12 vs 12 ruined..

Hmm maybe it should be Random 12vs12 and Team 12vs12?
Monitoring of the other Eight players as well as using that new dim effect when player is out of compass range can be useful for more strategy so long AS theres a way to communicate with the other players. I had though Team tab would do just that but the other 8 players count as separate albeit allied teams. So perhaps another tab called Allies or something. Perhaps give at least some time for players to settle down a strategy before the 12 vs 12 breaks out. Such as twenty seconds or less tops to discuss brief strategy.

Team 1: We roxors so well kick arse
Team 2: Cool well distract then
Team 3: We got most of the monies here will heal.

Or some crap like that.

I liked how in the old way if we were doing really bad and someone took the reins to either get us a win or a near win - they were cheered in local chat for being the hero and savior of the day and it didn't matter what their guild tag meant or was - cause for all we knew they could have been a log in solo. They didn't brag about where they came from, they just bowed and said sorry I couldn't get us a win, maybe next time! Or yeah that was AWESOME, you guys really pulled it together under pressure!

I saw very little badmouthing during the FPE battles unless it was IN battle!

Now all I see is top guilds in their groups of 4, not willing to listen to other guild or pug groups cause they think they are better - everyone fighting and not even for the same cause! It's all bitching and moaning in local chat in the districts about how "we could have WON if it wasn't for so and so!" and "why the hell do they let newbs in here that don't know what they are doing!"

And for some reason it doesn't dawn on these elitest that most people were expecting the old FPE version and not only that, even if they knew of the changes it's still going to be confusing! It's just sad that the common little guy can't play and have fun (I know many of you would argue against this but go in there with your mesmer and no guildies to back you up and see if you get a group).

Before if we won or lost it was usually looked at as the whole team kinda messed it up - now all the blame is laid on each one of the groups that wasn't your initial four and personally I see that as the stupidest thing ever!

However the 12v12 was in VERY SLIGHT mention by Gaile at her last chat session - lets hope for better news in the future.

The /signed are to the original idea but people are also willing to sign a varition of the original (IF the original is not possible) - but they are NOT willing to sign to the current varriation.

So the fun of it was that it was random 12vs12 correct? Sory wasnt here for the FPE my comp is blitzed at the moment.

At any point Team 12vs12 should be done between Actually Allied Guilds so then there wont be any blame after all they chose their allies. And any allied guilds should I suppose have good relations.

Perhaps Random 12vs12 for random fun and chaos and Allied Team 12vs12 for Guilds who are allied and therefore and hopefully have a better relationship to get them through or take the blame

Your assumptions are invalid. The forum community is in no way representative of the majority of players. If it was representative of the in-game population, then the game would have died after AoE fear was put into PvE mobs.

Well look at it this way: The amount of people in the 12v12 has dropped ridiculously. Theres 1, mabye 2 districts at most. Sure, there were people testing the game out, but only a few people looking for groups at a time is stupid.

Ill say it again: Theres already 3 forms of group-forming types of pvp, and only 1 fast. Now in Factions its 4 group, and 1 random. The people that like random are pretty damn out of luck, as RA just gets repetitive.

/signed

i agree with it all and man i dont see any more luxon much for a odd reason.... in FPE theres was tons more...

I was thinking earlier, and I'd like to nip a potential arguement in the bud, and the arguement is as follows:

"If you all hate it so much, why are you playing it anyway"

While the answers should be obvious, I'll pretend they aren't.

1.) It is, unfortunately, still the best way to get Faction, therefore PvE chars still play alot because they want to own a town or get Jadite/Amber.

2.) Teams with Vent/TS now have an even better advantage to roll other teams, whether they agree with the changes or not.

3.) It's still a decent testing ground for new builds, especially soloing builds.

None of the above indicate that anyone doing the above activities are having fun...except maybe the Vent/TS guys cause they're winning alot. But who doesn't love to win...oh wait, that's right, nobody.

/signed

Bring back the FPE 12vs12, this was why i bought factions!

this btw my 1st post here

/not signed

The current 4 player group allows more tactics rather than just everybody get into an big army and nuke each other out.

You want tactics? Go do Tombs, GvG or Team Arena. 12v12 was the only place where I didn't give a shit about anything. It was pure chaos during the FPE and it was what I expected with the official release, I was sadly dissapointed. I always liked Random Arenas for the pure fact that you had no idea who you would team up with and who you would face. 12v12 was just a bigger & funner Random Arenas, now it's 3 Team Arenas teams and there's much less people playing. Compare FPE (when I played about 5 hours of 12v12 a day; literally), to the official Alliance Battles (which I did like 3 runs since release); you'll notice a huge difference.

I think you missed the fact that he listed a whole bunch of different groups ALONG SIDE this community. It is at least a portion and everyone's voice counts (even those we don't like to hear sometimes). He didn't just say by this thread alone, he mentioned guildies, alliances, and a lot of others he has spoken to about it.

I myself have seen people complaining ingame about it and not just within my guild. If there were more supporters of it they would be in the 12 v 12 - instead all we see is empty or near empty districts, which tells us one thing - the new 12 v 12 isn't as liked amongst the Guild Wars community as the old FPE which had at least 5districts always - even at 3am!

It is self evident and those that are playing it - I know a lot of them are either doing it to make money from selling Jade/Amber or so that they can get it for the armor themselves.

/signed

It was great when we could just walk into Seasalt Beach(sp) and then enter the game, without having to worry on availability.

Ashleigh

yes thank you I TOTALLY agree.

Bring back the old 12 vs 12

/signed

The way it is now is yuckie.

/signed, and I never, ever sign petitions.

Today, I sat patiently in Pwnzick Headquarters waiting for the Nubxons to get a party together to fight me for 13 minutes. This is broke. And it totally was the most promising thing about this release. I get that build freaks want to crunch numbers and accept only the classes they want and whatnot - there was room in the FPE-style event for them to do that, too. But... OK... I tried to resist, but...

/soapbox

I am not trying to toot my horn, but I'm a super-experienced monk player. Monks are all I play, they're all I care to play, and that's just that. Because I have this somewhat restricted viewpoint on classes, I like to play around with the different types of monk that are available. I liked Alliance Battles because I used to be able to go in as a Smiter, not have anyone cry (try it...people get so resentful that you're a monk who's not there to prevent them from dying that they get absolutely JUVENILE about it...), and be very, very effective in helping the Pwnzick family gain Real Estate. Think Smite Hex, Balth's Aura Damage spread across 6-7 people at once. Think how cool it would be to be a mezmer getting beat into the ground (again) by a thumper or KD/AS and all of a sudden, you have Shield Of Judgement on you, you don't know who helped you like this and you don't have time to think about it, but it helps you live and maybe even win. 12 people is a big team, but I used to feel like I could sneak in under the radar and do enough damage to turn the tide. It was secret-agent-man kind of fun.

Today, by contrast, I had to wait 13 minutes to even get in a match. Then, some idiot saccer necro on my 4 man team calls me out repeatedly in the "All" channel for not keeping him alive. Never mind that keeping him alive is not my job, he shouldn't run a character that literally kills itself, or any of the other 80 reasons that he shouldn't be calling me out like this - my arguement is in the old days he never would have even noticed!! On a 12-man team I am not his "personal monk" and it's not my responsibility to keep him alive. As long as he looks at the scoreboard at the end and his score is higher, he doesn't complain about dying. Now, he thinks my only reason for existing is to be "his monk", and (even though we won the game) I had to publicly defend a build that has won me 300,000+ Faction... I know there are people who have more but that aint bad.

People can win together without being guildies or even friends. You just have to give them a chance. As has been stated several times, just make the other 8 ppl Allies. No more Heal Party spam. No more Aegis spam. Problem solved. Please, ANet - I loooooove your game - Noone is playing this game type - because it's bad. Not because we're all crazy. I promise. Also, how can we solve the Luxons (pop. 53) vs. Kurzicks (pop. 530,000) problem? I don't have suggestions, but "wait it out" doesn't seem to be working.

/soapbox

1. Allow random joining. Both sides must have random players to balance organized teams. Would be silly if there is 8 random players in one side and 3 organized teams in other side.

2. Keep the 3 teams and 4 players format but merge other 2 teams as allies.

3. Leaving will result a time penalty for joining next battle. Yes, it will be unfair against users which drop because of hardware or network failure but that won't happen often plus players who would drop often, no matter what is the reason, are pain in the ass for others anyway. Maybe they finally start checking their hardware and ISP. Waiting for 5-10 minutes will reduce moron quitting but is not a big deal for random droppers.

4. Shared team chat and you could draw to compass with team color which your allies can't see if you hold right mouse button instead left or something so there is private strategy possibilities too.

/signed

The FPE 12v12 accommodated both Randoms and Teams. Anet totally gave me a false impression of Factions by changing it. Anet, please let Random people back into 12v12!!!!

I am sorry, I didn’t read every single message, but I got an idea of the discussion by reading the first 3 pages, so excuse me if am making a double post.

Claiming that using skills that effect the whole party (heal party, orders, etc.) is unbalanced and because of that 12vs.12 must be made into 4,4,4vs.4,4,4 is just not correct. This is perfectly OK, because the team on the other side, the enemy, has got the same opportunity as you do, therefore – it is fair.

12vs12 system was never satisfactory to me, even during the FPE 12vs.12. The problem lies in not being able to make your own party of 12 people, which on the other hand makes factions redundant, half useful, not fully realized. But it was fun – get 4 friends, play couple of games… and only that, but nothing more, this does not have anything to inspire you to keep going. I played about 15-20 games and I got just enough of everything alliance battles could offer me. In the current state of Alliance Battles I fell like playing some cheesy arcade shooter, not GW!

I know the difficulties associated with making a team 12 players and I have suspicions that this is the biggest reason arena.net had to make alliance battles what they are today.

But what if you could make such groups as easily as you make your 8 player group for GvG and HA, which is still kind of hard you know? What if you create a faction with trusted and serious guilds who know what and how they are doing? Wouldn’t this be more fun and rewarding than to jump right into battle? Wouldn’t it be more fun to have 11 friends by your side, in your voice comm. channel to whom you can count on and crush (loose to) opposing teams together, rather with complete strangers? Wouldn’t this be more rewarding and enjoyable in the longer term than the dull randomness of a Random Arenas inspired system?

Of course not many can create effective 12 players teams – which makes the *random assigned* feature a must. But then it won’t be much fun your random team to be crushed by strong and organized team of 12 selected players, will it? It won’t, and people will soon realize that, and will feel the urgent need to call for a alliance group in their alliance chat, to organize themselves, to put into meaning the actions of this bunch of people randomly moving from left to right who rely on their psychic abilities to coordinate themselves.

You see – it’s just like with HA, or early Tombs of Primeval Kings. Most teams were made by blind invites and got defeated with ease by the organized ones, then everyone started making organized teams.

/signed

Is A-NET reading this thread? Please give us any answer Gaile.

Probably not lol

I think we have to start talking about "pets" and "hairdressers" to get anets attention.

Gaile obviously will not reply to this thread, or the ones about the Elite missions until she receives some guidance from above. As the game hasn't been out for two weeks yet, thats not going to happen any time soon. Both Gaile and the Anet devs will be well aware of the tone of most of the posts, but they are sure to adopt a wait-and-see-what-happens approach.

After all, would YOU stick your head in the lions mouth and post on one of these hot topic threads if YOU were a PR person for Anet? **CRUNCH**!!

There is only one major error to the 12 vs 12 arena now, and that is the fact that you cant communicate with the remaining 8 that now are not a part of your party, but still fight on the same side of the battlefront. If they added a new "talk channel", or replaced the trade channel for one, it would be complete. More 12 vs 12 maps would be appretiated aswell..

I would NOT like it all to be random -_- This is the reason that we have the "rANdoM arenas". I wouldnt like to see the 12vs12 arena to be the new place for hyper n4bs and people testing builds. One thing is that the rewards in 12vs12 are pointless, but it still shouldnt be totally random. The good thing about the randomness now is that even if like Power and Debbie and two others make a team, they are still dependent on the other 8 to perform, and that is really unique in this game.


so /UNSIGNED, we need this arena as it is, but please Gaile and people read and adjust =)

LookAlive made some good comments. The only thing missing from 12v12 is a chat channel so the 3 teams of 4 can communicate.

It's not that we didn't read, we just don't want to adjust and your idea of n4bs are people who are untrained! And right now it IS being used as a testing ground for new builds. Because no one likes the new way, the guilds are taking advantage of this and putting all 12 of their guildies in battle.

The fact is: We do NOT like it the way it is now!... It has nothing to do with being able to read and if Gaile does read this she and the rest of the Devs will know that most people don't like it. Those that hate the way it is now go WAY beyond this thread. (Heck I have seen random threads cropping up by those who haven't even seen this thread.) I have talked about it with other guilds. Heck I am willing to go to some of the busiest towns and take polls on it if need be to prove that MOST of the people on GW don't like the new way and that is why they aren't playing it!

A simple response of "we are looking into this matter" would suffice for most people. But clearly that is asking too much from them to browse and acknowledge this thread since it does have many good suggestions in improving alliance battles overall.

My suggestion to those who don't like the way it currently is, is to simply boycott it. Don't take part in the battles. This is an exciting new feature to ANet and I am sure if people are unhappy enough to not even bother with it they will make changes.

Gale Force that is exactly what I have been doing and asked several of my guildies to do as well. I think a few of them won't have any problem doing a boycott, as for the first time they took it seriously and tried to enjoy the new change... They came away quite ticked!

All I really want is communitcation between the other luxons on my team (and of course kurzicks to have it too).

I REALLY LIKE the fact that you an't go in by yourselves because this prevents noobs going in alone (as well as evil traitors). This also encourages balanced groups with a monk and all.

yeah i complained at first, but i'm beginning to prefer it this way now. other than not being able to communicate with the other team i'm with, i have no problems.

Guardian hun, this doesn't prevent traitors unless as I keep pointing out ranked and guild groups get together not allowing the little guy the chance to play because he isn't ranked... And even a high ranked person can get a group and either just sit there, leave, or whatever..... Heck now they can get together in a group of four and do this... o_O

/not signed...errr...well not completly.

At the moment, I like the fact that they broke it into sqauds. The fact that they made it nessicary to get in a team, Im a bit iffy on though. I think the best solution would be to have Sqaud 1, 2 and 3 still, but have the other 2 sqauds in allies list. Then, take away the team nessicesity, but if you do go randomly, you end up with 3 others in a sqaud still. IMO the big mass of 12 players wasnt as fun.

Oh, and make a *seperate* channel for talking to the rest of the sqauds, dont mess up team like the FPE.

Again, I still have mixed feelings about the team nessicity. After playing many rounds I dont really mind it at all.

OMG OMG OMG DUDE i WAS JUST GOING TO MAKE A POST ON THIS!!!! your ideas are exactly mine!

the especially part of groups and communications is completely wacked!

I mean its hella hard to talk to the other 8 party members and it was way better last time in beta when you could just get a ez group by just clicking enter mission.

/signed with 3 accounts

/signedslightly

I think having three separate groups is good for orgainiseation... but if you want to make plans for entire team, you give away your plans to the kurziks. Or luxons, if your playing a kurzik.

There should just be an extra tab, like in GVG where you can have a spectator tab, a Luxon/Kurzik tab (delete as appropiate).

A wait-and-see approch is suicide. It always has been.

A company can make 500 mistakes and be alright as long as it communicates and listens to its players. (GW when it first came out, and the subsequent overall patience from the community as they tweaked things.)

But a company can make 1 mistake and die because they refuse to address it. (As SEEMS to be the attitude A.Net is taking about this.)

People are less concerned with problems as they are with how they are handled. If A.Net has chosen to say nothing, or even worse, do nothing about this, we all might as well hand them shovels because a good majority of players in and out of the game are demanding action. Yes, I have spoken with many in game who don't often frequent the boards.

Besides, talking the company out of bad situations with the players is what a PR rep is paid to do. The lions can be friendlier if you throw them some meat...(Information, not the PR rep....)

P.S. I can live with the mandatory teams of 4, I can compromise on that, but as everyone has said, the inability to communicate is stupid. Right now, Jade Quarry and Fort Aapenwood are really far better for Faction, when you can find a team.

You can enter alone, the rewards are 1/2 to 3/4 as good as 12v12, and you don't have the aggravation of not being able to communicate. In addition you can actually SEE how many people left. And yes, people still leave in a good deal in 12v12, you just don't see them in your party anymore.

/signed

I'm disappointed with the 12v12 nerf...

ANet lost my money for any future chapters.

Hmm, with it being months after the plague of bots started - and still they remain.... after displaying one product, but changing it upon delivery..... after the only response from NCsoft support and the fact that FAQ's only represent positives or questions about gameplay and nothing about the many issues concerning the dark underbelly that is the GW economy...

GW has turned into the Tescos of the MMO game world - they spin a great yarn about high quality goods at lowest prices and then release a new range of Super high quality stuff that costs twice as much - compare the cost of playing GW and a subscription game -
GW = 2 updates per year (limited to 4 char slots per copy) so many players have multiple copies, all the SE and CE they sell and thier very low maintenance costs (which appear to be 1% customer support/50% maintaining servers and 49% developing thier next iteration of the same game with new window dressing), this is my general impression of there spread of our hard earned cash and is likely not entirely true.
Enter other MMO - one copy of game + subscription fee.

Anet earn no subscription so players "think" they are not entitled to support or content(we praise Anet for regular updates and new content occasionally)and then Anet make a few new skins, 2 new classes, a load of new skills and a load of carbon copies of old skills called new names, remove what was for a lot of players the most fun new development, give us some new content(nothing near what was in GW1) but basically the exact same engine and a lot of what was in the first, then charge us for a WHOLE new game... If Factions gives us half as much game as GW1, expect even less in the future.

Dont be fooled by thier formula press releases and eyecatching preview events, what it costs to get the most out of GW per year is no cheaper, if not more expensive than other MMO's but subscription MMO's give better support, have GM's a plenty to watch the game, respond faster and harder to hacks, have an immensely greater amount of content and can keep an economy from going 10X over the intended level as when they made the game - i remember an early quote by Anet saying they had an unexploitable economy where the average player would not have more than 40 plat and a un-dupable trading system.

As Mai said a simple were looking into it would be great, but im afraid i've heard the "were looking into it" so many times, and seen no change except simple nerfs that chastise fair players i dont expect Anet to ever look into things, only to say they have. These guys are a business first and foremost and are making a huge profit roughly the same outlay as subscription games are but with a fraction of the support costs, they are more than capable of fixing the majority of the issues raised in the swarm of rants recently, but that takes money, and like i said, they are a business.

/doublesigned

/notsigned

I'll make it short.. for one thing, I dont bellyache and complain about crap like this.. not here, not ingame, not anywhere. period. you can get 750 signatures on this but its not going to change anything.. a-net doesnt really give a damn what you, or you, or you, or any of those 747 other people think... they already got your money. you can flame me all you want and repeat your same argument that you arent happy with it.. but you arent solving anything by sitting there typing it into your computer.. if you are really really that angry, do what the one guy did and write a letter, or make a phone call, or something. if youre too lazy to do at least that then get over it and play the game..

Somone said they were actually looking into comment from other people... not sure if it was true or not.

This is a very important issue dude, whatever a-net did completely ruined 12v12, its even worse than the "excessive messaging" issue... lol. But seriously this is a huge issue that needs to be fixed no matter what, or the people are going to be pissed.
You say they have your money, but they don't have our friend's money yet, its our choice to tell our friends if Factions was a good game, and obviously 12v12 is a big part of it, so if 12v12 sucks, well...In addition, they need to get their members to stay so they can buy the next expansion, without us there would be no more support later.