12v12 needs to be reworked

but thats y random arena is so fun

Ok some things to address:
1.) CA died because people quit playing it, because of the rampant racism/bigotry/etc. Not for the most part, because of newbies.

2.) Farmers farm EVERYTHING, that's why IWAY was popular, it was a farm build for fame. So don't tell me Farmers don't PvP.

3.) Some of you people who don't see a problem with 12v12 selected teams have a rediculously POOR understanding of human nature. Either that, or you don't, you're just trying to expoit the inevitable flaws of that type of system, just like you exploit it in HA. If you give Elitists a foothold in this Arena they WILL, not they might, they WILL destroy any and all fun of this form of PvP, just like they did in HA.

4.) It is apparent to me, as it should be apparent to those who think 12v12 selection is a bad thing, that the main reason the people who support it do so, is because they can not stand the though of an even playing feild. A playing feild where inexperienced players can roll a slighty experienced team of four because they got paired with 8 people they didn't know, and didn't know how to work with. Don't say it can't happen, my 12 random players rolled a lot of 4+8 teams over the weekend. These people are coming to the painful realization that they can not think on their feet because they are to much into planning, so they might actually LOSE.

5.) All that said, I've had it with these people, I am so sick of accomidating their either ignorant, intentionally blind, or predatory views of how this game, and its players, work. There should NOT be a second place where you can select 12. They should have to fight in OUR arena for once. If they want to prove thier better, they do so with our rules. So once again A.Net, do NOT change Alliance Battles.

6.) Twicky, for the record, rank or not, you're still an Elitist. Not for where you play but how you think. You seem to believe that nothing bad comes from organization. If only that were the case, to much of a "good" thing is always bad.

How you "ignore" what happened to HA is embarassing, sure you admit it happened, but you for some reason believe it wouldn't happen again? To be fair, I don't think you're very down to earth about the plights of the casual gamer, you got lucky and found connections, those connections have afforded you a good guild and friends. This has caused you to get comfortable and think that what goes on in your gameplay is how it is for others, or how it could be if "they worked for it."

If that is in fact what has happened, let me say this, I've been through 24 guilds, I haven't found a good one, I had to make one. I play avidly, and bit more then your average 2-3 hours a day player, I've looked for months, so I "worked" to find a good guild, and still failed. Also, guild recruiting is going to tighten up in the established guilds, they aren't going to take anyone who can't get the faction or take the borders, this will limit the options of a casual player even more. I have a feeling, no matter the format, Alliance Battles will be the new popular GvG.

Finally, albeit I don't like Elitists, I'm not trying to insult you, just trying to let you walk in someone elses (alot of someone elses) shoes. I'm also directing my comments to other supporters of 12v12 selection.

Sums it up right there. Even if your alliance had a thousand people in it, if they were setting up for a 12-man fight, I can tell you right exactly now how many people in that alliance would be in the district punching the ‘Enter Mission’ button.

And that would be twelve.

Which is exactly why I am now convinced that the 12-man battles will remain in the current format XP. Because, quite frankly, it’s harder than it sounds to get twelve guys of the same unit in an arena-type bit and hitting ‘Enter Mission’ all at the same time. Unless the 12-man fights were totally and completely organized, eliminating randomization altogether and turning the 12-man fights into something even more corrupt than hero’s Ascent (which is friggin’ hard to conceive of as possible), you can’t limit the random teams in the 12-man fights to simply those people in your Alliance. Mostly because the average Alliance, made up of average 15 or 20-man Guilds, will have only 45-60 players in them. And sitting there hoping to click “Enter Mission” at the same, random, time as eleven of your Alliance’s people would have “No party joined” flashing nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand.

So. There will be no middle ground, no “random inside your Alliance.” Either the 12-man fights will be totally organized and will cater to only roughly three percent of the player base, or it will be of the format shown to us in the preview event. And considering that Anet’s already programmed and displayed to the public the version shown to us in the preview…

*Smiles.*

The new system is a faction game between 2 sides. Win or Lose both teams get faction to pump into their side. Everyone gets faction in the end.

There will be 100s of instances of the game at one time. Unlike HA its once every 10 MINUTES.

Its going to be a numbers game in the end for faction.

I think it is designed with 4 member teams to make it faster for pugs and casual players. I think the hardcore players are going to stay in gvg and get some new guild halls (which is another reason to get c2).

I didn't play any pve during weekend. Ran a few towns quick tried out henchies.

Its still going to be good fun for all. I like all aspects of the game in its own right. 12vs12 will be fun if it stays fast to join. I don't think it will be completely organized but small groups is all you need. Also need more info on rewards for the faction for each side.

Two things.

A.) so long as it's a semi-random numbers game, I'm totally fine with it, man

B.) It's not Faction earned that determines the positioning of the line between Kurzicks and Luxons, it's sheer number of wins/losses. The Allied Faction you get is purely for your own use, either for crafting Jadeite/Amber armor or for boosting your Guild's/Alliance's total Faction so you can control a PvE town. Allied Faction has no impact at all on the front lines.

I really did like the random 12v12 battles. The ability to jump in and play in a large scale a battle was one of the best things about the weekend. I appreciate the quickness and no-fuss atmosphere of this format.

Though, they do need to punish leavers. Make it so they can't enter another battle until the one they left is over.

I too am a PvE only person really, and I really enjoy this 12 vs 12 thing, it's not the random part that bugs me, it's all the damned quitters! "Oh n0es! We're 15 points behind, I'm quitting this crap!" *quit*

It gets really irritating when 6 people quit 3 minutes into it cause the score is 45 to 21. Where I had groups where no one quit and made comebacks much greater than that... hell I wouldn't even call that a comeback. I found games much more fun where everyone stuck around and our team *lost* than I do if half the people quit the moment their team "falls behind."

Quitters are the ones that ruin it, otherwise I find it really fun, and if you talk to your team most of the time they'll listen and work together.


Best game ever was as close as it can be, we won, barely, 500 to 499. Yep, 500 to 499, the scores basically jumped up and down, back and forth the entire game and we managed to keep the lead at the very end, and everyone enjoyed that game immesely, cause no one quit.

for some reason I think that Alliance battles will be different once Factions is actually released... remember, they made individual guilds an alliance for the event... I think that once released, the actual alliances will be able to form up there group of 12 with no randoms.. I don't think anet would make a 12vs12 arena that was only random.. with the exception of groups of 4.. but there will probably still be the option for random teams... just my input

I think the closest it'll get is 6 + 6, right?

Question. Why would they give us a preview of a format that would not exist in the game itself? Only possible reason is a failed beta test, but given the flood of support for the semi-random format, I can't see how Anet would consider the test a failure. Heck, if I were Anet right now and I'd planned, before the FPE, on making the final Alliance Battle fully controllable in any manner, I would actually be seriously reconsidering that move. We've even got the elite, ultra-competitive iQ player defending how awesome 12v12 fighting was with the semi-random format. If that isn't a kick in the pants saying that this is a true Everyman format, then I don't know what it's gonna take.

Personally, I figure anyone who is so laser-tight focused on PvP and GvG that he absolutely cannot enjoy 12v12 fights as a semi-random format is also so laser-tight focused on PvP that he could care less about PvE, and thus the 12v12 fights won't affect him or his in any way. He can safely ignore their existence after he caps skills - if he bothers to cap them and doesn't just Balth-Faction them up. Those types of guys already have two play formats to keep them happy, one of which is the premier, most honored and celebrated format in the game. They don't need to control an aspect of the game that's really more closely tied to straight, story-based PvE than anything else.

That's the turf of the casual gamer. And it would really be best for the health of the game if it stayed that way.

I am for random as well, but it should be total, no groups at all. The reason for this is that one, sabotagers could in fact group together and ruin the game for players who really want to have fun, and two it eliminates eletist who want to group together, then think they can control everyone.

I really agree and hope it will never turn out like HA, I only play their with my guild mates, otherwise it is one big joke, personally I feel fame and rank should be eliminated from the game altogether.

I think the solution to this argument is simple.

Keep the Random format.

But allow Guilds the option of doing organized 12vs12 Unranked.

With GvG being the main flow of PVP Guild life, this would just be a nice little side venture for guilds looking to practice and relax at the same time. Give everyone what they want, rather than limit it to one format. Guilds will still do the Random 12vs12 for fun, but also have the option of doing it in a different area with other guilds. Just provide different maps for Guild Battles.

Just make sure the Guild 12 vs 12 has to be against other guilds. Also the battles shouldnt give Kurzick or Luxon faction since its more PVP related. It should just give Balthazar Faction like any other PVP event.

I didnt mean HA is the highest level tho, i meant hoh (the actual hall of heros). I agree in the earlier map like UW there are some crappy teams, but when u get to the hall there are normally some very good teams.

the new 12v12 battle offer different gameplay and higher level of tactics can be applied, if the teaming is random then u'll always get some healing breeze/orison warrior in ur team. And that's like seeing a team of wammo in hall everyday, which is ................

some serious players might prefer GvG, but i dont see why they wouldnt want to do some organised 12v12 tho, not have to be for the faction or guild ranking, just becoz it's different gameplay. And I'm not sure how much those top rank guild ppl will enjoy the 12v12 if everytime they go in they have to team up with some W/Mo, iwayers.... etc. If it stays as the way it is now that's like saying to those serious players "go back to ur gvg, 12v12 is not for u".

I meant the Hall of Heroes specifically when I was talking about how bad HA was. Heroes' Ascent is a slum, and the Hall of Heroes is a festering cesspool in the center of it all.


We think it's a blast.

It's certainly better than having to dismantle gimmick after gimmick after gimmick, with a side order of complete garbage. Nubstomping isn't fun for anyone.


That could not be further from the truth.

With the random component, 12v12 is not a format that you can care about. That makes it wide open, and something that you can just sit down and play if you want to get your PvP on without wanting to organize a full team.

If it was completely arranged then it could no longer be played casually. The format would be full of FOTMs and "alliance rats" that play well enough that you have to care if you want to beat them. In other words, just another flavor of your favorite slum.

I'll be blunt about my personal stake in this. When I'm not GvGing, I log out of game because there is no PvP worth playing in this game if you don't have a full, organized squad available. 12v12 in its current incarnation is an absolute blast with only a couple teammates that you know, and it's something that I know that I'd play a lot of whenever the guild wasn't on to play with.

This game is far too serious already. Sometimes I want to just log in and play without having to deal with an hour of preparation. Do not take the first format that downright excels at that away from me.

Peace,
-CxE

...no, I don't know why I'm bothering to type out these replies to someone who can't bother to complete a three letter word.

Sounds to me a 12v12 CA with the addition of going in with some friends is what u want. If u want to do some pvp and kill some time, we already have CA/TA for that purpose.

All i'm saying is if Anet dont allow teams to be more organised then what's the point of designing a set of rather complex rule and some tactical maps? That's like driving a top racing car in an area of 50km/h speed limit.

I dont know what guild u r in or how many players u know, but u seem to think u represent the majority of serious players. Rather u actually do or not, i guess there is no point for further discussion.

It's certainly an excellent format. Given that it's been proven to be wildly popular in other games (largely Battlefield, but there are other clones of the idea), I would not be at all surprised if it becomes the most popular game format once Factions is out. In fact, I'd put money on it. =)

If they don't take away the feature where you can <ENTER> without even being in a full four person party, it will forever be random and highly enjoyable. That being said, there needs to be some kind of commitment to a faction; something that says "I am Kurzick!" or "I am Luxon", and based on that you can fight only for your side. It should be fairly difficult to change sides... at least not a matter of simple selling enough faction for rare crafting items.

Ensign,

Trust me, for the people who want 12v12 to remain in its current incarnation, you're a boon. I don't want to sound as if you're some high-profile celebrity campaigning for our right to enjoy the semi-random 12v12 delight--but..

You are.

If we were arguing about the legality of guns, you'd be my Charleton Heston.

It's probably not supposed to be a fully competitive PvP. Multiple competitive PvP game format exist and are well supported by ANet. This is a more casual PvP format, which is obviously very popular.

Yup.

Yes. Some people don't GvG because it's too hard. However, GvG also has the match-making service that puts you against similarly skilled teams. Any suggestion that the 12v12 should be more formal like GvG would absolutely require such a service.

Then this is probably not for you. Again, there are multiple formats for highly competitive skill-based PvP.

It's not a matter of trying to keep out highly competitive players, per se; rather, the *goal* is to support different kinds of players. There aren't any highly fun but relatively casual PvP formats. This would be one of them (and evidence shows it would be extremely popular).

There is, of course, some possibility of supporting multiple kinds of 12v12, but there are a limited number of game formats that can be supported by ANet without splintering the community. Given the dead-horse mentioned already existing formats for highly competitive gameplay, it hardly seems like there needs to be another one (while the casual PvP crowd is left largely unsupported).

luilui - I hope you are kidding. Take a look at Ensign's guild. They're the American guild that made it the furthest in the Tapai World Tournament.

So, yeah, I think he knows what he's talking about!

I also think its cool, where he could be an elitist snob, he's actually encouraging casual PvP play, something I think is currently lacking, unless you count the pointless fun of seeing how far you can take your gimmick build through RA...

You seem to ignore the fact that Arenanets descriptions of Alliance battles say that who you can play with will be confined to your alliance.

You also seem to ignore the fact that Alliances are called Alliances and Factions are called factions and that this is an alliance battle

The bolded areas basically say that it was different for the FPE and that it will be ALLIANCES who win victorys not factions, simple logic dictates that this means you will play with alliance members and will thus be rather easily able to assemble into groups of four and coordinate your entry to get a full team of 12.

Naturally, it says. ;(

I suppose those protesting here are going against nature. ;(

I don't do much GvG because of the setup, time, and training involved. I tried to do HA but (1) being forced into a cookie-cutter and (2) constantly going up against even more powerful cookie-cutters ruined it for me. Random arenas are nice, but they're too limited in scope; I wish they had more variety.

Sigh. ;(

Anet, please to be listening to us!

You struck gold with this semi-random 12v12 setup!

Don't suddenly limit its availability!

Random Arenas are complete and total garbage. If that is supposed to be the limit of what a casual PvP-er wants to do, then I suggest you need to take your head out of the gopher hole it's hidden in, actually talk to some casual PvP-ers, and let them tell you how much they hate Random Arenas.

And how they're constantly forced to play them anyways because finding a competitive Guild for GvG in this game is impossible.

We have a world championship player, speaking for a world championship Guild, telling us and ArenaNet that 12v12 battles, in the current semi-random four-man environment, is the best thing to hit Guild Wars since its inception. We also have half a hundred less visible/celebrated players saying this same thing.

Actually Anet, you're completely dead wrong. Naturally...I want one blasted playable format that doesn't blow your 'time played doesn't matter' bit out of the air. Because the serious formats (HA, GvG) require r6, full unlocks, and other such things one can only attain with thousands of hours played spent farming your balls off for Fame and enough gold to buy all the skills you can't get for free during the course of the story. Even then, you're damned lucky if you can find one Guild in a thousand worth joining.

Naturally, I was jumping for joy over the semi-random 12v12 format with its total freedom to do whatever you please skill-wise and profession-wise and still be able to contribute. By the end of the event I was playing a Sharpen Daggers/Barrage A/R with no resurrection capability and a general skill set that would get me burned at the stake in GvG/HA, and I was owning in the 12-man fights because I knew how to work the build and could use it to great effect. Would anyone have given me a chance to do so in the more serious formats? Not a chance in hell; it's not the sort of thing an actual competitive team wants. Is it fun to play? Hells yes. Is it effective in its own right? Damn straight.

Naturally, if I'm forced into choosing to either fight 12-member HA teams farming Faction all day long so they can control towns and farm the elite missions contained therein, reducing 'Alliance' battles to the level of hero's Ascent, or not participiating in 12-man battles...I choose not to participate.

And so will the other 95% of the player base which has made that same decision regarding Hero's Ascent. Leaving those top 5% of snobby, elitist bastards with the average temperament of a diseased crocodile a third formtat to dominate, and that 95% of Average Players the same number of formats they can use to have fun with.

That being zero.

I love the 12v12. Its a great way to experience large scale team play without the damn hassle of building a team in HA, which is even worse if someone quits out of the group. It seems like everyone wants this to become HoH or GvG, but we already have those to serve their purpose. In HA, 99% of PUGS are cookie cutter builds, and it seems that most good guilds are doing GvG. This also adds a form of random play besides kill the enemy.

Why do you keep refeering to it with HA? theres no similarities.

If anything refer it to GvG, except easier to organise since it wont effect your rank.

That quote from Anet is adressing guild alliances not the 12v12. Its simply saying that come Factions you will want to ally with other guilds on your side to, well, increase your reach, ability to conquer, and player base available for those organized groups of four.

Perhaps I cannot infer what they meant.

.. it's easier to organize because it doesn't require any amount of hardcore training, let alone any designated meeting time between members.

You simply log on and hop in.

GvG, however, is nothing like that.

A large investment of time. A large involvement of people. A set build.

Incidentally, I don't GvG anymore. It was simply too time-consuming, and we never had the people to do it on a regular basis in my casual guild.

The 12v12, though?

We loved it.

heh, my guilds fairly casual and we get GvG's together on the spur of the moment fairly easily. Or any facet of GW for that matter. We have lots of builds on our forums and don't worry too much about our rank. We have lots of players and most are into everything. Of course having 100 people about 75% who are active helps.

What's the point of having random, open counterstrike servers, if the teams on them aren't going to all be on vent together and coordinating?

I'm not going to sit here and say that there's no value in an organized 12v12 format. There would be, for a very narrow subset of the game's population. What I am saying is that the value of that format is infinitesimal compared to what random 12v12 brings to the game.

I think there's a misconception that the guilds at the top either want or can play seriously all the time. You don't just need to get a full team of 8 if you want to play, you also need to keep up on the format, have your strategy prepared and refined and ready to go. It takes a good amount of work but it's worth it for some competitive matches. Having a bunch of people on the same page and ready for some serious PvP is great fun when it happens.

But oftentimes that just isn't the case. What can you do right now if your team isn't on? What if you're sitting on vent with a couple of guys who just want to play? The fact is that there's nothing for you to do in this game. If you idle on our vent, or any of the other top guild's vents, whenever they aren't busy with GvG they'll be playing other games together, be it something classic like Counterstrike or Defense of the Ancients, or a new MMO in beta, or messing around with single player games that they can talk about like Trackmania Nations or the current pasttime of my guild, Mount & Blade.

Now certainly part of the reason is simply because people like playing other games, but a huge component of it is that if you just want to play Guild Wars you simply can't. There's no format that's the equivilent of hitting a random server in Counterstrike and just going to play - it's either a fully organized team for GvG or HA, or a trivial game in the arenas that no one really enjoys.

Until this last weekend. That was the beauty of 12v12 that I don't want to lose. It was the first environment that you could just go and play with your friends. We'd have 3 guys on vent on Saturday afternoon, and we'd just roll up whatever character we felt like and go and do some 12 man. If someone popped onto vent they almost without exception immediately asked if there was any 12v12 going on and if they could get in on the next run. It was a format that let you just play Guild Wars for the sake of playing Guild Wars.

I haven't had so much fun just playing Guild Wars in a long time.


In every community there's going to be disagreement. I can only speak from my own experiences, from the reactions of my own guild, and from those I ran into while in 12 man. And from that I've seen an overwhelming response that the semi-random 12v12 was a desperately needed breath of fresh air. I saw members of nearly every top guild in there at some point, just playing for the sake of playing a good game.

I remember that in one match late Saturday night a player from KGYU was screaming at one of my guys in local chat to come 1v1 him. It was absolutely hilarious, and emblemic of exactly what sort of format it is. One where even the most serious of us can come and blow off some steam and just have some fun.

I can't speak for everyone, but I can guarantee that semi-random 12v12, if it makes it into retail, will be one of the most well-played formats amongst serious GvGers. Because believe it or not, it has a lot of appeal to that audience.


Casual play is absolutely vital for the long term success of the game. Counterstrike is not the household name that it is because of CPL and other league play. It's popular because people can log in, hop on a server, and blast people, and have unfair amounts of fun doing so. If Guild Wars wants to have that kind of success, it absolutely needs to have that kind of appeal.

It's simple really. If this game is to grow and continue to be successful it needs to support a wider audience. I love this game and want it to be around for a long time, and the only way that's going to happen is by supporting that foundation. If it weren't for the casual gamers, us serious players wouldn't have a game to play.

Of course, the fact that I thought that 12v12 was a blast to play myself never hurt anything either. =)

Peace,
-CxE

Please, ANET, listen to Ensign!

/kneel
/beg

Invokes "Signet of Begging."

Semi-random 12v12 was great. Really reminded me of the fun of playing Battlefield on public servers with a small group of friends.

I like the format but not completely random. I don't think it will stay that way so its fine. I'll still be doing GvG most of the time. With this much content we only have 6 months till next chapter. The schedule is going to be fun for the next year or so.

Twicky: You said alot earlier that the basis of winning 12vs12 is splitting up into smaller groups and taking control of the whole map.

Well, if you just pair up with 3 other people in your guild, you can be organized in your take overs on the map atleast.

Yes you can. 1 organized group is not enough to win. Many times most people stayed on the center alter and ran 1-2 at a time into the foes res point getting killed which gives them more points. Entire battle running into the meat grinder.

Its going to different when factions accually comes out than the beta version.

i'm okay with random teams, as long as i have an option to form a full 12 member group.

One organized team can and will win.

Maybe not all the time--but I've noticed that, because of some strange "dogpile" mentality, when a fight happens, PRACTICALLY EVERYONE heads toward the fight. Every time this happened, I'd vent to my guildies and signal them to come with me, and we'd ninja off to take a control point.

Eventually, this would shift the battle--as people would begin to pour over.

And then we'd wash, rinse, repeat. ;P

Minion masters, though.

Whew!

Those were awesome to deal with--because no one was willing to make a build to deal specifically for them, so I had to constantly spam "AVOID THE MM. DON'T GIVE HIM MORE FUEL. JUST TAKE THE CONTROL POINTS."

That was a dicey battle, and a real close game. ;P

Most likely, but to whose benefit?

Good question.

I think it has to do where you sit on the game. Looking at it with alliances added it like a middle ground random organized.

I am a forum lurker. I registered on these forums just because I felt the need to add my support for the random format we saw during the PvE.

After having a taste of it in the event I can't help but to feel if the format is changed to something more organized and discriminatory then I will feel very disappointed with my purchase of Factions. So much so that I doubt I will be around long enough to see chapter 3. This is not a threat, because I know that nobody would even notice my absence. I just fail to understand why they would show us one version of 12v12 only to change it? Especially considering just how popular it seemed to be during the event.

I loved it so much that it is -all- I did for the entire event... to the tune of 35 pieces of amber and over 9k uncashed faction by the end of it.

See I doubt they will change it, I think people are reading to far into the word Alliance Battles and Guilds. Only time will tell I suppose.