Feedback talk:User/Wicca/What Should have been done to HB

Personally I think all HB needed were two things:

A) Anti-farming methods, which you've presented

B) Completely eliminating capping. I never really got the purpose of capping in 4 v 4, it made no sense whatsoever. It essentially forced Guild wars into the worst possible mode: 1 vs 1. Team synergy doesn't really matter if you're making a bunch of heros that are sent out to solo cap shrines. Capping makes sense in AB, but that's TWELVE vs TWELVE. Want some sort of "objective" to prevent running? Add a guild lord or something, or a flag run. A SINGLE area to fight in.

This is a bigger deal than people give it. The only reason it was "as bad as ascalon arena" as they put it was because "running" is how you win! Pathetic! It meant a good HB player completely lacking any skillbar could beat newbie to HB who was good at general pvp. Removing capping? Lokks like a pretty simple and easy band-aid. Greep 10:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

the extra man shrine provided a boost to teams who could win 4v4, but the problem vs a pure cap team was you could hardly control how that extra man moves. 74.215.145.113 20:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

If there was no capping, HB would have been just like TA only with heroes but with the same degenerate meta.Wicca 18:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Well it'd be similar to TA, but people would actually play it because you could go in by yourself, and it would actually not have much of a meta since people's builds would be based on how well they could play their specific team of four people at once.

Four running builds is a heck of a lot more degenerate than TA. Arguably 3 fighters and 1 running build is still worse than TA would've been, as the smaller the group, team synergy dramatically drops.

The thing is, making small tweaks like just changing the morale system really are things that would have to be checked over time and balanced and rebalanced. I believe anet at this point is not gonna spend hours upon hours of work and fixing things over months when they have GW2 to work on. A lack of capping altogether (or as I said, maybe some single area that helps you win) would allow people to have fun with HB and not force Anet to focus their attention on it Greep 01:28, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

If capping were to be removed and HB became a 4v4 scrimmage, yes there will be a lot of variation between people's builds but unfortunately, due to observer mode, everyone will quickly run the builds that the top 100 are using (thinking that they will be equally successful if they ran that build) and eventually, a meta will form. You can argue that people will have much greater freedom to create their own builds, but just like TA, everyone will eventually run 'that one build' that is the most successful.

The problem with a 4v4 scrimmage-like HB is that the only way to balance a format like that is with skill updates, and we all know how bad Anet is when it comes to skill updates . . .

Another problem that I see with a non-capping version of HB is that human-monk teams will be way too powerful. In HB, human-monk teams usually won in a 4v4 and teams that had no human-monk had to resort to capping in order to win. Without capping, any team without a human monk will most likely lose to a team with a human-monk (assuming that the human monk is good ^^). Simple fact: human monk>hero monk. Wicca 04:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

^ In a straight up fight against a capway with a human monk, a sin/devhammer spike build took literally minutes to push a single kill. The only real way a spikeway could beat cvapway is to force the other team to split and converging on lone trgets while the monk is out of range--TahiriVeila 04:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The point about the human monk always winning is actually probably a valid point. It's very difficult to spike in 4 v 4, no doubt a little harder with heros. I think this is a growing problem in any 4 v 4 environment, though. Anet needs some way to fix this. Greep 13:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

My above statements are regarding pressure builds that human monks ran like the n/a w/p r/p, the e/a n/a d/w etc. which could easily overpower most sin teams. Capway just won't work if HB had no capping (Greep's idea)Wicca 05:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Very good summary

With the exception of the changes to coward and backbreaker (which were fairly well balanced at the end of HB I feel) these changes would make for an incredibly enjoyable and well balanced arena. I'm a r8 commander & topped out around r23 on the ladder and I can say that these changes and the reintroduction of HB would definitely revive my own interest in GWs (as well as the interest of hundreds or possibly thousands of others)--TahiriVeila 01:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you that backbreaker is fairly balanced. But the problem with "Coward" isn't the skill itself, but the fast activating/recharging dagger attacks that allow people to spam "Coward" like mad!Wicca 04:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Once again i agree, but that's a problem with jagged + fox fangs...not coward. Those skills REALLY need a revert, and once they're fixed coward's not very broken. It'll always be slightly more powerful in HB than anywhere else since heroes have such a tendency to kite, but really it's fine without 1/2s dagger attacks. Definitely not more powerful than BB sins, just a different style--TahiriVeila 04:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

i agree, good summary. i hope that someday we may see HB come back, it was one of my favorite formats. 84.196.205.90 15:10, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I've been talking to Regina about it on MSN a fair bit. She said she'd pass along my suggestions (which primarily included the ones listed here and an alternative whereby HB was reinstated as is but without quest/title/ladder/AT support so Anet can just hand it to us and not be responsible for it) to Linsey and the design team. Hopefully they'll take the recommendations to heart and realize how much a large portion of the community wants HB back--TahiriVeila 18:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you :) But I still want the tourneys :( Oh, and without the title, HB would be pointless! Wicca 23:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah the tourneys were lots of fun but if it were a choice between HB w/o ATs or no HB, I'd pick HB w/o ATs--TahiriVeila 23:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

And tbh the title just makes HB into a grind. Titles were one of the worst things that happened to PvP because they made PvP about getting titles, not about having fun. Though I will admit HB had the coolest titles, I <3 my wing commander so much--TahiriVeila 04:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

HB was just the most fun besides GvG. Considering how empty and unloved Codex is I wonder why they even hesitate. --91.63.60.176 23:33, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Bumping this back up to get more attention. Bring HB back!--TahiriVeila 20:15, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Nice summary, Wicca. If there was any chance whatsoever to see HB return I'd definitely support it, but unfortunately I just don't see it happening. --Draikin 00:36, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

seems gw live team has a new lead, maybe a new chance for hb?(should we bring this to his attention?)84.196.205.90 21:05, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

This could be a good idea since James Phinney has left too (the guy running everything). With some fresh faces, we could convince them. However, there is one obstacle we must overcome. An obstacle we tried to get past but failed since that obstacle beat us easily simply by not responding at all. That obstacle is non-other than the community managers.Wicca 08:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

First of all : Good ideas and a nice summary. I don't think that all of these changes have to be done, but some (like the idea with changing the commander title) are simply needed. I really hope that Anet understands how easy the changes are, and how great the impact would be on the GW-community. Nevertheless, I don't think that changes like removing AT's or keeping hb out of the observe are needed, just because a bad player, that copies the build of the n1, will still loose vs a better player, because he doesn't know anything about the build he's running (which skills have to be self-used etc) I've talked with the support myself, and they told me that we should try to build up a great discussion, as it would show anet/ncsoft that the community wants HB back. If we can achieve that, then they may think about bringing HB back to business. So, lets go! :)

@Anonymous, what do you mean by great discussion? If there is anything we can do to get HB back, please let us know exactly what we need to do!! I'm surprised you actually got a response from support like that. I got a big "F U" from Gaile when I contacted support. Provide the details on what we should do in the section I created below =). Wicca 08:38, 2 July 2011 (UTC)