Why wasn't anything done for Codex Arena??

I think the format has potential if it's played actively, and could have been perfect with minor obvious changes such as :
- cap pts maps, to avoid boring mirror fights after some point
- making an incentive to play and not go back to outpost when the skill pool changes
- tournaments , etc....
- removing those abusers

Actually, there even could have been an effort with turning characters with WoC chars looks to make a link with GW2, or anything.. but not.

2 years ago, they said they would develop the format but just did let it rot without anything, although they deleted 2 complete formats with an asssociated title and tournaments for it ..

I'm interested to have other opinions about this..
Do you think codex was a fail since start and they never bothered ?
Do you think it's an other thing linked with polymock, cometitive missions and they just forget things ?
Do you think the format is cool as it is ?

I dont pvp myself but from observations made here , ingame and in guild/alliance this is my views on it.
Sealed deck idea would have worked if a larger variety was added - many players know which builds work and when they are going to be used.
Chances are in the start on paper it would work and if it wasnt done a few yrs down the line then it may have taken off better but adding when they did put off many players.
Polymock - that has to be the biggest fail in pve , touch wood ive never seen players rushing to do it , never seen any guides on guru tho theres a limited one on wiki.

What anet should have done would be the following -
Added more maps to ab - heck why not have areas that you work towards , say you start on neutral lands and the teams that play either advance or retreat as that would stop the stagnant map problem i hear about so often.
If your team loses then you have to start from neutral lands.
We used to have world favor for uw/fow and sadly we have the lux/kurz boundries which i know is pve but its governed by ab and its annoying when a player wants to vq a map normally luxon but owned by kurz - we lose shrine bounties .

There is probably more i could think of but we all know its way too late for anything to be done - we just have to hope that gw2 pvp hasnt the flaws gw has.

In response to the question in the title of thread: its because Anet is unwilling to give adequate resources (manpower) to maintaining GW1.

Personally, I would really enjoy it if they made team formation random.

There is your problem, GW simply isn't active anymore.

PvP is essentially dead, all of it, even GvG is only a few teams playing against each other.

Just go to DOA and see how many teams form, or see if anyone is about in almost any city/outpost apart from Kamadan etc.

Not to mention the fact as posted above, GW isn't maintained or monitored much at all beyond the bare minimum to keep it chugging along.

1. Remove Codex Arena.
2. Reinstate Hero Battles.
3. ??????
4. Profit.

PvP belongs to the syncer teams now.... they make their own teams to smurf... especially codex and see em any time of the day.... codex is red resign for people that own multiple accounts.... nobody plays it because you can't compete with those kind of results... seriously go sit in gtob id1 and watch the same ppl collect z-combat over and over again.

This pretty much. Whether it's CA or RA, Anet don't care to sort it out, so they abuse the formats, and who wants to play against stacked teams all the time?

Even when I tried CA early on you would face teams of bots who auto resign, nice to win, for the first few times, then it's boring, then you leave, then you ignore the format as nothing changes.

Syncing is a chicken-and-egg problem - without sufficient activity in the first place, it wouldn't even be possible to sync as much as people currently do in CA.

I'm convinced that the atrocious launch that CA had did more to kill its playerbase than any other reason.

Agreed PvP has been dead for quite awhile most people for RA/JQ/FA sync most of the time. GvG is just the same teams now instead of how it used to be.. Once GW2 appears it'll be back in command but Codex never really caught on. IMO I would rather have hero battles the Codex Arena. People actually wanted to do HB. I don't see many people at the Codex Arena unless its the Z-Combat or something...

Honestly I liked hero battles better. I hate arenas that don't have random join functions. Sure it carries that "quite until I get a monk" problem but it's much friendlier to casual PvP than HA, GvG etc. I can get into an FA match easily, I can't get into a codex group at all. They never said they'd support the format... they said they might support it if the players took to it. It was practically dead the second week, with HB levels of players sticking around.

No sense throwing resources at an arena that never took off - they took a gamble and lost. The Live Team's time is better spent elsewhere, such as creating more GWB content or class rebalances.

But then, why did they delete 2 complete formats if they planned on not doing anything anyway... It really made no sense, especially if you consider those 2 formats would be the most active today, unlike those other formats requiring 50 players to be any active..

Back on topic, i played Codex arena this week end since it was one of the rarest time in the year i wouldn't face syncers only.. The format really has a lot of potential, but the problem is that i realized costume brawl is basically the perfect codex mode.. I guess they really did give up on PvP( actually i'm not even understanding the logic in skill updates made towards GvG), but that's quite sad as PvP could be playable today if they didn't do any update ever..

I'm guessing it got lost in the Linsey to Stumme switch. At this point, they should just put TA&HB back. At least with HB I could log on for a half hour and have some quick matches. No hassle with forming teams or having to deal with idiots in random formats etc.

Been away for a while, but found out that in the lower rank dregs, yesterday's zquest was really red resign day.... in GvG.

Wonder if GvG gets deleted next?

We don't need guild wars in Guild Wars.

/delete GvG

That would be a fun developer update for April 1.

If you really wanna read about their intentions with Codex were when they implemented it (and their thoughts on whether or not to support it beyond initial implementation) you can see that here:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:...urdock/Journal

Not even Linsey was committed to Codex if the players didn't take to it.

To be honest, I rarely see people syncing in RA. And, as a semi-casual, semi-serious PvP player, Random Arenas is the most serious PvP format of Guild Wars to me, and I don't sync. Yes, ridiculous, I know, for a format that's supposed to be the most casual, the one that devs don't care about and don't see in it anything more than casual drivel, it is nonetheless the only "competitive"(!) format to ME.

JQ/ FA are far more random than Random Arenas. Sometimes I feel I do matter, sometimes it seems like no matter what I do, my team's going to win/ lose. I usually do them for some quick, light fun and neat zkey rewards.

AB is dead - or at least it used to be, when I stopped playing it. It was my casual-competitive format of choice.

HA/ GvG? Do they exist in this game? Is GW PvP about them? What, the entire PvP content is balanced around this mysterious "GvG" format? What, it's the most important format? I've heard whispers of their existence, stories of the daily work that is required to start playing them in the first place, and do anything decent after that. As they stand, they're pretty much utopic places to me.

Codex is lol.

Costume Brawl is awesome, when it exists.

The idea of a Team Arena and Hero Arena seems very fun to me, but I didn't pvp back then.

So, yes. I'm left with Random Arenas when I want to be competitive. It can take a while sometimes to get a team of decent-to-good players, and then, every match against a monk team is a possible challenge, and every match with a bad team is a break.

I agree than Codex Arena doesn't needs more support. It needs to be deleted, because it's filler right now. I would enjoy very much if the developers focused on a casual-competitive format much like how they usually focus on GvG skill balances.

EDIT: Reading that Linsey's article, I would love if they could re-do Codex into something more like Costume Brawl, but with more diversity in build options, and without a costume. :P

I still think CA could be very popular, if rewards were given out without streaks and teams were randomized (a la RA)...but then it'd just be a gimmicky RA. As a replacement for TA (which, really, was its purpose), it has failed. The question really is: how much of that failure is due to the nature of the arena, and how much of it is due to the fact that organized PvP in general has simply stopped being popular? Would TA really be doing much better than CA, right now, if it were still in the game?

TA would have been a hell of a lot more popular if it had some sort of tournament system. I actually believe it should have been given one along side GvG and HB.

Kill Codex.It's just fail.

Bring back TA.Improve the faction and rewards in AB/TA to nullify the priority on JQ/FA/MQSC that guilds now have.

GvG....who cares?It died years ago outside the minority hardcore who can still be bothered.

Thx Anet.

Seriously though PvP just needs to be focused differently.The skeleton crew PvP community left go where the reward is highest.It's not rocket science.Change that focus and the people left go where directed.

Main problem I see, too many PVP formats, not enough player base.

That's indeed an interesting point. I also think the consecutive wins system and the need of 4-8 players makes a big problem since it leads to a big number of players required to make ONE format active, so can you imagine for all formats...

Side note: the article mentionned above makes quite no sense for me , since the reasons of the delete would fit for any format today ...

the question is why do you still care? this game is beyond help, if people want to sync then let them. even if the points from your post are implemented the arena will still die after 1 month max, people don't play this game for competitiveness anymore other than the the finals of the mat. Codex isn't even on their priority list probably, if they are going to fix an arena they will have to fix multiple arenas not just one, all it will do will drive people away from 1 arena to another which is just plain stupidity.

The MAIN problem lies with the influx of new players just like any other game as long as the game keeps ageing it can't keep up the ratio of influx and outflow of players.

By the time(if they ever) they fix codex, guild wars 2 will be out and this game will have syncers left, its inevitable.

You can't revive an arena with recycled ideas, you need something fresh that's never been seen before which is what i am assuming they are doing with guild wars 2.

But then, why did they delete 2 formats for one that can only be played by abusers and cheaters if they didn't care ? Besides, do you think many players do care of zaishen mesmer not using the newest version of migraine or about prince rurik only dealing 37 and not 39 damage ?

My point is : what's the logic behind all this( and codex/hb/ta is one thing among many..) and what to expect for gw2

I think it's worth raising the free PvP pack idea again. All of GW suffers from a player shortage these days, but PvP is where it hurts most because there are no heroes to fall back on.

I think GW could do well with a free PvP account offer. Allow people to create accounts that have access to PvP only - for free. This would help bring in an influx of players which might repopulate old arenas.

its been more than 2 years and they haven't done anything so its safe they stopped caring and it was added before the test krewe was up and running so it had no insight from any of the players that had an idea what was going on with the game at the time.

just because anet implemented an arena doesn't mean they made the right choice, their choices obviously had big flaws in them and they have come to light in recent years.

Too many formats huh? You ask them to kill codex and then bring back TA? TA was just like HA in terms of hardcore pvpers lookin to stomp out noobs in a 4 man format. All TA was ever meant to be was a stepping stone to HA and GvG. Just kill codex and let TA rest in peace with hero battles.

And for god sake put JQ and FA on the battle isles in CAs place.

So whats on the list...

1. Kill CA, screw TA
2. Give <3 to AB
3. Give <3 to HA

I doubt any pvp format will get love. This game is an adorable puppy tossed out the car on a long stretch of highway. The studio is just so small in staff that they have to devout all resources to making one game which is sad really since this game sold 7 million copies and I doubt their paychecks are that big. Then we buy their costumes full of clipping issues for 5-7 usd a pop to support the company and all we get is a few hours worth of new semi-decent content. WoC was never free, the people who bought stuff from the store paid for it and they got ripped off. I wonder if Anet will learn that banning bots means more money... nah too lazy, dont care.

You obviously missed the bit where I said "But seriously...." in regards to axing CA and bringing back TA.



Agreed.

In saying I'm still of the opinion the amount of PvP formats are a large reason for the empty zones.Look what happens on double faction weekends, long dead formats actually see some short term resurrection and people enjoy the few days when it's actually rewarding to play there.If the game was truly dead it wouldn't change squat.Making this 24/7 may have no effect what-so-ever but what's the harm in trying and it wouldn't take a staff member 5 seconds to make it happen.

As it stands it's to much bread and not enough butter.

People mostly want to fill their halls up now and that's it, so steer them in a direction that involves more PvP and less PvE title/HoM grind or integrates some GW2 rewards into the mix.It would be far less labor intensive than things like WoC.

Anyway I agree it's all hypothetical and will never happen, Anet gave up on PvP after Factions and hammered the nail in the coffin with EotN.The whole botting issue has just made it a joke.

I also agree with others that it's strange to see a game actually called "GuildWars" go that way.Hoping GW2 will be far more honest with it's approach from the get go if they decide to eventually go PvE focused with a sprinkle of PvP elements else I may have to search elsewhere for my PvP fix, and alas....GW in it's prime was really one of the best imo.

So true.

Do you think codex was a fail since start and they never bothered ?

Yes, imo, it totally opposes the whole idea of GW's skill system(aka large skill pool, 8 skills to bring). CA not only limit the amount of skills, but also the type of build of the day. It's more like a loose Costume Brawl. I don't bother CA since 3 days after its release.

Do you think it's an other thing linked with polymock, cometitive missions and they just forget things ?

Forget? no. PVP is dead. HA/GVG/AB is dead. JQ/FA is more like PVE. RA is just random.

Do you think the format is cool as it is ?

no, reason in first answer

If MQSC or DTSC gives more faction than alliance battles, jq or fa one of the two needs to be changed to make it worthwhile to do them.

I'd rather make them real random arenas.

Random party formation, getting the party randomly changes after each match, random skills in your bar each match (following certain rules so you don't get weird useless builds), (and weapons dropped at your feet matching the build you got)...

I'm not sure what you want done about Codex.

Sealed deck was successful as a format under two conditions that aren't true in the current Codex Arena: tournament play, and pre-Nightfall. Sealed is much better suited to the tournament format. There isn't any mechanism to give weaker teams a hope of survival against stronger teams in a 1v1 king-of-the-hill format where the winner stays and the loser gets kicked out. Team Arenas suffered from the same problem.

By contrast, HA was purposely designed with multi-team maps to introduce the possibility of alliances and weaker teams defeating stronger ones. If you want to keep people playing, you have to create the means by which they can feel like they regularly have a chance. Some people are obsessive enough to take getting beaten a bunch of times in succession as a challenge and make a concerted effort to improve, but most gamers just aren't wired like that.

The other big issue with Codex is the state of skill balance. These days, there are a few skills that are just a lot better than everything else in 4v4, so the meta doesn't really evolve. People run the broken elites and the best skills they're dealt to go with them, as well as some shutdown for the opponent's broken elites.

I could get behind a movement to restore TA, cap the points that can be earned toward the Glad title in RA to force TA to populate, and make Codex an AT format. I don't think that would improve Codex enough to make it enjoyable given the present state of skill balance, but those would be changes that would improve the state of all the 4v4 arenas.

Of course, the hardcore RA syncers would rightfully complain that those changes would more or less freeze them at their present level of the title. Not every sync team can enjoy the level of success in TA they presently enjoy in RA, and this would be hard on their willingness to play. Winning solves all interpersonal problems in a group; start losing and personality conflicts surface in a hurry.

"Sealed deck" was pretty popular at the time at conventions and such, and there was some excitement for it on the forums as well. It's different from "normal" GW, yeah; that's the point. CA brings something to the game that no other format does, and I'd love to play it more if it weren't "TA with limited builds".

The problem is not with CA's format, it's with organized PvP in general. They could bring TA back, and it'd probably be empty within a month. Notice how the PvP formats that players flock to the most all have randomized teams. There is a reason for that.

DTSC died the minute they nerfed 600/smite. I think there are like 5 guilds that do Morostav Trail 'SC' with a bunch of ssins as damage, a monk or 2 and/or a rit. I don't know. It's a ~20min VQ (can be faster, but most of those people are pants on head retarded anyway, so 20min is a safer bet imo) and yields about 22-25k factions. Still beats AB and JQ/FA hands down though. DTSC was 9-12min runs for 17k factions.

This being aside. I think CA had its potential. After the PvP update I got in to it a little bit, and enjoyed it very much. It was fun and -back then- a bit active. But, yes, you also had GvG and HA pro's farming and shitstomping noobs, which discouraged a lot of the newer players. We were the semi-decent ones, so we roflstomped the total noobs usually, but still got shit on by those GvG guys. And that's when you start discouraging people. Your playerbase needs to be big enough to let the new players get used to it, and have a chance at success. If they can't win, they'll get bored of it fast and stop caring. Even then we got up against the same teams usually. Never took us more than 5-6 matches to eventually come up against the same people again.

It has a lot of potential, it just never got the love it needed. It's beyond saving. Anet doesn't care anymore, with GW2 so close, so why should we.

basically in codex the variety is quite limited, once you know the format, is just everyday making build maniac, pro players easily get bored by it, mid-skilled pvp players are absent or playing with sync bot, new players will get stomped and quit easily.