User talk:Andrew Patrick/archive 3

Automated Tournaments - Start Times

G'day Andrew, I think you're the new tournament director so you have some more control over this now? Whether you do or you don't I'd appreciate looking into the times GvG AT's run because at the moment there's pretty much only 2 good nights to AT if you live in the EST timezone (Sat & Sun), it would be nice if you could look into the timing so that they're easier to access throughout the week especially as you're planning on continuing to use the AT system for the 2008 series.

I believe you are talking about the daily tournaments, correct? I have seen a few threads on this issue, and I will be passing it on to the designers to see if we want to make adjustments. What specific changes do you think would make the times better? Thanks! --Andrew Patrick 18:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

It's kinda obvious that the AT starting around 7-9PM GMT is the one which gets more people playing in it. So it would be nice to always keep one daily AT in that range. (check title 3 about Forfeits in AT for easy problems to resolve :p ) Ichiko 07:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

What about adding in a Group D and Group E for two more daily ATs? You could increase the QPs needed to participate in the monthly AT, or you could potentially add in other scheduled tournaments that the QPs could be used for. A good example of that might be a campaign-specific tournament such as using only Core and Prophecies skills, or a sealed deck tournament. The extra daily ATs would accomplish both giving guilds more opportunity to compete, and open up special tournaments. Deviant Khan 17:11 1 February 2008 (GMT)

Hero Battles - Still no updates planned?

I already asked a couple of months ago and I probably know the answer already, but are there currently any plans to update Hero Battles? Also, the AT map rotation is still bugged: when loading the Desert Sands map the game shows a loading screen for Jennur's Horde which ends up being a random HB map instead. During the monthly tournament 4 out of the 7 maps were played on the same map because of that bug. --Draikin 00:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

--Andrew Patrick 18:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC) I passed on the bug with the Desert Sands map to QA before the holidays. As for plans to update Hero Battles, I do not believe we are making any major changes to them, though we will continue to address balance issues. If that changes, we will make an announcement. And, of course, if you feel there is anything bugged that needs to be fixed, please bring it to my attention and I will pass it on to QA. --Andrew Patrick 18:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

New area's for Fame Gain

I find it hard to find a group in Heroes Ascent when you are a "newb". What if the designers can make different area's similiar to Heroes ascent, but where you can play against r0-r3, r3 -r6, r6-r9,...

You may find this impossible to do, due to Hall of Heroes. There is a simple solution for this:

When a group wins 5 matches, you get send to the Hall of Heroes.

I find this a needed change, doing Heroes ascent with PuG's gives you 1-2 fame -- The Warrior Of Timi 13:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

People with alt accounts could use that to take advantage of the newb zone and gain easier access to HoH. ~ | Pae - Talk | 17:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

The fame/hero title is associated with Heroes' Ascent. Allowing other mediums to add to that title seems very unlikely. Just as it would be unlikely to allow players alternative means to gain the survivor, cartographer, or champion titles. Titles are a reward, not a right, and while not everyone is going to like the prerequisite for every title or be able to achieve that prerequisite, we hope that there are enough titles out there that there will be something you do enjoy doing. If HA isn't your thing, you should try for another title, but again, I don't think it is very likely for alternative options being added to gain that particular title. --Andrew Patrick 18:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I do like HA, but I have been playing PvP for the last 2 years and have only got 18 fame. But U can only get into a good group when u are R9 -- The Warrior Of Timi 21:02, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Well obviously. Its a well known fact your skill dramatically increases with the rank point that you get when you reach rank 3, 6, 9, and 12 respectively. -Warior kronos 04:08, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to Iway, Spiritway, heroway, <insert here lame build>way... you said skill? --‎ Rayd 12:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Andrew you guys did somthing to blocking and didnt tell us!

Just like the title says... Me and many others have noticed something has changed with blocking. Skills that give you a 75% chance to block are not blocking like normal. Even skills that give 50% chance to block are not blocking like normal. It must have happened within the last week or so. Before, when I used disciplined stance, it was very rare for somthing to get through. But now, Im getting nailed by dshots, and hammer bashes, and all kinds of stuff like I have a 25% chance to block. In the last week, More stuff has gotten through my 75% chance to block stances then within the entire 6 months prior to this change. What did you guys do?

APRIL FOOLS! Oh wait....its december. Yeah ur just unlucky. It happens. it's 75% chance not 100% chance or only skills that are good get blocked stance. --The Gates Assassin 23:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I was thinking the same thing lately, but from the other way around. My hammer warrior has had a slightly easier time finishing off FD monks lately, but not by much. It wouldn't bother me one bit. I know there have been points in which the old Guardian (about 40-45% block) would deny absolutely everything. In the meta right now, spikes for melees are absolutely necessary to finish monks, and having a single skill like Disciplined Stance on a monk that lasts only 1 or 2 seconds, is just ludicrous. I think it's sad when I have to play RA and see one doing nothing but spamming Guardian on himself and dropping maybe one or two heals on other people the entire match, just as a preemptive measure, because one Word of Healing can get rid of over 20 seconds worth of normal attacks. --Reklaw 07:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Preventing damage > healing it after you've taken it. Those monks in RA do need to learn when to cast their prots thou. Tired of seeing monks protting themselves when the enemy is a radar away. Antiarchangel 18:58, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe anything has changed with blocking. I was playing RA all weekend, and when I had guardian on me, I was blocking about 50% of the hits. I'll look into it, but I think it is working correctly. --Andrew Patrick 17:58, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

RA Teams

Okay, there comes a point where a player just can't stand it anymore. I'm sick and tired of coming up against teams with two or more dedicated healers in RA. Teams that can't kick out any damage, whatsoever. Teams that waste eight minutes of a team's time for a (losing) draw. Before this wasn't a problem. I'd just map out and move on. Now with the dishonourable hex i'm made to wait for eight minutes. Do something about it, seriously. Either update the AI that selects teams for RA(I doubt this will ever happen with the focus being made on GW2), or shorten the length of matches to four minutes, two preferably. Also, it wouldn't kill RA to prioritise matching players of the same gladiator rank. Seriously, with savvy players i have reached 20+ consecutive wins coming out of RA and into TA without a dedicated healer. Make RA somewhat more bearable for the people who are out there trying to farm their Gladiator titles. However, i can see that this comment will most likely be shrugged off with an emphasis on Random Arenas.

Wouldnt be very random if they sorted out the teams now would it! Lulz....and in matches like that... /resign works wonders! --ChronicinabilitY 06:07, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I've wanted a sort of RTA for a while. It'll never happen, of course. There's no real way to make it work. You could have the game randomly pick a healer, a support, a denial and a damage dealer and place them on the team, but there's no way to qualify who is who, since the classes can all do different things. Unfortunately, TA is full of idiots, or people that are so flooded by requests from idiots that they refuse to take a risk on anyone that they don't know. Funny how that worked out. --Reklaw 09:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Get rid of Dishonor and make Glad Points gained 1 per win. People would stay for one match and then leave. The huge leaver problem was because people would leave right away if their team wouldn't be able to make 10 wins. Experienced players can evaluate how strong their team is at a glance and to be sure they only need to watch combat for a few seconds. So if you'd NOT encourage people to want winning streaks we wouldn't have much of a leaver problem.

Leave the winning streak encouragement for TA where rewarding strong, versitile teams that can go more than one match is a good idea. RA should just give you one point per win and TA should give you increasing glad points as you win matches in a row. --TimeToGetIntense 02:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I would like to see the pre-requisite for entering RA toughened up a lot, perhaps 10 wins in Zaishen Challenge or similar. The average player quality seems to be dropping. As for the multi-healer problem, one for Izzy to ponder, is there some way of making skills that heal another player less effective than self heals just in RA? ATM in RA there is a oversupply of healers especially in the International districts as the word on the street is it's "easier to farm points if you are a Monk". There is another nagging problem with RA, that is when you transition after 10 wins into TA, you are mowed down/farmed by spike teams on vent, there is little counter as you are not on vent and can't co-ordinate. The TA players are supposed to be fighting other organized TA teams, but in reality half the time they are farming easy wins from RA transitioned teams. This seems unfair and the auto transition into TA probably needs looking into. Ernie

Suggestions...

HA format of PvP has always been an area of PvP i've enjoyed. I've been playing Guild Wars since May 2005 and have done a good amount of both PvE and PvP Though I am more of a PvE fan, when that mood for PvPing kicks in, my favorates have been HA and GvG, and I have a great guild and we GvG alot. However, they are more fans of GvG than HA, which is fine! I'm more than happy to play HA w/ strangers. However here comes the problem. Whenever I enter HA as a rank 2 monk, all I hear when I whisper a request to join a group is not for my skill bar. Its for my rank. Now I consider myself a fairly competant PvP Monk. However, my skill level doesn't matter when it comes to HA. All that matters is my rank. If I'm below rank 3 I might as well have bought the game yesterday. When asked for my rank I reply r2 and either I get the rare but attempting to be polite answer "sorry we're only accepting rank 3 and above to this group" or the elitist "Pfft n00b go do ra." Now the fact that I've been playing for 2 years and can't get a group because i'm assumed to be a "n00b" isnt the worst part of the fame system. The worst is when actual newbs come to HA. Everyone has to start somewhere, and after practice, who once could have been terrible at PvPing could after some practice become very good, by picking up things from playing. But this comes back to the cycle. If you're under rank 3 it is EXCEDINGLY DIFFICULT to get a group in HA and there is no way to learn HA other than playing it. But despite learning from playing, if half your team is new to Hero's ascent, the only thing you gain from the experience is how to get destroyed by a team of entirely experienced players and how to call the other team a bunch of unranked n00bs.

The point I'm trying to get across is that at this point in time, if you aren't r3, you can basicly forget about HA, which is a sad realization I wish but don't know how to fix.

Regards

--Warior kronos 00:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't really see a suggestion there. Although getting fame can be exceedingly slow when you first start, there is still a sprinkling of unranked teams. When you get lucky, some of those will actually know what they're doing >.>. Also, you're getting much closer to R3, when you'll be able to find a few more and even more as your fame climbs. And, there are some guilds that look for R3+ players for HA guilds, if you really want to work towards gaining fame. Also, the more you play, the more likely it is that you'll know more people, assuming that you are a solid player who's willing to take advice, who may be able to get you into more groups. It sucks that the process can take a while, especially depending on your usual HA time, but there isn't much of a way to force people to let unranked people into a group. Entirely getting rid of the rank system would piss off plenty of people. ~ | Pae - Talk | 23:13, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

---Thanks for the advice, I wasnt at all suggesting a wipe of the rank system haha, more just looking for advice. Thanks

-01:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The best advice I have to break into HA is to join a guild or alliance that HA's frequently, or network with HA players. Some of them will have a rank requirement, which would obviously defeat the purpose, but there are many that will take newcomers. Show that you are willing to listen and that you are flexible about what profession and build you run. You may need to build up a bit of rank in a less-critical position than monk at the beginning, which may not be a bad thing if you are not that familiar with HA. Some of the maps, specifically relic runs and KotH, put a lot of pressure on monks that is different than other parts of the game, even other forms of PvP. You can also post in this thread [1] to try to synch up with some other frequent pug players.

Players ask for ranked players, but what they really want is good players that will do their jobs. Rank is just a number they use to predict how good you will be, and how well you will listen. I don't know anyone who would rather have a ranked player that fails to perform than an unranked player that succeeds. If such a person exists, they are likely the people showing their tigers while a pack of deer tears their team apart in Underworld. ;) --Andrew Patrick 19:02, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Is their not a way to add a wee HA-lite outpost. Where those up to rank 3 can play in the HA maps but can not progress to the hall of heroes but can still gain fame up until they reach rank 3, at which point they then have to progress to normal HA? Hmmm... I suppose though that all this might do is change the rank at which the rank nazi-ism stops and instead of being barred til you reach rank 3, you would be barred until you reach rank 5 by bigotted players. One easy change that i think would be helpful though, is to allow the hero title to be shown from lvl 1 rather than having to wait to lvl 3. If you say you are lvl 2, you have no way to prove it and could have 0 fame. At least if you could show your lvl 2 rank, you may find it easier to get into groups, as it stands the first 2 titles are compleatly and utterly pointless. -- Salome 15:47, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

As I said, rank is simply used as a display for ones experience. If you make Rank 3 easier to obtain, players will likely just require Rank 6. This is a community driven phenomenon that is very difficult to deal with from a design standpoint. After all, we cannot force players to take unranked players. Without rank, pugs would likely suffer even more since players would have nothing but personal experience to judge another players ability which would force them to rely on their friends list and guildies rather than risking it with strangers that have no way to show they are experienced players.

It is easy to say that removing the rank system would improve the situation, but honestly, I feel it would make it even harder to pug in HA. Networking is by far the best way to break into HA. If you are not already in one, find a guild or alliance that HAs and join them when they are going. If your on a good team in RA, add each other to your friends lists so you can invite each other to HA groups. Also, try forming unranked teams in HA. There are a lot of people who are unable to join R3+ teams and very few of them think to form their own team. --Andrew Patrick 23:49, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you Andrew and as i said in my post, my idea would probably just push the rank-elitism up to a different rank, making it harder again for people to gain access to HA until they've reached an even higher rank. Also I was not advocating an abolition of the Rank system as I think most people see the benefits such a system gives the PvP community. Howver to reiterate a minor point of my previous post, why is that one can only show their Hero title once they have reached lvl 3 in it? Surely that makes lvl 1 and lvl 2 in that title redundant? Note here i'm not saying it makes the Rank 1 & 2 increments redundant, but it surely makes the Title which goes with those ranks redundant as the pure pupose of a title is its display. Giving people an opportunity to show lvl 1 and lvl 2 Hero titles through the title system might open up a few doors for access into HA as it might decrease the rank-elitism to only those with no Hero title and thus those who are compleatly unranked, rather than those with no emote (anybody under rank 3). As I said before, as it stands you can be 1 fame away from rank 3 and still not get into Rank 3 groups due to the lack of the ability to show your lvl 2 title. If however we were allowed to show this title, those rank 3 teams might consider those of rank 2 and rank 1 as they would know that at least the players had some experiance in the HA field. However as it stands anyone under rank 3 has no way of showing others their experiance of HA and anyone claiming to be rank 1 or 2 , has to be taken on trust alone. I'm not advocating a new emote being added for those under rank 3, what im asking for simply is for the 2 titles which are already implemented in the game (that of "HERO" and "FIERCE HERO") to be made viewable to others in the HA outpost. To at least give those two ranks some meaning, as it stands they are compleatly and utterly pointless. -- Salome 10:21, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

im r6 and have been playing for 1 year... =o

That's nice but i fail to see how it relates to the issues at hand. -- Salome 14:43, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I hate to give away my secret, but for the best interest of all here... The easiest way to get into groups is to play monks. They are always needed. Even at my lowly r1, I get to pick my groups. Learn to play healing and protection, and you're set. -- Alaris 17:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

WE WANT MORE OF THE COSTUME BRAWL KIND PVP

hi, id rly like to see more of the Costume Brawl immediate ready-made action in GW PVP scenarios. I have heard that there was a proposal for this, and im willing to support this idea. I find it perfect for casual and non casual gamers that have their 30 min to spend and want instant action. Id like this since i like the game, but i dislike the current PVP system; I have trouble entering GVG, pve oriented guilds, low rank etc... and dont like the 2min RA pvp 4 man system, add here that i cant afford more than 30-45min play, and id like it to be spent in action. P.S see for my discussion and proposals for the PVP here[2] and my discussion bout Costume Brawl here [3] thanks Spaghetti 16:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

i'll second his request. i used to be big into ha (was r6 in prophecies and didn't have the time/energy to keep up after factions) and gvg (was in guild that broke top 10 and ended a season #15), but the time expenditure required to keep up w/ high level pvp is simply too high for me. i realize others do have the time and i wouldn't expect u to change that. i do however love the minigames that come out b/c i can pick those up quickly. the restriction of choice means i don't have to spend much time staying current and just play. i understand that u want to keep the minigames "fresh" so u restrict the time u can play them. but it'd be great if u had more weekends where u just opened up a minigame or two w/o needing to wait for a once a year holiday where i may or may not be traveling, seeing family/friends, etc. --VVong|BA 19:37, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

We know that players enjoy the mini games, and we are very happy that you do, but we like to keep them special. Random Arenas and Alliance Battles are both great options for casual PvP. In fact, Random Arenas does not take any longer than the Costume Brawl matches, so if your concern is time, those should work great for you.

As for opening up the minigames, we do typically bring them back intermittently throughout the year. I will ask if we might consider bringing the Costume Brawl back sometime soon.--Andrew Patrick 23:30, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the concern is not just the time spent playing, but also the time spent keeping up with the meta. RA has fads, trends and flavours of the month, just like the other PvP options in GW, and staying on top of these may be more effort than it's worth. I can see a place for a regularly reoccurring "cut-down" PvP arena, a la costume brawls. -- Hong 23:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Templates should make keeping up with the meta a one minute job. I just went into RA and said "what do Warriors run these days" and had 4 people whisper me templates. Reading a single thread on any forum could get me caught up on the current meta in a matter of minutes as well. The thing about the meta is, well...it's the meta. There are so many people running that you you can enter a few matches and be able to see what is being ran. Typically you can just ask a crowd of people and they could also tell you. Finding a PvP player that knows what the meta is is about as hard as finding a Spanish speaker in Spain. I agree that it would be hard to come back after a few months and leap into HA with nothing but a template, but for more casual formats like RA, TA, or AB, there really isn't that much work involved in keeping up with the meta. Some would argue that RA and AB don't even have metas since they are BYOB settings. --Andrew Patrick 19:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

It's my own opinion but I really hate RA and TA. Balance between teams is just a joke 99% of the time: so many gimmick builds are around only to shutdown warriors, many people are coming for a test build while other jump in for a challenge (and usually won't get a proper one), some bring rez skills others not, you have a dedicated healer/prot or nothing... the list can be so long. With those templates you made for the costume brawl you eliminated almost all these issues! Having a monk or not is not a problem anymore (healing has been kept weak on purpose and mixed with offensive skills in each prof skillbar), melee shutdown is there but not overwhelming, everyone comes for a challenge or to improve their playing style, etc. Ichiko 06:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, first of all thanks for the interest shown in resolving the question and for your advises for better pvp. As i sad i like the instant action that made the difference in the CB fights. But there are alot of differences between Costume Brawl-CB and RA(or the other pvp in gw). The good points of CB in relation with RA:

-10 second shrine resurrect vs no resurrect /one of the key matters: in RA its all about the first kill, do it and you have won the match, thats why RA is so stressful and spike oriented.

-tactics vs elimination /in CB the captured shrines gave a major boost and permitted a more tactical play

-CB 7 min vs RA 2min /another important issue,2min=spike builds, stress..., lagg issues,1/3 of the time spent in reentering the RA fight...

-5 man team vs 4 man team /even if it seems minor 5 is lot better than the extreme 4 man team fight

For the time spent keeping up with the meta question, i would like to add that is not just that one needs an update with one profession build but a general overview of the current PVP gaming tendencies, since the question before starting a RA is not just what build to take but mainly what class+what build of that class to take? And this is not an easy question!

Furthermore to point out the complexity of RA vs CB:

If one loses a RA: there are a couple of things to blame (not talking bout"my team sux"issues)

- build not effective

- build not updated

- class not(so)effective

- class effective but not proper for playstyle

- bad playstyle, bad playskill

Its very hard to guess what is the problem among all the above variables, and eventually to work to solve the matter. One looses in RA and? what to do? work on build, pick other class, work on playstyle, tactics, look on the forums for current style tips??? Playing experience doesnot work here, so many things other than playing make the difference here...

If one loses in CB what is to blame:

- bad playstyle, bad playskill

- class not proper for playstyle

Here the matter is so simple, if one looses he has to play more to get good, the playskill-playing tactic. So no space for questions like: where did i go wrong... Just play and you will get better! =)

-CB keeps the classes and the game as they were ment to be played !./since CB classes are bonded with their profession tree skills and attributes.

Example: the Sin is surly not ment to be played with a staff, the Necros are surly not ment to be the main healers etc... an Assasin/Ninja/Samurai is a figure associated with daggers and bows but never with the Esoteric/Occult/Dark Arts which are more appropriate to the Necromancer class... If i play a Sin i like to play it with daggers, regardless of the fact that in this game a caster sin seems to be more effective than the dagger Sin, there is the Necro if i like to play as offensive caster. In otherwords the CB system makes the class-playstyle choice a personal preference making the RPG game experience more valuable and fun. Spaghetti 23:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

He says the developers like to keep the mini-games special. What about keeping the game alive at this point? It seems to me like you should release all the content as often as you can (turn on the boardwalk and costume brawl every weekend, enact every "double X rewards" every weekend, etc). Give us a reason to WANT to play instead of merely feeling like we have nothing better to do. 24.197.69.153 19:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Or at the very least, would be nice if these came around a lot more often. I'd suggest (1) events lasts the whole week instead of weekends only, and (2) you'd get more than 1 event at a time, e.g. broadway + double faction, or costume brawl + double ss/lb... Perhaps every weekend is either (1) PvP, (2) Prophecies, (3) Factions, (4) NF, and finally (5) GW:EN. All activities specific to that area are promoted during the said weekend. It's also been a while since last gambling... I need to up my Luck/Unluck titles. -- Alaris 20:51, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Bath faction to reward points

i think you should make it so we can get reward points from bath faction, mainly because doing the tournaments is hard because you can earthier do hb or gvg, and my guildies and i don't do gvg or hb, we do ha and ta and ab. i think its unfair to the people who dont like to do gvg or hb. so if you could change it so you could get reward points for halls or make it so you can change like 1k bath into reward points i think would be grate.

Why? I don't do HA much so therefore i dont get the rewards (gold drops, sigils etc). You choose not to do Tournaments, yet you want the rewards...doesn't really make sense. --ChronicinabilitY 17:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Being as they are tournament reward points, it is practical for them to only be rewarded via the tournaments. Different rewards have different prerequisites, but that doesn't make it unfair. The fame emote can only be gained via HA, The Gladiator Title can only be gained via Arenas, etc. I don't believe there are any plans to change rewards associated with certain formats to be rewarded elsewhere. --Andrew Patrick 23:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

yea but you get bath faction for every kind of pvp that you do. and a way to convert it to reward points seams like it would be a natural thing.

What part of TOURNAMENT Reward points arent u getting, and sign ure name 24.141.45.72 14:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

you can get free Tournament Reward Points via guessing who is going to win. which takes no skill what so ever. you have already made them worthless and indoing so made the "prestige" of it worthless as well gg. like one other person wrote in a form you can get keys for bath faction and TRP which give you eather pve items which are worthless to a truly pvp player and or gold which from a pvp stand point you cant do much with except maybe buy dye and high end items but if your purely pvp you cant go to any of the towns have actual markets. so gg on that part as well. i for one thought and is evendnt in the first game that pvp and pve would be things that you could easily switch between but the fact is it isnt. for one you need skills which after about 8 skills cost 1k each, then you need weapons which range in price but to be good at pvp you want weapons that have good stats and the ability to switch between them some if not most weapon mods cost 1k+ and then you need armor and runes all of which cost 1.5k for top armor lvl. all of that stuff costs a lot of money i for one think you guys made a mistake in seprateing the pvp community from the pve

the hole RP system is Epic fail. i agree with the above poster you should be able to get rp points from bath. or they need to change it so, when you get something your able to keep it for any pvp ch and it then unlocks it for all the other pvp ch.75.172.43.101 21:16, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Noob Filter

Thought it was a good idea myself. --Readem 00:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Haha GG. --Andrew Patrick 02:45, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Who would do skill balance then? 24.141.45.72 23:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

MEGA BURN --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:75.172.43.101 (talk).

unlocking armor

why isn't it so once you buy a set or a part of armor in pve it becomes unlocked in pvp like everything else in pvp? i think that it would be a good change seeing that for most getting 15k+ armor is harder then getting reward points.

Armour doesnt work like that. Their is no unlock screen for it and I think we had this debate at the time when they introduced the armour reward system. As alot of us thought, and still do by the way, that the system is inherently flawed due to the fact that many people reroll pvp chars over and over, but if you do this you lose any of the elite armours unlocked on your account thus forcing you to make perma pvp chars. However we were told at that point that the devs agreed with us and that a better system would have been that of introducing a universal skin unlock system but at the time they just didnt have the capabilities to implement such a thing and thus choose the next best thing. That of individual armour trading to individual pvp chars for a certain number of tournament points. -- Salome 10:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

it seems like it would be something that would be an easy add i think

No offense to you, but unless you have a strong grasp of the underlying code of GW, im not really sure if you can say that. -- Salome 09:07, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

nothing in my above statement is abiding l2r

Errr.... pardon? Also just as a wee aside could you please sign your comments, just add "~~ ~~" (remove the space in the middle) at the end of your comments and it will automatically put in your signature. -- Salome 13:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

i actually like not havieing to sign my name feel free to go in and add the ~ but my ip will change in a week so it wont really matter.

Cause u make bad comments and suggestions? 24.141.45.72 19:23, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

um no because i don't feel like havening a cookie to remember my login name and pass and if it changes every week then theres no point in me signing also no need to make a blow on my suggestions, if your not going to make suportive or constructive comments then dont make them at all. i for one think this is a good idea its hard to get most of the "ascended armor" much harder then capping a skill.

Well then sign ure IP, oh and ure last post proved my point.. "... u make bad comments and suggestions" 24.141.45.72 23:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

your argument is rediclious just because you don't agree with someone. saying they make bad comments and suggestions is a fallacy. and isn't an argument. you also don't even try to stay on the topic at hand which isn't help full. also i can do whatever i want on the internet you don't control me and if i don't want to sign then i wont. and its "your" not "ure" if your going to spell out "ure" you might as well just put the extra effort and add use the correct spelling. BACK TO TOPIC Gathering 75k and about 400+ materials or a few thousand rep points should allow you to be able to use the armor where ever you like. and let you unlock it so you can use it in pvp though i think it should only apply to toughs who have unlocked all five pieces of the set. (ie Head, Chest, Arms, Legs, Feet.)

This is an idea that has been discussed, but the designers ultimately decided that, in order to maintain the "specialness" of exotic armors, unlocking them on accounts is not a desired function. Even the ones acquired by Reward Points are not permanently unlocked. Also, item skins acquired in PvE are not unlocked for PvP, only their modifiers are. Things that effect balance are easily obtained, but things that look cooler, while not impacting balance, are generally treated as "luxury" items rather than a necessity. -Andrew Patrick 01:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

you sould at least make it so when you use reward points it unlocks it.....

I'm all for keeping the elite / exotic armors special, but perhaps we could see the rest of the base armors added into pvp character creation? We have the base canthan sets, why not the elonian / istani? Dargon 19:26, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

agreed they should add the canthan sets... but i dont see how when i buy elite luxon for my war and then making it so its unlocked for a pvp war makes it lose its "specialness" you have already did all of the hard work on the pve account i don't understand why that cant be transfered to pvp. also when i wrote this in the first place i didn't mean once you get a full set of elite norn for your monk you should then be able to unlock it so any pvp ch can have the elite norn style. also it makes since that you don't have it set up so when you get a new weapon skin in pve your able to use it in pvp because that would crash the market for Weapons in pve. but amour wise i think the change that i stated wouldn't have any sort of difference. and i only suggest it because its much harder to get a pve ch pvp ready. you also just dont have the storage space.

Easy fix - why not just make it so you can re-get from Tolkano any armor set you've already gotten (on a pvp char). Tada, fixed. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 14:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

i would be happy with that.75.172.43.101 21:16, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Heroes' Ascent time limit

This is a picture of a HA battle I've been in:

The reason the match took so long is because a shadow form assasin kept protecting herself, making it impossible for any of our team to harm her. The rest of the opposing team was quickly slain, but our whole team grew tired of repeatedly trying to stop the assasin. She did not attack or change anything to the battle for 50 minutes (untill he/she lagged out probably). A part of our team left of boredom and the next match we were quickly slain. From this I make out there is no current time limit on HA matches. Could you please put a time limit on these matches? Else invincible builds will just waste time. File:SigKarasu.png Karasu (talk) 17:00, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

lol, girl makes things so epic. --Readem 20:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

ER you couldnt PD shadow form? Imo get more skill 24.141.45.72 19:20, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Shadow Form. Elite Enchantment Spell. For 5...17...20 seconds, all hostile Spells that target you fail and all attacks against you miss. Nice try, smartass.       19:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

last i checked u cant perma shadow-form.. im saying PD shadow form skill. not other skills. 24.141.45.72 23:52, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

"She did not attack or change anything to the battle for 50 minutes". Sounds like perma-SF, if not, then the team fighting her are retards. Still, PD has nothing to do with this: if she was running perma-SF then PD would have been useless, if she wasn't running perma-SF she simply could have been killed after a few minutes, not 50 minutes. Oh, you do know that not every team runs with a PD, do you? ... Lastly, I'm pretty sure Sissy Girl runs with a friend, so they copy SF from eachother -> perma-SF. Again, stop being such a smartass please.       11:55, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Sigh.. The assasin was the ONLY ONE left. I had interrupt spells, so nobody of our team could stop her from casting Arcane Echo, Shadow Form and that assasin skill wich gives 33% longer enchantments. That combination can't be stopped except for about 5 skills - wich none of us has. Btw, how do you know that assasin was called Sissy? File:SigKarasu.png Karasu (talk) 12:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

"Shock." "Leech Signet." Bring them and you magically never run into problems. The best part? They're absolutely amazing skills anyway - shock for obvious reasons and Leech to stop ghostly capping. -Auron 12:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and Sissy Girl is the only one that does it nowadays. Used to be others, but the only one who's any good at it now is Sissy. The rest die in 2 minutes like the scrubs they are. -Auron 12:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I will let Izzy know this is still rarely occurring. --Andrew Patrick 00:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Waiting time in AB

The waiting times in AB are at times very long, but what it worse is that they are completely sterile. I wonder if we could gain some faction points, like about 20 or 30, each time we are not allowed to enter because of the lack of players. I do not see how it could be exploited or anything. What do you think ? 86.208.12.39 02:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

stupidest (not a word.. get over it) idea i have ever heard in my life. You shouldnt get faction in AB B/C it is mostly PvE scrubs that bring bad build in anyway... 24.141.45.72 19:21, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

From my understanding, the waiting times in AB has to do with an overall design flaw with it. The whole pushing from one side to another, moving from a neutral map to more and more stacked maps. I am on the Kurzick side, so I almost always wait 3 to 10 times longer on kurzick maps than I do when it is on a Luxon map (in which I almost never have to wait). The reason is probably due to the fact of the stacked nature of the maps. People dont like losing, and especially hate losing when the odds are stacked against them for no valid reason other than timing. So there are usually at least twice as many people in the districts that favor the side than those in the opposite camp. This leads to much longer waits for one side. I do think it was a noble attempt to make a dynamic living world, that shows the shifting of power over time, but I think as a gameplay device it completely fails.

Yes, there are extra rewards for those playing against a stacked map. But you must remember that you at best can only control the skill of your group, and at worst just control your own skill. So maybe your team sucks, maybe the other two teams suck. That situation in the face of a stacked map tends to mean you typically get 100-300 points on any stacked map not in your favor. Which depending on the map means anywhere from 200-600 to 300-900 faction. Factor that in with the 75% change of losing plus the overall time to play the match, there really is little motivate to play on the stacked maps that dont favor you.

How to fix this? Two ways. One, remove the stacked nature of all maps. Have the line move randomly based on wins and loses, but also have a deminishing returns value that doesnt affect gameplay, that it just affects how many wins are needed to move the line. Second option would be to keep adjusting the nature of the rewards to the point of acheiving an actual balance in side strenght. What is the overall worthwhile faction earned chance that will motivate a person to keep losing time and again because they cant control timing of the stacked map, or their other team's ability.--riceball 22:03, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Very good points by Riceball. The way to reduce waiting times is to make it more worthwhile to play on the "biased" maps (either by unbiasing them or upping the rewards). Introducing rewards for waiting is a horrible idea. --Xeeron 16:02, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

It is just a "cataplasm" idea. Obviously, Riceball's point are interesting and would lead to definitive solutions. Obviously I can't ignore the inherent flaws in the very concept of gaining something while doing nothing, but last night I had to wait 30 minutes before eventually giving up. Waiting is completely sterile. Trying to play "honestly" instead of going fff is somehow "punished". You can't blame luxons for being unwilling to fight on maps completely unfair to them, there are many issues that need to be adressed, I just pointed a minor one. 86.208.76.157 18:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

It is my understanding that the waiting times are caused by a skewed percentage of players being on the Kurzick side. Alliance battles have not changed and the "unbalanced" maps have always been there and I doubt that is going to be changed. The maps are balanced in the favor of defenders for both the Luxons and the Kurzicks, though if you feel that advantage is greater on one side than the other, that is something I would like to take to the designers.

If there are 10 teams waiting on the Kurzick side because there are no teams on the Luxon side, players should balance the two out to improve the situation. I may be wrong, but from everything I have seen there are simply more Kurzick teams than Luxon teams, and the remedy for that is in the players hands. I don't know what can be done from a design stand-point since it really just seems like players are not interested in balancing the two sides out. Though like I said, if that is because one side has a strategic advantage than the other, I would like to let the designers know about that. --Andrew Patrick 00:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I have a hard time believing there are that many more kurzick players than luxon. I could be mistaken, but I have a few reasons to not believe this. One, when its a luxon map that does not favor me (since im kurzick), I almost never have to wait more than 1-2 timer resets. On the really stacked luxon map, I almost never have to wait, period. This means to me that there are more luxon players than kurzicks at that time. It happens time and again in that situation. On the flip side, when its a map that favors the kurzicks, I have to wait on average 10-20 minutes to get a match going, maybe even 30 minutes of wait! Secondly, when its a kurzick map that favors me, I tend to see 3-5 districts open, while when its a luxon map that does not favor me, I tend to just see 1-2 kurzick districts. I think the population is dependent on the side of the line.

I get that the design is to help a losing side win more (at least, thats what I believe is the purpose). I would say historically I win 75-90% of the stacked maps in my favor. While I probably lose on luxon maps that dont favor me by the same percentage. Frankly, I am ok with that. The problem is motivation. If I know I am highly likely to get 1500 faction on a stacked map that favors me, I will play, and usually win. Its fun to AB, and the faction for the amount of play time is fair. On the other hand, when its a luxon map, I will only get about 200-500 faction each match (these loses tend to be pretty lopsided). So not only do I barely get any faction but I have to lose for no valid reason. Mostly because I cant overcome the opponents skill, my teams skill, and the stacked nature of the map. 1500+Win vs 350+Lose? It doesnt add up. If I am to lose, I should get close to what the opposition gets in faction. Because for one, its a stacked map and I was designed to lose, and secondly, without me participating there would be no match then. They get 1500 for winning, I want to be certain of getting a close 1000. If I am lucky enough to pull off an upset, give me 2000. I actually think it was like this at one time, but was changed due to leechers. Well, dont we have that reporting ability now? As it stands now, I almost never play when its a stacked map against me, because it just doesnt make sense for the amount of faction, nor to keep losing in vein.

As for reporting, doesn't ANET have the ability to know exactly what someone is doing within the game? When I looked at a GW site a while back, I saw a statistical breakdown of what skills were used and how often. That means, if i press WoH it got recorded and added. Whats to stop ANET from saying "well, if leecher hasnt used more than one skill every minute, nor any input was even received for movement, this person is a leecher and gets no faction.

My guild is small, just friends, and they dont like to PvP. Frankly, I think the waiting is just too much for them. I love AB, its basically the only way I get to PvP, but the wait times and faction inequalities are seriously killing my enjoyment of that aspect of the game.--riceball 01:37, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

One aspect I forgot to touch on, I assume this "leave it to players to balance out" deal has to do with players changing their faction alliegence? If so, that sounds nice in theory, but does not work for two reasons. One, there is a title base skill line now. Why should I switch my alliance when I am trying to work on that title to improve my skills? If you recall it takes a freaking long time to max that title out as it stands. I would be lucky to ever see level 7. Whatever faction I earn for the other side is time I lost working on my natural side. Secondly, this still comes back to the question of motivation. Why should I switch over to the side that has a more favored map, only to suffer their long wait times. I hear people from both sides complaining about it, and saying its "the ANET servers", which just shows they dont understand whats going on here. Secondly, why would I move over to the side that doesnt have the stacked map, only to keep losing for 300 faction?--riceball 01:44, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Both sides have "stacked maps" so I really don't understand how the wait times can be attributed to that. If players are choosing not to play when those maps come up, that is their decision, and short of teleporting unwilling participants to AB and forcing them to enter, I'm not understanding what you are suggesting can be done from a design standpoint. Look at it this way: If your trying to play some 4v4 basketball, and 7 people all join the "shirts" team, leaving just 1 to play on the "skins" team, obviously, the game cannot be played. You can either suggest the rules of basketball be changed so a 1v7 game is somehow fair, or try to encourage 3 of those 7 players to move over to the "skins" team. You don't have to, you are free to stay where you are, but if everyone else stays there as well, just like in the basketball analogy, you won't be able to get a game going. It is a 12 v 12 battle, and no matter how many people are on one side, if there are not 12 on the other side (or they are already in a match) it is impossible for a match to begin.

Honestly, if you want shorter wait times, switch over to Luxon. Every time I have asked about wait times in AB, I have always been told it was due to an imbalance between the number of Kurzick players and the number of Luxon players, and that all we can do is let players know that balancing the two will solve the problem of long waits. I've been on the Luxon side since Factions released and I have never had issues with wait times. Nor have I felt any maps make it strategically better to switch to the Kurzick side. --Andrew Patrick 02:03, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Well that sucks to hear if its true luxons barely ever have to wait. I will switch my guild over and test that out and see. Maybe even keep a record of things. If I would have known there is this strange balance in game, I would have never picked Kurzick. Guess that 1.3 million faction might be worthless now if I dont want to wait.--riceball 02:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Andrew, you are correct in stating that the waiting times are due to skewed numbers of players. However, those skewedd numbers of players are in turn due to skewed rewards (not maps, but the faction earned). To stay in your basketball example, imagine the winner of each game gets a free drink, yet at times, the basket for one team is twice as high as the basket for the other team. Would you imagine similar numbers joining both team? I don't think so.

The solution is quite simple, the average amount of luxon/kurzick faction gained on skewed maps needs to be equal to the average amount gained on non-skewed maps for both sides. In practise this would mean upping the faction gained for losing for attackers on heavily skewed maps (and maybe decreasing faction gained by defenders for winning). --Xeeron 10:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I noticed it was actually a good time to test my hypothesis. The map is currently on the majorly stacked luxon map Kaanai Canyon. I switched my faction to luxon and played for them. My group waited 10 timers, which at 30 seconds each is a 5 minute wait. Before switching, I did a quick eyeball look at the districts, and there were 4 luxon districts. I then switched back to being kurzick. Started a match there, on same map, and did not have to wait at all. Not a single timer (just as it usually is for me on that map). I also noted that there were only 2 districts there (which i do think is an overall sign of population usually.

Now, when I was with the luxons, I asked some people there whether or not they felt they waited more on their stacked maps, like Kaanai Canyon. They all told me yes. Then proceeded to give me all the usual suspects as to why this is "they always win", "kurzicks suck" etc... Just as I hear from kurzicks complaining about waiting for luxons. While I have to admit this is quite limited in scope, it all fits in with what I am saying. There was in fact a much longer wait on the luxon side, which according to you shouldnt really be there since there is a population imbalance overall. Sure, you dont mean all the time. But from my experience, and what the other users said to me, I believe I am still correct here so far.

I also dont know if you are exactly getting what I am saying here (I dont mean that to sound rude if it does). I get your baseketball analogy. Of course if there are 12 people on one side, and one on the other you cant make a game. That is my point. The nature of the population imbalance is the line/map, not that luxons look like clowns or kurzicks look goths. People hate to lose, and especially hate losing when its stacked against them plus getting usually half the faction the other team is getting. This is what I think causes a population imbalance, and that is what makes the wait. So even if the kurzicks do have overall more users on their side, it was not showing right now, and I have never seen it be otherwise on luxon maps.

Will there be times when I dont wait on a stacked map in my favor? Sure, but its usually close after a change of maps (which means the population hasnt had time to really take affect), and or a bonus weekend is going on. Otherwise I am willing to bet this rule holds most of the time.--riceball 03:07, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The initial point, instead of finding a way to wait less, was to try something so waiting is not completely sterile anymore. But since we are here and some points have been made, there are little things I would like to add. I assure you, I wouldn't mind joining the luxons at all, even temporarily, since it would be better than waiting needlessly. But there are issues. If you really want me to switch allegiance to be able to enter, fine, I would gladly do it but you forgot several things.

1) Getting in the outpost.

This one is the simplest but you still need someone to guest you, be it by begging at the GToB or your friendlist. If switching allegiance back and forth is according to you a very plausible solution, why can't we simply access AB from the GToB ? We can already join fort Aspenwood and the Jade quarry (not to mention we all know that people from the opposite factions are mostly Judas there). You could even grab the bull by its horns : add a "go to the opposite side" button in every AB outpost. It would show no ambiguity : this is a game and you can join whoever you want just to be able to play.

2) Title.

Let's assume I have no problem to get to the AB outpost. Ambers and jadeites are nice and all, playing is fun due to the large number of players and the sometimes chaotic nature of the matches, but the title track is one of the main reasons people will fight in AB. So if you want me to join the luxon side even temporarily, it will equal in more sterile things and wasted time. A solution would be to merge the titles, or better (since it's too late know), to be able to "transfer" points from a title to the other, or directly via the NPC, maybe with a 50 % loss ("you have 10 000 luxon points, what would you like to do ? [luxon options here] ->5 ambers -> increase my alliance' reputation by 5 000 -> transfer 1 000 points from my luxon title to increase my kurzick title by 500"), whatever you want. It would make no sense lore-wise but at least if I play with the luxons I don't have a dead title that I will never push further on purpose because it would take ages to max it. It would also remind some people that it is a game since we can switch allegiance without too much disadvantages. My luxon title now is very low and perfectly useless. It just symbolizes wasted time.

3) The actual fighting.

This one is more subjective, but one thing that I thought infuriating and very confusing when fighting with the luxons was the colours. So I play day and night and morning and evening with blue allies and red foes and now I have to do the reverse. I did it since I wanted to get the main quest in the pve campaign. I don't think I will do it by pleasure anytime soon if a simple hintbox asking me who I want to see in red and who in blue is not added. I can't count how many times I innocently walked towards a huge kurzick mob thinking I would be in safety only to realize too late that, well, maybe it is not that safe after all.

Each point is subject to debate, but I think one of the main problems is the title. Joining the luxons just for the hell of finding a game won't do it since it will not be very helpful to increase my kurzick title. Also, fighting blue foes is confusing to many, so fixing it would be a great improvement.

And of course, Riceball insists rightly on the central problem : on the stacked maps, one side will almost always win and the others are basically asked to be punching balls. No one really wants to be a punching ball, I guess, so improve the rewards even more. Yes, it means more rewards for loosers. Still less than winners, but high. The concept is not very good but the one thing they are rewarded for is kindly accepting to loose to give winners a game to win.

My English is not very good, I know it can make me sound like a retard, but at least please consider my propositions. 86.192.141.156 08:06, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Not to be a jerk... but your obviously an unranked team, and your a SWAY team. So pleaseeeeeee don't complain. Nobody waits 50 minutes to get 1 fame unless your unranked.... and half retarded. Sorry, but its true. --Noxify

Who are you talking to noxify? AB to my knowledge has nothing to do with SWAY(I am assuming this is a team build) or Fame. Nor is anyone saying the waits are 50 minutes. There is a random nature of AB groupings, so sometimes you do have sucky teams, and sometimes you fight the stacked nature of the map. This isnt a question of ability really. This is a question of the design making lopsided population balances depending on the map and thus leading to 5 to 15 minute waits usually.--riceball 21:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I haven't had much time to get more data on this yet, but I think it currently supports my view pretty clearly. I will keep updating this over some map changes and I will switch to being Luxon as well. But As you can see from the link there is a marked difference in wait times for a Kurzick based on whether its a Luxon favored map or a Kurzick favored map. While the amount of faction earned isn't that different (which I found surprising so far), you have to account for the "Faction per Loss value of 541" that shows probably the main reason why people avoid these maps. If I know im doing to lose 25-30% of the time, and only earn around 500 faction during those loses, most just are not going to play. You said you were told there was an imbalance of Kurzicks over Luxon in the overall population, if that was true, the wait should continue even on Luxon favored maps, but its not even close.--riceball 23:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

AB....isn't....PvP....24.141.45.72 14:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

If its not PvP, then what is it? As it certainly isn't PvE! -- Salome 14:43, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

But whether it is PvP, PvE or a mixture is pretty irrelevant to the question at hand. --Xeeron 16:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Andrew - a simple solution to remove wait times entirely is to randomly pick some teams from whichever side is more numerous, and re-assign them to the other side. Give them the faction for the side that they signed up for either way. For example, because Kurzick teams are more numerous, some of them will fight for the Luxon side but get Kurzick points anyway. Problem solved? Most people are interested in farming faction anyway, so I'm sure most will put up with the inconsistency in signing up for one side and appearing on the other, in favor of drastically reduced wait times. Implement that for JQ as well pls. -- Alaris 16:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

"Honestly, if you want shorter wait times, switch over to Luxon." ... Are you even thinking this through at this point? I realize that this has already been addressed for the most part, and I'm not saying you're stupid by any means. But it doesn't seem like you're making much of an attempt to think like the players playing it.

I don't really play GW anymore, and it's not because it's bad. I log in a 2-4 hours a week when I can to play with the Guild. We're a Luxon guild, and about the only thing we can really get together to do and enjoy are the Alliance Battles.

We're a dedicated Luxon alliance, and though it's kind of crumbled for the moment, we've had in the few millions for a bit. It's not really any grand achievement, and it honestly doesn't matter in the scheme of things. But we did it together. By this point, I have rank 6 Luxon Allegiance title.

Are you telling me, US, to just abandon all of that for shorter wait times? I've played Aspenwood on the Kurz side for fun occasionally, but rarely. I can't do much with Kurz faction, and I can't do it with my guildmates. It's even more annoying to swap sides for Alliance Battle purposes.

I'm pretty sure I remember you being more a HA/GvG man, and I have a feeling you're giving AB the short end of the stick. No, it's not the epitome of skill by any means. In fact, it's more of a random gankfest most of the time. But unlike GvG or HA, it's easy to form teams for, get people into it, play, and the rewards are actually obtainable. Or at least, it is when it doesn't take 10-20 minutes to get into a match!

Your suggestions and analogy were bad. And it's not intelligence, it's an issue of not putting yourselves in the shoes of the players who are playing the AB's. Empathy, I guess. If you did, I think you'd see why the long wait times are such an issue, and why, "Let the players sort it out" and "Change your allegiance" are poor solutions. Unless you're going to couple them with an update allowing participation in AB's of either side without requiring the whole alliance to shift sides, and letting people apply faction earned from either side TO either side (or simply rewarding them faction for whatever side they're on anyway), they're not just poor, they're worthless. MA Anathe 17:05, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

For all intensive purposes that I can see, Andrew is completely wrong in his belief that luxons have shorter wait times. He did mostly base it on questionable personal experience (I dont get the impression AB is his main focus) and from what others have told him. When I switched my guild to the luxons, on their stacked maps, I waited just as long as I usually wait on the Kurzick side when I was a Kurzick. While the amount of faction earned over time does seem to be relatively balanced out. The concept of losing along with wait times has not been balanced.--riceball 22:39, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

It's "for all intents and purposes"!! Argh!! — kyrasantae 23:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

@riceball: You misunderstood what Andrew was trying to state. The point he made was pretty much similar to what you came out concluding: If you have a hard time getting into an AB game, it's because there's not enough teams on the opposite side. He then made a statement that there are more Kurzicks than Luxons overall. There's no way for a player to know this data so we'll have to accept his word for it. Simply because there was a statement made that there are more Kurzick aligned players, that doesn't translate into "there's always more Kurzicks than Luxons -ABing- despite whatever map." Unbalanced maps will generally field more players for the side that has the map advantage. It's pretty much all common sense. If you hate wait times, you'll have to swap sides unfortunately. It is a hassle getting guest invites just to get over to the other side though so I hope that can be changed at least. Personally, I wouldn't care if I had to pay 100 gold just to get with the opposing side for awhile. The problem that comes with this is that unbalanced maps might become even more skewed in players. PlacidBlueAlien 08:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

About the basketball analogy...you have to add in, One team starts with 8 points, and one team starts with 0 points. The game is played to 10 points, and the winning team gets a free pizza and beer, paid for by the losing team. Is anyone going to play on the team that starts with 0 points? --Deathwing 23:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

spirit AI

seeing as you guys are bug fixing everything, could you fix spirits? They occasionaly dont attck even wen beside an enemy. they only seem to attack if the maker of the spirits does24.141.45.72 14:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

It's a known bug, I already added this to the AI issues page here: User_talk:Mike_Zadorojny/Guild_Wars_AI_issues#Spirits_--_Spirits_stop_attacking. Mike said these and other AI issues will be looked into when the programmers have a spare moment. --Draikin 21:59, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

thank god, its starting to piss me off 24.141.45.72 04:24, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Tolkano in AB outposts

Another AB issue, but this one is less crucial so I created this new subsection. With the bureaucrats and the Xunlai, we no longer had to disband to spend our points. Then the keys were introduced, and recreated the "I have to spend my points, wait for me" only to realize that everyone left when you are back. Could we have a way to get our keys without leaving the outpost ? Thanks. 86.192.153.243 16:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

PVP in GW: rest in peace?

When I see the "work in progress" list on your user page with only GWEN stuff as tournament rewards (is it here from 3 months ago or more?) it makes me sad. It's not really against you but I feel like no one in anet team still cares about PVP in this game and any new idea you can bring to them. I can understand the priority is on GW2 but is there really a plan of letting GW1 PVP slowly dying to free some server bandwith? In April no more real prizes for GVG tournaments but only ingame items, no modification concerning AT (few people playing in them, half forfeiting from the start which can be resolved by a simple check up) or the ladder system (fewer top guilds playing everyday in ladder, only 3-4 top guilds at european time 1-2 at american and asian time->revert to old ladder system?), no new kind of gameplay (Sealed decks? Costume brawls were a great thing, bring them back into the game as a new battle mode?), skills update are still here and done in the right way but don't bring new things to try as before (minimum fix and just 1 or 2 deep change in some skills, nothing that really helps making new team builds)... I'm not talking about HoH and RA/TA as I don't play them anymore. When is GW2 beta starting? around fall 2008? it's still a long way to go... Ichiko 06:54, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah pretty much PvP in GW2 better be good, or else I'm not buying it. Antiarchangel 14:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The development team is indeed working on Guild Wars 2. We are continuing to support Guild Wars and the ATS, but please understand that radical changes or additions to Guild Wars could and likely would delay Guild Wars 2. We are looking at ways to continue to support the PvP community, including working with Guild Cafe and rawr for the second rawr cup tournament. I attended a meeting with them about that just yesterday. :) I am also continuing to pass on concerns and requests of the PvP community and, when possible, the development team does take the time to work on those issues. A significant update to VoD, not to mention a skill balance, occurred just last week, and more changes (at least skill balances) are on the way.

I can understand your desire for tons of more content and play-formats to be added to Guild Wars, but frankly, that is one of if not the main reason why Guild Wars 2 is underway--to make a bigger, better, and all around cooler Guild Wars that will include many of the things players are asking for now. Many of which are not possible in Guild Wars but will be possible in Guild Wars 2. And yes, I have full confidence that PvP in Guild Wars 2 is going to be insanely awesome. --Andrew Patrick 20:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

As I said I understand devs are working on GW2 but don't you think some changes that don't seem to take a lot of time to code (perhaps I'm wrong) would bring more people in and give more things to have fun with? Reset of ladder and revert to the old rating to have more people playing at anytime of the day (is this revert hard to code? the only thing I see is coding the mat to automatically select something like the 60 first guilds of the ladder/alternate method: 100 first guilds and check if they have 8 people rdy in their halls before puting them in the pools), make a battle isle for costume brawls (which are ready) or just an entry in Tolkano npc's list in the guild hall to join them... I heard about the next skill update and it seems good for overall balance, glad about it. Ichiko 23:18, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I would be willing to bet that a ladder reset would make more GvG guilds quit than it would bring new guilds into the format. We already removed the inactive guilds a month or so ago, which is one of the main reasons why people asked for a ladder reset. At this point, with inactive guilds dealt with, it seems wiping the ladder would only wipe people's progress, history, and hard work, and like I said, I imagine that would cause many guilds, especially those who have worked extremely hard to get into the top 100, to lose motivation and quit. --Andrew Patrick 02:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I'd like to get into GvG, but find it difficult to find a guild that actually participates. There are so many guilds in the game that it's difficult to sort through the literal thousands upon thousands of PvE / fake / all-talk / noob / dead / elitist / HA-only / etc guilds to find one that actually IS GvGing. So, I settle for being in a guild full of PvE nubs that, I kid you not, don't know what "HA" means, yet want to GvG. (And want to use burning arrow-apply poison-epidemic builds in the process.) Absolutely maddening. In a way, it's not the ladder that's the problem - it's the public exposure and the ease of creating guilds. GvG is NOT exposed to the vast majority of Guild Wars players. Most guilds are just collections of people, not GUILDS in the strictest sense. Most of them are just formed by kids with a need to be validated by having a big list of people under their name. As such, PvE is all most people know, and all their officers and guild leader will expose them to. HA has its own set of problems in getting started, if you're new to PvP.

The only viable sources of readily explorable PvP are the PvEP gametypes like Aspenwood or AB, or the Arenas - none of which are indicative of "real" PvP. GW's PvP has a major flaw in that it's cut off from the community, and difficult to get into unless you're in a specific niche of players that have been "in PvP" for a long time. You know have to "know a guy" to get a job. And there's no way to bring in new players as a result, because there's no one to open the door. Hopefully the new GW2 PvP system will resolve this to some extent. The non-GvG world combat system sounds like it will be very much like AB: a gankfest of 1v1 players looking to fondle their bad builds, and a huge wave of enemies that are not coordinated, that are constantly leaving and entering, all the while giving a very, very bad impression of what PvP is supposed to be like. Once again, I know a lot of people that want to use the most wretched, bile-gripping builds known to man because they found "success" with them in Aspenwood, where, of course, almost any build can work, and lead you to believe you know what you're doing.

The breadth of mistakes in how GvG is exposed to the vast, VAST majority of players is mind-blowing, as I sit here mulling over it. I pray the same mistakes in how accessible and "real" PvP happens to be are not made again in GW2. --Reklaw 05:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Ahah, I pretty much agree with you Reklaw and I have the same fears.

For what you say Andrew, perhaps you're right, perhaps not, it's hard to tell for sure. At least I know I was in a top10 guild and a ladder reset wouldn't make me leave the game and I heard other players wishing for that as well. It would be pretty interesting to start a poll to see what would come out of it.

You know, I'm not saying you guys did bad by trying the AT system but by seeing how it turned into, I feel like it's been coming too late in the game (I could also mention people who left because of it but, well, people leave for any reason). The point is you have less and less top guilds playing on a regular basis, most of them just come for 3 daily ATs in the month in which they get their qualifier points without any problem (except getting bored by the numerous forfeits and lack of competition). Then comes the monthly AT and it's the real thing at last (minus imbalances people are always crying about etc), things become dull again as it ends. The old ladder would be a good answer to that... if people don't run away like you fear

I could add that many issues the AT system was brought into the game to temper were fixed in other ways (all maps are now more split friendly as an exemple) or still here (pugs still exist and are needed anyway as less players are around every day). Thank you for your answers. Ichiko 06:47, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Make ure own guild, go to RA and type... "recruit r3+ glad, R5+ Hero,R1+ Champ, for daily GvG." Done 24.141.45.72 07:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

So I started a poll on QQ forums, 70% would like a revert to the old ladder rating system but I guess that won't happen (reward system should have to be modified, 1 month session probably not working good with it...). That said can we please make the AT system better? We're discussing about all those issues conerning forfeits for so long now! Everyone seems to agree on some SMALL CHANGES that will make things WAY BETTER:

-Forfeits on 1st round: half of the teams do forfeit from the start, almost no matchs are played, people are bored waiting for 30mn, it makes several groups with less competition inside them. =>Check if the teams are ready in their guild hall->kick the ones not ready->then make the AT groups.

-Obviously there are some times in a day when you have more people playing like 7-9PM GMT in Europe. It' annoying to jump into the game, when everyone usually play at the same hours, to see there is no AT to play at all. =>Two choices here: moving the 3 daily ATs to stay in the best time range for each region or making 6 ATs each day.

-Last concern, trying to reduce the waiting time when there is no point to make things longer: if there is no match to be played in a round since the start of it, skip to next round. If there are only 4 or 5 teams actually joining an AT, make it 4 rounds not 5. (in fact it's already like this but forfeits at 1st round make this not happening most of the time)Ichiko 15:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Please :_( Ichiko 17:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Amity and other monk skills rethinking

The power of god_RC and the boosted woh is so amazing, that i can't think of any possible reason to switch to something else. Those two are just great for anything right now, even if you return boon monks with oob to *power mode*, woh monk with rc will still be dominant. You need to review the other monk skills and put some reasonable options on those bars.

Please, make Amity into amazing PvP skill, that will take into account player skill. Way i see it is like that: 5energy, 3/4cast, 10 recharge. Amity slowly flies towards target ally (like deathly swarm, but with 2 secs delay). Up to # adjacent foes to that ally are hexed with amity for # seconds (lets suggest it will cap to 7 or 10secs at 16 prot prayers). Amity ends if they take damage. What would you say? Also, make it look like those blueish things to actually fly towards the target, then consume the adjacent enemy - this way, people can see that love is coming their way and they can run away. Or better, make white pigeons fly out of the caster, towards the targeted ally :p .

Healing burst - this should be full cast range, otherwise it will see play only in PvE and even there will fail, of course. With splinter weapon doing amazing things at VoD this will help a _bit_ as a last line of defence, when everything else failed like blinds/hexes/interrupts+divesrions on splitner/kills/err7s/etc.

Peace and harmony can be great if you put more power into it, like 2 pips of energy regen or something.

And more, like: Pensive guardian - considering it's requirement and superiority of Guaridan it can easily be a 1/4 cast; Withdraw Hexes should be deleted, it only a waste of bits; etc... dragNdrop her 13:40, 04 February 2008 (GMT)

First off Andrew doesn't do skill balances, thats Izzy, second off only reason RC is good is because almost every other prot elite fails. Antiarchangel 14:23, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

White+Black Dye in pvp

why cant you opt to dye things black in the pvp weapon/armor creation?

When silver dye was introduced to pvp, it crashed the price from around 800 per dye to about 250. A similar crash would probably occur if white and black dye was introduced to pvp.--Ryudo 03:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

i think that wasnt the case for sliver dye i think its because of how they changed the dye system in the game that made the price drop. because at the same time they added white and brown and gray and gray looks a hell of a lot like sliver. and because of that similarity the price droped not because it was added to pvp.

I think we should be allowed to dye armor for a certain amount of rp say 5 rp for white dye and 10 rp for black dye or something along those lines, at least it wouldnt be as easy to dye your armor nicely but it wouldnt be impossible. At the moment if I dye my pvp armor it becomes auto changed to silver when I change runes, however if say I pay rp to change my armor black maybe you could make it so that its perma black and you cant change the color unless you go to tolkano and undo the dye or something along those lines. Jack.

i think bath faction would be the best for it because everyone gets bath faction wile doing pvp. where as you only get rp doing hb and gvg.--The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:75.165.119.21 (talk).

Please sign your comments. — ク Eloc 貢 23:48, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

PvP characters are not able to choose black or white dye in order to maintain their rarity and value. You can, however, earn some Zaishen keys with Balth Faction, sell them , and buy Black dye. --Andrew Patrick 20:31, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

how dose that keep the rarity? if you set it to 10k bath to unlock or something like that it would still keep it "rare". for pvp ch most people only have one slot which the delete and remake over and over so rebuying black and white dye is a waste of money.

People who actually do tourneys and buy reward point weps/armour don't delete their chars. Rainbow Ftw

I have a pvp char who got a 2 year present recently :p --Lemming 22:47, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

i think there is a large population of people who only have one pvp slot and frequently delete it. so they can play other classes. if they make the price weather bath or rp high like 10k bath and 20 rp to unlock it then it would keep its "rarity" if that even exists in this game.

i don't think 10k balth would be rare. u could unlock that in a day. more reasonable is 25k-30k balth. that means u'd already have done lots of pvp before getting this b/c u will have pvp titles. --VVong|BA 16:02, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

i thought about making it higher then 10K but that would make it so people who dont Ha would not be able to get it. and i think the rewards for pvp shouldnt be as segregated as they are now. 75.165.99.144 22:32, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

+% Damage on Staves/Wands

The +% damage on wands and staves doesn't add to spell damage as far as I can tell. Why? No one stands around wanding the opponent and non-spellcasting classes don't get screwed out of their +% damage when using skills, so why do casters? If these mods are going to be left totally useless and irrelevant, could they just be removed/changed so I don't have my inventory cluttered with this crap whenever I PvE? Thank you for any reply. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 17:24, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The +20% damage does not apply to spells because it is a modifier for the weapons damage, not your over-all damage output. I admit it isn't the most useful mod in the game, but over the course of PvE you are likely to find most modifiers you get are not particularly useful for your class. After all, Sword modifiers are useless to a spell caster, Bow modifiers are useless to a hammer user etc. If you don't need it, simply sell it to the merchant just like any other item drop you don't need. --Andrew Patrick 19:54, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The point is though, if I was a warrior who used swords, 90% of sword mods COULD be useful to me. In fact, if I'm a warrior and I get ANY warrior weapon with ANY mod, it could be useful to me. As an elementalist, if I get ANY elementalist weapon with a +% damage mod, it will NEVER be useful to me. A sword with any sword mod could be useful to someone. A wand with +15% Damage while over 50% health will never be useful to ANYONE. That's a big disconnect, to me.

Not to mention, any melee/ranger/paragon weapon with a +% damage mod IS a modifier for your over-all damage output. Why have spells been singled out to not be included in this and then leave the mods on weapons used only by primary spellcaster? It just seems poorly thought-out. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 20:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Spells are not damage caused by your weapon. And the +20% damage on swords only increases the base damage of sword attacks, not the added damage of attack skills. Adding a modifier to staffs and wands that increased the damage of spells by 20% would make spell casters insanely more effective than physical classes. --Andrew Patrick 20:24, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that, most calculations I've seen put spellcaster damage behind melee damage. But, in any case, I wasn't directly suggesting to make it add to spells. I was saying if it's NOT gonna add to spells, then please remove them. As those mods are they are entirely, 100% a waste of code. Any other mod in the game has a use - those do not. Why not swap them out for something that would be used? — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 21:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Just to throw out some ideas: Maybe add some mods equivalent to ones other classes use, in place of those one those classes don't. Like there are mods for bleeding, dazed, crippled, deep-wound extension, maybe a staff mod to lengthen hexes or burning or weakness? I'm sure there are a lot of things that could be thought of. Maybe one that would reduce mana cost of spells by 1 at a 20% chance? Or a spell-equivalent to sundering? — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 22:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, this also basically goes for customization, too. Customization of caster weapons is worthless and onyl a complete nood would even bother with it. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 13:22, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This whole trade of conversation is pointless, unless you have a valid concern about the balance of caster vs melee damage then crying because a mod doesn't work the way you would like it to regardless of how it is balanced with the game is futile. --Lemming 13:33, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

(restting indent)Balancing caster vs. melee damage isn't really what I'm talking about, and I'm also not trying to 'cry' about mods not working how I like. The point is the mods currently don't work at all. They do nothing. Eight out of 17 inscriptions for Staves/Wands add +% damage (which does nothing) and 1 out of 11 Staff Wrapping of +% damage (also does nothing). I don't know what the % on how many drop will have an inscription or wrapping are, but that mean, just talking about Staves, if every drop had both a wrapping and an inscription, over 50% of those drops would have a useless mod on them. On the other hand, EVERY non caster weapon has roughly ZERO% chance to drop with a useless mod, as all their mods are useful in some way.

In my opinion it'd be a plus just to have those useless mods removed as options for caster weapons, though replacing them with other caster-oriented mods would probably be the 'fair' thing to do. Same thing with customization bonuses.

I'm not sure that this is really the right place the be requesting this - that's a concern, if I'm talking to the trees here, point me in the right direction if you could? Thanks! — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 15:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Bump?— ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 14:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

It's so you can frenzy wand people to death. To be serious, I think everyone understands your complaint about "useless" mods but this may be so late in the game and so minor of an issue that it's just best to leave it alone when there are other issues on the table that need to be addressed first. Some mods are inherently weaker than others and wouldn't see any use in PvP or PvE but most people at this time would rather skills be worked out. Changing the equipment mods would mean skills would have to be relooked at again depending on what they do. This might hit the "to do list" for GW2 though but this or the Izzy talk page would indeed be the right area to suggest such a thing. PlacidBlueAlien 17:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

TBH, just REMOVING the mods, even if they didn't add anything new would be a boost. I'm sure there's some PvE toon out there that just picked up, at this very moment, a perfect, gold, req.9 wand with a 15^50 inscription and yelled something censorable. Not to mention these USELESS mods cluttering up my equipment utility when I make pvp weapons. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 21:00, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Hero Battles

FIX THEM NOW! serisouly, have been flogging the same dead horse for months now, "awaiting updates" FFS, I've stopped playing the game now because nothing is being done, yes you're busy with GW2, I respect that. However, don't forget a proportion of your user-base are unhappy with the state of the Hero Battles format; we payed good money for this game and nothing is being done to ensure customer satisfaction; I won't be purchasing GW2 because I anticipate elements of that game will also be ignored. So.. come on fix HB, then I can play GW and have FUN, rather than be forced to run a boring gimmick to win. 77.98.129.168

If "working on GW2" is actually a reason that's being given for slow/late/missing updates, that's pretty lame, imo. I get that a new game will require work and time to put out - but neglecting existing (possibly repeat) customers is horrible business-sense on any level, unless you're guessing that your existing customers won't be purchasing GW2, anyway. Not to mention, GW2 won't be out till (estimated) 2009/2010 - giving existing customers PLENTY of time to get pissed-off, leave and NOT come back for GW2. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 20:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh - if that hasn't actually been given as a reason yet, then nevermind, lol! — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 20:18, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Seriously who is actually getting excited about GW2? Lack of good updates and general public relations failure gets you possibly a good game with no people buying it. People expect an MMO based around PvP to have good skill balances and listen to the community. When I look at GW I see a decreasing player base, so who is going to buy GW2? When GW2 comes out don't be surprised if the next excuse for lack of updates, is were working on the next expansion for GW2. Antiarchangel 20:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Explaining what, exactly your issues are would be much more productive than doom and gloom "no one is going to buy Guild Wars 2" posts. I understand you have concerns about gimmick builds. I have been passing that info on to Izzy as quickly as it is passed on to me, and he tells me he is going to try to get some changes in one of the next few updates that will hopefully improve that situation. As for many of the other complaints, quite frankly many of them sound more like "I don't like the Hero Battle format, so change it until I do" rather than they sound like actual bug reports or concerns about broken mechanics and such. Many, if not most, are opinion based and some people personally not enjoying a format and a format being "broken" are two very different things.

As I said, if you have specific bug reports, issues with broken mechanics, or if you feel the current meta is imbalanced (and keep in mind something being prominent and effective in the meta does not inherently mean it is overpowered) please, I would love to hear your feedback. But the feedback regarding Hero Battles is greatly diluted by players posting things like "I don't like shrine capping...so you should remove it from Hero Battles and make it a 4v4 annihilation arena with heroes." Again, please share specific concerns about Hero Battles keeping in mind that the base format is not going to be entirely remade. --Andrew Patrick 20:56, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Andrew, whether or not the current meta is imbalanced is not up for debate. It's a fact that it's imbalanced and for the most part that's because of the shrine capping mechanics (the morale meter in particular). Other factors ruining the format include flawed AI (horrible in getting out of AoE attacks for example), imbalanced skills (Warmonger's Weapon) and the entire shadow stepping mechanic (a problem in GvG now as well). It's a fact that the format is broken. This should be obvious to anyone who ever played HB at top 100 level or anyone that watches the MaT battles on observer. Izzy already said he knows the format is imbalanced and was working on fixes half a year ago (saying they'll implement them after GWEN was released). The issue here is that for an entire year now we have been asking for changes, reporting AI bugs and posting ideas on how to solve the problems but nothing ever happens. Eventually, people are going to become frustrated and feedback is going to become worse like it is now. That's only because Hero Battles has been completely ignored for so long, and if you want to get better feedback then Anet will have to convince the community that they actually want to fix the format. --Draikin 02:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The bugs have been discussed numerous times, this is not a Doom and Gloom not buying GW2 post, this is a doom and gloom FIX HB NOW post... there's a big diffference. The bugs have been said to you on numerous occasions, TERRIBLE HERO AI and the BROKEN SHADOWSTEPPING mechanic! ffs, you know the issues, they have been discussed here and on Guru many a time. Please jsut fix it. Btw I DO like Hero Battles, have been top 100 and am rank 120 atm... it's just they ARE BROKEN!77.98.129.168

Seeing as you seem to have forgotten the problems with HB let me remind you:

1.Hero bugs, Hero's abandon shrines on the Crossing and do not move out of AoE.

2.Body-blocking, as it stands Hero's will not move out of the path of a spirit or pet and will be blocked by them, make spirits and pets unblockable.

3.Micro-Delays, these seem to be more tempremental, yet happen more frequently on The Crossing. Often I find that the green tick stays on a skill for upto 6 seconds, or my hero does not use the skill. This may be due to my connection, but it seems a problem amongst most HB'ers so could possibly be removed.

4.Shadowstepping, this is a completely broken mechanic, on GW Guru there are many suggestions for how to improve it, as it stands teams with shadowmeld and recall have an imbalanced chance of winning, also the skill return used on player monks most frequently is imbalanced, with a 15 sec recharge monks are able to shadowstep 4 times in 1 minute, whereas an assasin using Shadow Prison only has the chance to shadowstep twice every minute.

5.The shadowstepping mechanic is overpowered and teams without shadowsteps struggle to win, especially against teams with multiple recalls/shadowmelds. becaus eof this balanced builds are not viable in HB and players are forced to run gimmick builds.

6.The skills used by monks that stop spikes are imbalanced on recharge, smoke powder defense/shield bash make it extremely hard for an assassin player to kill a rival monk.

7.Imbue Health heals for far too much, as monk players now load up on defence and are even harder to kill, as it stands assassins have very little chance against a monk.

8.The capping mechanic is broken and promotes capping shrines to win via. morale boost rather than get kills. because of this players are forced to run much more defensive sides regarding capping and holding shrines for morale boost, rather than risk getting kills.

I hope you now realise why I am aggrovated about the state of Hero Battles as these reasons have been said to you many a time, discussions on GW Guru have been taking place for awhile now and still no changes for HB in updates. Imo, it's not on; so please don't dismiss my comment with a naive view that "I Don't Like Hero Battles" or that "I want them to be completely re-made" because that is not the case. Only a few tweaks are needed for Hero Battles to reach it's full potential and become a fun format to play. Might I emphasise that the rela life rewars of MaT's do not make a broken format fun; I understand you did not mention MaT's I jsut feel it is necessary for me to say. 77.98.129.168

I mostly agree except for point 6 and 7. Shield Bash/Smoke Powder are only perceived to be a problem because assassins are running around with three healers and simply want to kill things by pressing 1234567. The solution to this is simple: use a better (balanced) build that doesn't rely solely on one spike to kill things. The reason people can't or don't want to do this is because balanced builds don't work in HB, and this is because the format forces you to split your team all over the map. People just continue to run their assassin since it works better than anything else and eventually become so used to it that they consider anything that counters them to be overpowered. I'm not sure what people want to achieve by nerfing monks other than making everyone run an assassin which is exactly what we don't want. In reality assassins have completely dominated the format since the beginning but people are so used to it now that they think it's supposed to work this way. HB is all about build wars between gimmicks now, just look at the MaT finale. Imbue is not really a problem either, it's only a problem when a monk uses 2 D/A splitters (Shadow Meld + Recall) that just cap shrines and spam Imbue but the reason that build works is again because of the morale meter (you already mentioned that in point 8). --Draikin 18:15, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Andrew, since you're interested in hearing feedback on broken mechanics you can read my opinion on the problems with the current morale meter here: [4]. Like I said above, that's one of the four major problems in HB right now (the remaining three are shadow stepping, AI flaws and overpowered skills). Shadow stepping and AI flaws have been discussed already, the debate about overpowered skills however isn't really going anywhere simply because the current mechanics have to be changed to get a clear view on what the problem skills are. The only skills that I think definitely deserve a nerf at this point are Warmonger's Weapon, Augury of Death and Siphon Speed. There are a lot of other skills that I could add to that list but the most important thing now is changing the shrine capping mechanic. --Draikin 23:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Kaanai Canyon exploit

Hey there Andrew. Just figured I'd poke you in this direction seeing as PvP-related exploits tend to be rather important to get solved as fast as possible, and as you're in charge of PvP I figured you'd be interested in it. — Galil 19:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I will talk to the QA team tomorrow to see if this is being looked into. Thanks for the report! --Andrew Patrick 03:27, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

AB cheat going on

Not sure how its done, I just know the side I was benefiting from some kind of glitch. Before the match was even going on we had 9-12 points. No flags were even shown as taken, so I dont know where these points were coming from. Was happening on the Etnaran Keys map just now. Saw it happen twice in a row.--riceball 22:51, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

i think whats happening if im not mistaken is that the other team has a team or team member that is killing them selves via necro skills and or vamp weapons75.165.122.205 00:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

This is done sometimes, Necros using BiP to kill themselves rapidly. I was under the impression that Anet had issued a fix disallowing the use of sacrificing skills before the match started...apparently I was wrong.--Ryudo 01:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

i lol'd @ AB balance -FireFox 01:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

A few months ago, I had the seemingly brilliant idea of using an AB team of 3 saccers, 1 MM, and one monk so as soon as the match started we would go out and pwn through the shrines with our super minion army. Match starts, we start saccing ourselves, and after about 15 seconds we realized that our saccing had netted the enemy quite a few points before the match even started. Needless to say, we were called some rather unpleasant names. VegaObscura 01:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe they should block skills from being used until the timer ends. Not sure how possible that is. In both situations I did notice a name was quickly reported, same name, but I did see that person attacking later on. Maybe they thought that idea was a good idea. They were destroyed both times though.--riceball 03:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

"AB team of 3 saccers, 1 MM, and one monk" - 5-man AB team? HAX! — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 15:08, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

If they're willing to give the other team a headstart in points so they have a headstart in minions, fine by me. As long as I'm on the team getting the headstart in points. I just run past MM's and cap other shrines, so they are mostly wasted on me. -- Alaris 16:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

My wording was a bit off, but the monk was one of the saccers. I should have said 3 saccers, one of which was a monk, and an MM but I guess I wasn't thinking. VegaObscura 19:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

If you have a player saccing themselves to give the other team points, you should report them with the report system. I suppose that isn't "techincally" leeching, but I do feel that is an appropriate time to report someone. --Andrew Patrick 22:31, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you guys should fix it instead of saying oh just report them. 75.172.43.101 21:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Hero Battles AGAIN!!

Firstly:[[5]] you seem to respond on the newer threads. That one can refresh your memory. Well, the new update (March 6th) was centred around GvG and in turn removed one gimmick build out of HB (Sp sin) however this failed to address gimmicks such as D/A's, Mo/A's with return and S-Way. This discussion is getting to stage now where I want a straight answer, are you going to implement a Hero Battles update fixing the broken capping mechanic and the Hero bugs? these have been discussed many a time. Skill balances are all well and good, but to fix HB we need an update addressing the broken mechanics, not a few skills. So, are Hero Battles going to be fixed; yes or no??? if the answer is: "no we want to leave HB alone and refrain from updating it" I will accept that as your decision. I won't agree with it as I feel you should fix HB, however, all the Hero Battles community gets atm is an un-assured hint that our points are being passed on. Never a straight answer. So, are you going to fix HB; YES or NO?!? --77.98.129.168 21:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Protip: Don't offer devs ultimatums. It doesn't wurk. — ( ɔ \ ʇ ) uɐɥʇıǝɹ 21:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Nothing works, /sigh. If they valued their customer base then they'd have the decency to answer my question, and respond to the HB community. --Rainbow Ftw 21:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I did reply (albeit on the forums rather than here). I passed your concerns onto Izzy and he said he will try to get some balance changes that will help Hero Battles in one of the next few updates. That is the last I heard, so it's the last I posted on the subject. Creating a new thread with the exact same topic is unnecessary, so please post in current discussions rather than creating a new one every few days. I do apologize for not relaying that information here as well...it's hard to remember where I posted what sometimes. :) --Andrew Patrick 19:13, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Define "fix"... there are so many opinions on what would be fixing it giving it a simple yes or no answer as you request is basically impossible. --Lemming 19:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually Andrew you did relay the information here and not on the forums :) We'd just like to get a real answer (as in "we're changing this and this and it's going to be implemented in the next update") instead of the usual "we're going to try and tweak it in the next few updates...maybe" that we've been hearing for a year now. I can understand if things get delayed but we're talking about a whole year of no updates here while HB is the most imbalanced PvP format in the game. --Draikin 00:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Andrew, would it be possible to clarify what balance changes Anet is looking to implement in HB? If not when it would be nice to have at least some idea of what changes will be made to the format. That way we can focus on discussing those changes on the forum and we'd have something to look forward to. --Draikin 15:55, 26 March 2008 (UTC)