ArenaNet:Skill feedback/Miscellaneous/Hero Battles

Productivity's Issue
Hi Linsey, could we get some opinions about what you, Izzy and the rest of the GW1 team intend to do with Hero Battles. As it is just about everyone at the moment understands that the format is almost completely broken for various reasons including but not limited to:
 * Shadowsteps
 * Overly defensive builds that use the above to win
 * Stacking buffs/debuffs combined with assassin instagib combos
 * Stacking of defensive hard counters (I understand this point and the above have evolved out of each other)
 * One completely broken map that the hero AI cannot handle at all (Crossing)
 * Generally bad hero AI that makes commanding near impossible at times (ie. a hero, flagged to guard a shrine wilfully moving out of range of the shrine, while under no orders from me, heroes running halfway across the map while flagged somewhere else)

This is by no means the extent of it, but a snapshot of some of the major problems. Izzy recently said he intended to fix it and nerfed one build, which was arguably not the most efficient build anyway. People have been complaining about the crossing since the release of the format, in fact a number of tournament competitors gave up their name to highlight the problems with it - yet all that has been done is remove it from tournaments. Do you think people don't play ranked or something?

Do you intend to put any concerted effort together to fix and address the problems of the format, or is it just going to continue to degenerate? I'd like to continue playing hero battles, but I don't really feel like losing another game because I don't have a shadowstep on crossing, or I didn't run a hard counter build to a set of twin D/As who have zero offensive ability. It just seems pretty pathetic to me to leave the format to die, or say you're going to fix it and put in a change so minor it may as well not have occured.

--Productivity 12:01, 19 October 2008 (UTC)