude that permeated the arena from its inception. ANet tried to kill it by disallowing /roll, then they had to ban /rps, but players could not be stopped. RR was just the last manifestation of that before they decided to pull the plug, for balance reasons. RR just didn't help the situation.

Oh, I'm sorry, I should have known in May 2009 that I should be taking screenshots of all the people doing RR, just so I could argue with concrete walls in 2011. The threads I linked from late April show that /roll was a problem, and that RR took its place pretty quickly. The threads from August show that RR was popular even then; yes, it gained popularity after the August announcement, but it was a common thing to have "RR days" throughout that summer.

I love how now I have to provide evidence, not only that people were talking about it on forums and in all-chat, but that people were actually doing it. Talk about moving the goalposts....how the hell am I supposed to provide that kind of evidence? I gave you my evidence, and the best you can do is "that doesn't prove that people did it, just that they were talking about it"? C'mon! Tell you what: you prove to me that people weren't doing it, because as of this point you're just spouting a lot of hot air, and I've done all the forum digging.

Oh, and yes, I laughed at your thread from 2010 and submitted threads from 2007 and 2009, because that's the relevant time period. I already said that the HB faithful have been whitewashing this mess since the arena was closed, that's been going on for years. A thread from 2010 is just a repetition of the same stuff you're spewing now. A thread from 2009 will actually show what people were saying during the RR period. How thick do you have to be to not see which is the more relevant evidence?

Not when it was done with /roll. I know RR days were on ZC quest days, but it happened on off-days too. Not as much, no, but it did.

It's really more about being a team format, vs. a solo format. It's much easier to get better - even if you're using a meta build - if you're surrounded by better players.

Good HB players are probably good PvP players. It took dedication to get good enough at HB to actually be a top player, and it takes dedication to be a top PvP player in any format. That does not mean, however, that the skills learned in HB are directly transferable to any other PvP format. Some, sure. Positioning, watching the minimap, stuff like that...but how to actually win a match? What frontliners, midliners, and backliners should be doing? How, when, and why you split, push at the stand, gank NPCs/GL? Hell, how to run (and catch) a spike? Not to mention the skills necessary to run individual builds that simply never made much of an appearance in HB (proper warriors, midliners, etc).

In other words, correlation, not causation. And, even if you make the argument that HB taught some relevant skills, a new player would learn those skills a hell of a lot faster and more reliably in other, more relevant formats, with a team coaching you and all of the extraneous (micromanaging heroes) stuff removed.

I doubt that the exact skills translate well, but the same desire to be the best and the attitude that drives it does.

There's a signup thread for RR that I can't seem to find anymore. Anyone know where it is?

It's obvious /roll and RR are of the same vein. Difference is RR only became a problem in August 2009. Whereas /roll was a problem up until it's nerf. I don't even know why /roll is being discussed atm because I agree with what you have to say about it. Just not the RR stuff.

Only proof of /roll which we already know. RR did take it's place, but it only became problematic in August.

Unfortunately, Guru did not archive the threads from the HB sub-forum (why didn't they?) which contained the proof you needed. As a result, you're going to have to believe the real HBers.

The fact that people posting in 2010 were around in 2007-2009 and have based their posts around those time periods makes 2010 as relevant as 2007-2009. People can remember things you know.

It was pretty much just one guild of serious HBers that were RR'ing between April and August and August was when they decided to go public about it so that they could get more points in the HB title.

Gone with the HB sub-forum I'm afraid. Interesting to note that, all those that signed up for that had intentions to gain points in the Commander title, and not for bahltazar faction on zquest day. By doing the former, they realized the benefits of the latter.

I think there's a difference here , between thinking getting good coz you gain points easily on a bar , than getting really good....I could quote plenty of r9-12 players , even some r13-14 that have no clue what they're doing , just farming HA with most effective builds....
You don't really learn anything by playing fire ele , bbwar , ST rit , dervish whole time to be honest....

I don't believe it's quite fair to claim being a top player in GvG or HA , but being terrible when it comes to show personal skills in HB ...Remember Hadshi was one of the rare players to run non-meta bars , yet made it many times till finals.... Many players i remember being good at GvG were very good at HB ....

There's a guy in GtoB spamming "wts codex points 1k each 3/4" Is this a scam or has codex gone that far down the shitter?

stop comparing GW with fps games. they are foremostly solo-oriented games (where single good players can make a big difference and single bad ones dont necesarrily mean you're auto lost), whilst GW at its core was (and fancies it still is) a competitive team-based game, where your team is as good as its weakest link.

catering to pve player base (or if you prefer, catering to the masses) essentially involves a simple, more straightforward, gimmicky and easy to learn pvp format. so by sacrificing quality they gain quantity. given they're after money now, it makes sense to draw in as many as possible, regardless of what they draw in.

overall, i'm talking about quality pvp - given you fully support pvp being dumbed down as much as possible (given the past posts), your thoughts barely hold any valid point regarding pvp.

on a side note, in prophecies pve actually took some skill and competence to complete and essentially created better (pve) players who had a better head start (in pvp) in comp to those starting off in hero/conset era.

People have been selling codex points since like a month after it opened. That's how few people actually play it.

Anet won't ban syncers because of "insufficient evidence," although they did recently ban a cx10 account that was being sold on QQ forums.

Pretty much also abusing the fact that all non-random PvP formats are totally empty at this hours.....
HA is empty , there are 6 players in the district , noone to face , last hall is between 3-8 hours ago
GvG might have a few guilds on tournament , but noone is laddering
Codex is empty....

So basically , you're a PvE'r , 1k isn't really expensive and many will believe that they will get " cool looking " title easily.... But i actually didn't know that people got to the point of selling codex title though....

It's been going on since a bit after it came out

at Skyy High, digged out a few on-spot posts from the pvp section (where this thread actually belongs to) to further support my point.

-> hence why my point about GW2 being a pve game with some extra pvp. and the attention of the devs will be distributed accordingly.

Regarding my point about FPS, read this post written by Ensign (I also advise reading the whole thread).
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...4&postcount=48

The last paragraph in his post is something you wanted to make point of, and i agree with it to some extent. But having a completely dumbed down pvp where skill and good tactical decisions count for virtually nothing is not what "accessible" pvp should be about.

I miss the coordination and fun I had in TA with my regulars, because it was just as he puts it . A fantastic thing to experience.
This is why high end PVP used to be so great. I don't believe that can be repeated without having a pvp of similar quality and characteristics. And it is most definitely not something you can experience in pve.

If you want any shot to even get r1 codex, you have to either sync or play on quest day.

I will say this, give ANet one shot at fixing codex and if it doesnt change anything go with post #2's idea and take the nerf flamethrower to it.

Playing on quest day is still a bit hard to be honest... Except if you play on the only hour there is a full district ( i.e around 10pm gmt) , which equals to many teams , rest of times there are at best 3 teams , including 1 guild team farming other ones....
It's pretty hard to beat a guild team( i'm referring to non PvE guilds, mainly corresponding to r10 HA'ers) when you have no choice about players , nor about builds to be honest... It's on the same resort of fighting syncing teams with random team in RA , the only difference is that you choose your professions.....
Being able to antibuild , like in TA , is probably the only way a pug team will beat a guild team in codex.....

That wasn't an argument. Errant Venture just asserted the same thing you asserted, without any evidence (specifically talking about GW2 here, ignoring the rest of the quote). Every scrap of information we have about GW2 PvP contradicts you, so I will continue calling you and anyone else out who claims that GW2 is a PvE game. It will have better PvE than GW2, but it will also have better PvP. Oh, yeah, more people will play PvE, and there will certainly be larger areas in the world given over to it...but the quality of PvP was never determined solely by the number of areas available to play it in.

No, see, that was exactly what I was saying. It's telling that when you see an argument from a guy like Ensign, you're like, "Oh yeah, that makes sense," but when I say it, you think I'm some PvE scrub who is QQ-ing about not being able to get into PvP. Piss off; I played plenty of high level PvP, years ago, and I had a ton of fun with it. Life got in the way, I had to stop, and I haven't had the time, inclination, or contacts to continue. My guild right now is a bunch of complete PvEers who I doubt have ever stepped foot in GvG, but I stick with them because I at least know them well and I have fun with them. Huzzah for GW2 letting me change guilds between characters....

Anyway, yeah, apparently Ensign convinced you of my point for me. GW1 PvP is just terrible to get into for a new player now; casual PvP simply does not do enough to prepare someone for that jump. That's why I'm excited about the way GW2 will handle it. No matter how late in the game you start, you'll be able to work your way up through the 5v5 arenas to the point where you can, theoretically, if you work at it, get good enough to play actual GvG (equivalent). Accessibility has absolutely nothing to do with difficulty, depth, strategy, or anything else you think I've been arguing about. Chess is wonderfully accessible, so is Starcraft; both of them allow you to get better on a gradual curve, and you find yourself playing better and better opponents as you improve without ever hitting a wall you need someone else to pull you over (which is basically how you improve in GW1 now, by getting a guild to tell you what to do and following their directions). The barrier between RA/AB/FA and GvG or even HA is enormous, and there is no "casual" way to experience these types of arenas.

tl;dr: I never said I wanted to "dumb down" PvP, that's not the same thing as making it more accessible, GW2 will do that, stop assuming I'm some PvE scrub who hates PvP. 'K?

Players (like you?) who only whine instead of doing something to improve should piss off, instead.

GW pvp used to be hard to get into, when there was no obs mode and few places to get useful advice from. The game, as it as now, can't really produce good players anymore, so.
Moreover, the 5v5 of GW2 equals the gvg of GW, just so you know.
I dont understand how can it be that hard to improve in GW pvp, when all you have (well, had) to do was just play plenty of games (so you get the right feel for things that need to be done and the way they have to be done), do some reading/ask more exped players for advice. That can take a while, depending on how much time you can invest, but its pretty much it.

You sound just like a scrub, so can't blame me for blaming you to be one, can you?
On a side note, chess and sc are both easy to access and all, but you'll get whooped on a whole different level by a better player there than on GW.
So, I see no different results at the end but either of these 2: give up on becoming competitive (because perhaps that was not the aim to start with) and just play for fun or get really good (and that i mean good enough to perform successfully on international tournies).

The barrier you're complaining about is partially a result of lacking medium-range player base that for the most part evaporated into thin air because of yours of horrible balance updates and people moving on/getting fed up.

Oh FFS, you agreed with my argument when Ensign said it, wtf is wrong with you? Stop arguing against what you think I'm saying, stop assuming that I'm some talentless scrub, and in general stop being such a f***ing tool. All I said, ALL I SAID, was that GW PvP does a terrible job of funneling players from casual formats into the more competitive formats. That is FACT, and it is the ONE THING you should be responding to. Tell me how the hell anyone is supposed to get good at GvG or HA by doing RA and AB. Tell me!

The comparison to Star Craft, chess, CS:S, and ANY OTHER good competitive PvP game was meant to illustrate the fact that during the entire time that a player is playing and improving, the skills and strategies they are learning are completely applicable to the next "tier" of players. Every single one of those games presents a long and difficult struggle to master the game and stay on top of your ranking, and none of them are wanting for depth, yet all of them have casual PvPers and the most hardcore of the hardcore playing the same game, occasionally with minor differences.

To reiterate, for your obscenely closed mind: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO MAKE LEARNING THE GAME A STRUGGLE TO HAVE GOOD PVP. In fact, that is the exact opposite of good game design. The top end of skill can still be incredibly high (see: all of the games I've been citing), but there needs to be a clear path for a new player to follow to get to the top. These games PROVE that. "Suck it up and deal with it n00b" is a terrible attitude to have. That attitude, coupled with the utter inability for any casual PvP player to learn how to play at a higher level without getting dragged there by a better guild or friend, is precisely why PvP is in its present state. No new blood is coming in because it's impossible to learn to play GvG without playing GvG. The first wave of players all basically got good at the game together, and they helped train the next wave, and so on and so on, until the skill level at the top became high enough that it became impossible to break into GvG without help. At that point, every new GvG-er was forced to learn through the kindness of friends or strangers dragging them along into GvG to teach them, because there is no place to go to learn it yourself in a more casual setting.

I'm not saying that you're wrong to not play with new players; just like Ensign said, that's not your job. It's the game's job to make that transition possible. It's possible in every other good PvP game, and it's not possible (or, if you'd prefer, unnecessarily hard) in GW1. It will be possible in GW2. That's why GW2 will be better, in terms of PvP, than GW1.

Of course, I really don't expect you to understand any of this. You've already shown you have absolutely reading comprehension whatsoever...
Seriously, wtf mate? That was the entire goddamn point. Random 5v5 will be the same format with the same objectives as the GvG "equivalent" in GW2. God DAMN why am I wasting my time on you...

TA was the best format to help train people into higher tier formats, especially gvg (and i know quite a few who moved on to gvg from ta), and yet anet decided to kill it off. what does that tell you?

what makes you think that (at least some parts of) that does not apply to gw pvp? e.g. once you learn what and when to shutdown on opponents of similar skill level, why would that not apply to better players too, as long as your timing id taking into account all the necessary conditions (i.e. when a mo >has< to cast or things will die, or when you notice a pattern in skill usage and can interrupt it the next time)? clearly, playing vs utter trash will help you learn a thing or two, as long as you're utter trash too, and once you improve you can further learn from players of similar and higher level again, just as you can in chess.

when i started off in TA back in boon days, it was not a pain to play and fail at the start. nor was it learning from my mistakes. the game was simply just fun to play and rewarding when things were done right. i remember no real annoyance or frustration when starting off, nor do i recall some extreme depth of play. TA represented the best start to become a gvg (or HA, but that's a waste) player, because it was the missing link between 4v4 and 8v8, organisation and coordination-wise.

clearly something went amiss along the way, because the game hasnt been a struggle to learn start on. i didnt say you should suck it up and deal with it - I was always eager to give advice to anyone who actually asked me for it. But guess what - people stopped asking years ago and instead rather complain how hard it is to get into high end pvp. And after 6 years, can you blame them or be surprised it happened?

Most don't want to learn - most just want another point for their x/50 gw2 bonus.

I wish I could share those sentiments.
But as already said, I have always been open to questions, but instead, RAers prefer calling me a cape-leecher when i refuse to heal p/r's with enraged lunge or trolls unguent, sins with breeze and rangers with rof and sh. They rarely, if ever, ask why don't i want to heal them. Even less, do they ask whether their build is ok (i.e. good enough to make a streak, getting gladis - unless they're just trolling with their bars).
Ppl don't play RA to become better or to get to higher tier pvp. That type of player base is (long) gone.


let's see.

your post implied as if 5v5 was a transitional arena like TA used to be, so i merely made sure we're on the same page. Take a chill pill and form your sentences properly next time.

Sigh.

Too much to ask you guys to play nice, right?

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/h...t10208428.html

/facepalm
I'm not blaming high ranked players for not playing with newbies. I'm blaming the system for being so terrible at allowing those players to teach themselves how to play. It's almost mandatory, at this point, for someone to act like a good Samaritan in order for any neophyte GvGer to get enough experience to get good enough to not be a liability to his team. No other game that I can think of is like that, where high ranked players need to mentor players out of the goodness of their heart in order for those players to learn the ropes.

@urania: you're right, TA was the best way for a casual player to transition to higher level play. It still wasn't very good at the job (except if you wanted to monk. Monking in TA was legitimately tough most of the time). The format was still too different from the 8v8 modes to lead to an easy transition; really, the most you got out of playing there were contacts that you could use to get into teams in the other modes, not necessarily the experience itself. If the most competitive mode in the game is XvX, there should be opportunities for casual players to work their way up through increasingly difficult arenas, all of which are XvX and have similar objectives. This really shouldn't be a divisive issue.

1) Because twitch skill isn't difficult to learn (and if it is, you're not going to get far as an interrupter anyway).
2) Because shutdown targets are very different in 8v8 situations than casual PvP ("Kill the monk" is often not the best option, for example).
3) Because you simply can't learn certain 8v8 skills in a casual 4v4 environment. There's little, if any, communication, so that's right out. Positioning is rarely important because you rarely have front, mid, or backlines. Splitting is obviously not going to happen. Positions like flagger are obviously not going to come up. Maybe it's overstating it a little to say that you learn nothing in casual PvP that will translate to GvG, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that even the best RA player will be terrible if you throw him on any GvG team.

Well obviously; when the game was new, everyone was a newbie. People learned the game together, and for quite a while there were tons of new players climbing up the ranks, getting help from the old ones and feeling out new territory themselves. 6 years in, though, that ladder has basically broken, and no one is consistently pulling new players upwards (partially due to, I'll admit, a lack of interest in improving from most players). The game has stagnated. New players don't have the tools to better themselves (because all casual arenas available to them are insufficient to learn the game well), and old players don't feel like gambling on the 1% chance that this newbie will be willing to listen and learn.

Well herp derp of course they don't. Or, at least, the majority don't, and the minority that want to aren't getting much out of it. RA shouldn't just be a training ground for people looking to move up in skill, but it should be able to serve that function. Or, rather, there should be levels of RA-type arenas where you're matched up against increasingly high ranked players, until eventually you're playing with the same guys who do competitive 5v5 tournaments (of course, on the same maps with similar objectives, just with organized teams). All of a sudden, boom, you're playing at the level you need to, with the people you need to know, to get into competitive PvP, and there was no sudden jump that anyone ever needed to pull you over. This is all possible through individual perseverance, if that's what the player is looking for. If not, they can stick to low level arenas and faff off with whatever build they want. Even better: there's never any need for any experienced player to take a gamble on some random newbie; anyone who wants to play badly enough will prove themselves at least moderately capable by getting to the top-ranked tier.

On the opposite , most HA'ers are terrible at GvG , whereas like i said few posts ago, TA'ers and HB'ers get good results if not win HB mat.... Why? Because HA is mostly about buttonbashing, dead hour farming , whereas other 2 format requires a little tactic and coordination , what is required in GvG...

Side note : could you please make shorter posts?? It's really unreadable and boring after a few ones....

unlike sc and chess, GW is a TEAM game, where interaction with other players is at the core of almost every format - it is only natural learning from other players is part of the game experience. You must learn how to coordinate your play with your team mates' play, and there's only as much you can learn on your own.

1)twitch rupting is not exactly a good way to rupt. prediction combined with twitch rupting (or no twitch rupting at all, but pure prediction once you have a proper feel for it) is the key to a good interrupter.
2) "kill the monk" doesnt work in lower end arenas either - or better, it only works vs horrible monks. and yet the majority of RA is convinced its the n1 priority in most cases.
3) if you're referring to TA here, you're very wrong. Positioning mattered, just as did smoothless coordination and communication between team mates.
RA, however, indeed has very little of that. You can still position yourself in a way that will make the melees or shutdown have to overextend to get to you, but given you play with nabs most of the time, it won't really achieve much.

we finally agree on something.

One of the reasons why new players have a harder time then ever is also that pve has become a LOT easier ever since heroes and consets came into play. Moreover, the game has been so severely dumbed down over the years, that they don't have the conditions that would let them learn that which older players could.

I am getting this feeling that you want GW to be more individual focused, but that just isnt and never was the case. There's only as much you can learn on your own. Sooner or later you have to look around you, observe and learn from others, in one way or the other.

Moreover, why you shouldn't be too optimistic about 5v5 (if you had TAed at a high level, you'd have understood why it won't be as easy to advance in either, once an exped player base is formed):

For a long time now, your actual player skill has only been a very limiting factor in getting into good teams. If you are exceptionally bad then ofc ppl dont want to play with you, but provided ur somewhat decent, the only requirement needed is this:

"have friends in high places"

For more or less as long as i can remember, gvg has been more about who you know than what you know, the number of truly terrible people in top 100 is frightening, and its simply for the above reason. If you are social and fun to play with, you will get into teams based on that alone.

same applies for HA too.

Why do you think I threw in CS:S in my list of examples? It's probably the closest match in terms of what we'll get in GW2 PvP (5v5 with random players, hot joinable matches, same format and maps as the organized clan matches).

Don't have time for the rest, but it doesn't look like there's much left to say. Oh, except this: HA didn't use to be such a s***hole. Remember when well-known guilds held Halls for hours at a time? It was actually a pretty decent tournament structure. That changed when the population started declining and the gimmicky faction farming builds showed up, but gimmicky farming builds are only used there because of how rank works (you can never lose it, unlike rating).

I'm not going to claim any degree of knowledge about competitive team FPSes. However, I'd speculate that the difference between an organized CS team and an unorganized team of players of the same skill level is far less than it would be in a game that is more dependent on synergistic interactions like GW. I'd think that DotA games are better comparisons to GW2 PvP - competitive game, 5 mostly self-sufficient characters, team synergy and coordination paramount to success. As is well-documented, trying to get better the game by solo queueing in one of those is about as painful as headbutting a knife.

Also, I think you're conflating the ability to learn basic rules and mechanics with the ability to synthesize accumulated knowledge about the game in order to learn how to understand and play it. It's not hard to learn what the units in Brood War do, but how long does it take to get good at it?

I guess this final point is a little irrelevant in light of the direction this discussion has gone in, but every competitive game is going to demand the same attitude and work ethic that GW is. Perhaps getting into and getting better at GW PvP is more frustrating because there's less metrics by which to measure your progression, but it's still far easier to get to a high level of play quickly compared to other competitive games.

Why would you compare a game like CS, regardless if it promotes teamplay, with a game like Guild Wars in the first place? Any "fact" claimed off that is irrelevant, that holds as much truth as some child saying their parents work for ArenaNet.

Codex Arena never had a chance. With Guild Wars being in the sad state of PvP it was in, and with a major lack of players, nothing good could have came out of there.

But that's mainly part of their lazyness though... The way they promoted Codex looked like it would be something great , better than costume brawl... and it ended to be TA with restricted skills that's all....

It never had a chance but they never gave a chance to it though....

you can say whatever you want about Hero Battles, that is was imbalanced/etc, however the main difference between Hero Battles and Codex is you could actually play Hero Battles! It had its own tournaments, it had its mat, it had its own playerbase, unlike codex which had no of those. So I still don't understand the logic or argument with the Codex apologists, because you could actually play Hero Battles.


So what Anet needs to do is do something similair to what they did to Jade Quarry to make people actually play it, or bring back Hero Battles, because people actually played and wanted to play it. And people who say Hero Battles wasn't fun, weren't part of the main hero battle community.Which is why when they took out hero battles, GW lost a lot of players.

Codex Arenas is Hero Battle's bastard child in that it too welcome(d/s) abuse. Rigged 4v4 says "Hi!". Also, OP'd skills can be abused badly there as well, and what's worse is there're less skills available to counter them in Codex.

Team Arenas had more activity in its last days than Codex had in it's first days.

Codex isn't even fun to play on the only playable day , which is zquest.... I did a few fights , the only thing i faced was guild teams ( mostly top GvG'ers) , so what's the point fighting organized team with vent and etc when most players are just going to get a random build , 3 random players and go in ?? I actually wouldn't mind if there were 2-3 guillds upon 100 teams , but it was more like 10 guilds upon 12 teams.....

Moreover , those players are really entertaining new players : almost everytime we won , it was " gg noobs " , " go pve " , " nice abusing pool skills , cya in 8 hours "

Considering that threads about HB/TA are instantly closed for no reason and that we get 0 answer from ANet , i guess that the code is probably just deleted and they're too lazy to do it again.... My conclusion would really be though to make codex arena be random and turn RA into TA... that's the best way to do...

CA rocks when the deck is good.
On a side note, organised guild teams or friend groups normally steam rolled pug teams in TA too. Same goes for GvG. And HA.
Damn those organised formats.

orly.

It's completely dead in American hours regardless of the deck. Idk about euro hours.

Yet the argument was that on this format the only fights you ever get are against top guilds on zquest day .... Farming noobs or Syncing arena so.... Great job they did...