Bioware on HUTTBALL

[alcek]

Today our imps taught us how to play Huttball. It was so much passing, that classes were totally irrelevant. Spread, position, you can even not pick your advanced class, doesn't matter.

[flem]

The OP's suggestion is useless.

 

A) This game doesn't have PvP .... it has CC Wars. I didn't think ANYONE could design a worse PvP system than WoW, but BioWare did it. This isn't about fighting, its about who has their CC and CC-counters off CD. That person wins.

 

B) The other half of their problem is, they put level 49's in the same damned game as level 10s. That has never worked, it will never work, and anyone who buys into the "we buff you up" crap, needs to share what they are smoking. "We buff you up" is just an excuse to not have to do it right, and introduce level brackets. Pure LAZY.

 

C) Huttball is just a piss-poor design. You don't design a PvP arena based on obstacles, and then make two classes that can by-pass the obstacles at will. It simply shows BioWare's inexperience at designing MMOs, and it show the Mythic team was either AWOL in this design, ignored, or too scared to say anything.

 

D) The majority of us are just burned out on Huttball (hell we're burned out on the entire PvP design in general). They shoveled this crap arena down our throats sooo much pre-1.2 that most of us would never miss it if it were taken out of the game right this minute.

If you're "burned out" without understanding how the 50s bracket, resolve, and proper Huttball tactics work, I'm sorry your server is so backwards.

[Chocobananas]

Learn to LoS. Edited May 14, 2012 by Arzhanin
Rude comments

[owlinspace]

Learn to LoS.

 

I kind of have to agree.

 

A jugg/guardian should not be able to charge anyone, if he's holding the ball or otherwise, because people should KNOW by now that they can, and therefore make sure they can't.

 

As for sorcs.. They die.. really easily. If you see one of them on your end, kill them or at least knock them down a floor. Yes I'm a sorc so I'm biased but I'm serious though, just kill them.

 

Huttball is as much postitioning as it is awareness of the field. If you see a ball carrier and your some from your team trying to kill him, instead of going in trying to kill him you to, look around, see if he has anyone to pass/intercede or if there's a sorc and get those guys instead.

 

I love huttball because of all these elements, it's not a zergfest. It's much more than that.

Edited May 14, 2012 by Arzhanin
Quoted removed content

[Xsorus]

You guys are not actually reading what Gabe said, Gabe was probably being truthful in what he said..

 

However how many people you know Run just Guardian/Sage teams in Hutttball?

 

So that's what most people don't notice, he didn't say Consular/Jedi Knight team, which includes Shadows/Sent as well, no.. he said just specifically Guardian/Sage...

 

So it's basically a way for him to say "No problem here, move along" without actually answering the question.

Edited May 13, 2012 by Xsorus

[Hadyn]

You guys are not actually reading what Gabe said, Gabe was probably being truthful in what he said..

 

However how many people you know Run just Guardian/Sage teams in Hutttball?

 

So that's what most people don't notice, he didn't say Consular/Jedi Knight team, which includes Shadows/Sent as well, no.. he said just specifically Guardian/Sage...

 

So it's basically a way for him to say "No problem here, move along" without actually answering the question.

 

That's a great point by the way.

 

But to the point of Huttball being the worst game I have to disagree. Alderaan is hands down the worst designed. I was actually witness to a team that won the map without getting a single kill. All they did was cap the first two points uncontended and then zerged us over and over and over so that we couldn't re-cap anything for our team. Their zerg was both amazing and embarrassing, glorious and facepalmish all at the same time.

 

Now, you might argue that you COULD win Huttball without killing anything as well, but Huttball is objective and not capture-the-flag-ish. Although Huttball is not quite right, it PWNS Alderaan hands down.

 

On a side note, In Warhammer Online they had a map that basically amounted to playing Keep-Away. Why can't we have something like that?

[denpic]

Leaping. Across the field only works againsts

Players that have no clue how to position themselves

Against good teams I'm lucky to get this opportunity

And if your team isn't killing anyone makes it even harder

[EbonFade]

Terrible reply by BW on this issue. I wonder if they have any testers who are actually on top ranked PvP teams, b/c this is not very controversial.

 

More to the point, I have a major issue with how they seem to be balancing PvP. From what I gather, they look at very generic world average numbers like frequency of wins by advanced class type, average damage, average healing and so forth. Ok, that's a terrible metric, for many reasons!!!

 

For instance, having a guardian tank as a ballcarrier is going to be mostly useless on a team that has no healers. Or say, a guardian tank with poor gear is going to be almost no different than a smuggler ballcarrier. B/c of this, the frequency of wins they get are going to be massively diluted down to some generic average.

 

What it misses is the tail end of the distribution. What is unstoppable is when you have a full tank spec Guardian in full warhero tank gear, coupled with a few sages and a few tankasins for guard/taunt. You don't see it that much, but it is precisely this which is unbalancing in PvP. Not the average value!!!

[Wesgile]

queues warzones randomly so assorted amount and types of class gets in.

consolidate the results amongst the hundreds of servers so that every bit of number is skewed by bad player/equips.

"oh look, the classes playing hutball actually varies."

genius.

[SeloDaoC]

Leaping. Across the field only works against

Players that have no clue how to position themselves

Against good teams I'm lucky to get this opportunity

And if your team isn't killing anyone makes it even harder

 

No, even if you stand right on the edge, if a leaper walks a bit to the side of you and leap, he will land next to you and not in front.

Knocking people of gives leapers an excellent target to you

People cant run out of starting area if a leaper is near

If a leaper is down the pit, everyone has to jump down

 

You spend more time hiding from leaps in forceball as a nonforce user then you actually play

[Derian]

Nicely stated I agree totally!

I'll see you in GW2 which by the way has several ex Mythic/DAOC developers working on their pvp system.

 

LOL So did this game. Huttball is fine. L2P stop letting JKs/SWs jump to you it's obvious to not let yourself be seen when they approach.

Edited May 14, 2012 by Derian

[Chula]

Deal with it bring tanks bring the consular hell every class has a fair chance to run and pass the ball give me a fudging break. My sniper does great in huttball and hes a *********** sniper I got no special uber run speed. I got my defensive cds to not take damage for 5 or 3 seconds. I got my punt and my root too keep people off me if their on my ***. Ranked IS meant to be ranked as in actual team work how many players not have a tank or a sorc or consular by now? WHAT IS THE BIG *********** DEAL?

 

-Hey look the sages up top on our rafters lets let em sit up there rather then take care of the problem. This happens on all stupid pugs.

Edited May 14, 2012 by Arzhanin
Quoted removed content

[LarryRow]

Their zerg was both amazing and embarrassing, glorious and facepalmish all at the same time.

 

I LOLed. But I have to ask: why did you let them have 2 points uncontested?

[Chula]

That's a great point by the way.

 

But to the point of Huttball being the worst game I have to disagree. Alderaan is hands down the worst designed. I was actually witness to a team that won the map without getting a single kill. All they did was cap the first two points uncontended and then zerged us over and over and over so that we couldn't re-cap anything for our team. Their zerg was both amazing and embarrassing, glorious and facepalmish all at the same time.

 

Now, you might argue that you COULD win Huttball without killing anything as well, but Huttball is objective and not capture-the-flag-ish. Although Huttball is not quite right, it PWNS Alderaan hands down.

 

On a side note, In Warhammer Online they had a map that basically amounted to playing Keep-Away. Why can't we have something like that?

Whole point of alderaan is to take the nodes lol. Are you one of those players who thinks HK's = all?

[Fallensbane]

There is nothing wrong with huttball how it is. I used to piss and moan about Marauders and Juggs all the time. Then guess what? I learned how to counter them. They can be countered and one of the simplist form of countering them is NOT being a moron and NOT walking right to an edge when you know one is in the pit. The problem, people are dumb plain and simple. I see the same people 5 months into the game complaining about how OP they are when they are always the ones walking right to the ledge and giving them a leap point.

 

Sage pulls a ball carrier up, I pull them back down or knock them back down. Countered

Marauder jumps up to moron player, I knock him back down and jump off ledge. Countered

 

You have the means in the game to counter this. I get so many matches against these 2 classes you seem to think are so OP and guess what? We win the vast majority because we learned to counter them.

 

The biggest problem is random players in a warzone, they are casual more often than not and just do not pay attention, they leave themselves open to everything and are get all butthurt if told to do something for the good of the team.

 

Get some friends and learn to play, I don't say that meanly, its what you need to do. Learn to play, learn to counter and wait for 8 mans so all the puggies will get stuck in their baddie vs baddie matches.

[entropicdecay]

I love huttball. It can be very fast paced because of all of the leaps and yanks and you are never really sure what's going to happen. Plenty of times I've been force speeding my way over the top of the last firepit thinking I was about to score when I suddenly get ganked and rooted in another firepit with my CC breaker down.

 

It's exciting and I really hope they don't change it.

 

Civil War is clearly the worst of the WZs (although it's still fun most of the time). I've had several now where the middle node NEVER got capped.

[Fallensbane]

I love huttball. It can be very fast paced because of all of the leaps and yanks and you are never really sure what's going to happen. Plenty of times I've been force speeding my way over the top of the last firepit thinking I was about to score when I suddenly get ganked and rooted in another firepit with my CC breaker down.

 

It's exciting and I really hope they don't change it.

 

Civil War is clearly the worst of the WZs (although it's still fun most of the time). I've had several now where the middle node NEVER got capped.

 

IMO

 

Huttball > Civil War > Novare Coast > Voidstar (The most horrid designed warzone around)

[Igaduma]

I'm a sage.

When the ballcarier is down on the floor, I often try to run up the ramp, if possible past the first fire and rescue the ballcarier to my position. This gives us a huge advantage because the others will all have to catch up first.

 

However, most of the times this doesn't work. You see, when the imps see me running up that ramp they realize that at that particular moment (the only moment in the entire game btw) I'm more dangerous to them than the ballcarier. As soon as I get up the ramp, I get knocked, pulled whatevered back off the ramp.

 

They don't kill me. Hell, sometimes they don't even really stop running. They just get me out of position and my shining moment of glory is over. Ofcourse if all 8 of your team are pummeling the ballcarier, no one is left to get the overpowered sages of their ramps. But that's hardly the sages fault.

[Igaduma]

IMO

 

Huttball > Civil War > Novare Coast > Voidstar (The most horrid designed warzone around)

 

Though I don't like playing huttball very much I agree it's the best designed map. In demands teamwork.

I would switch novare coast and civil war though. Simply based on the fact that in novare coast anything can happen. You can be at 20% while the others are at 100% and still win. It's not likely, but possible and I have had it happen. In Civil War, if you're passed a certain point even small miracles can't change the outcome anymore. This leads to players just giving up and sitting at one node collecting defender medals. While in novare coast, you can still turn things around.

[entropicdecay]

The other 3 are all around the same. Huttball is waaaaaaaaaaaaay in front for me.

 

Huttball > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > the other 3 go down here somewhere.

 

They're still fun but nothing on Huttball. I jump for joy when entering a WZ and see it's Huttball!

[Jenzali]

Huttball is the freshest thing to come to MMO PvP. It's chaotic, fast-paced, exciting (at least when the game is not one-sided) and unpredictable. In 7 years, even WoW couldn't come up with a single PvP arena or battleground where the environment could truly be used to your advantage.

 

Every PvP map in every MMO ever will have slight advantages for some classes or roles. Tanks are incredibly useful in Alderaan, since all you need to do is stay alive until your teammates respawn. Classes with Z-axis mobility are great in Huttball since there are 3 levels.

 

That said... don't stand on the edge of your flag zone and let SWs and JKs Force Leap onto you. Most of the complaints in this thread seem to stem from lack of understanding of basic tactics like line of sight, using the hazards to your advantage, and the capabilities/cooldowns of other classes and when to use your own class's abilities to counter.

[pbxsparx]

Lots of people are missing the point. I never said HUTTBALL was unplayable or is too hard for other classes.

 

HUTTBALL was designed as a warzone of many obstacles. However some classes are just able to bypass all these obstacles making the whole warzone seem like nothing but a flat plain to them which then trumps the whole design of the warzone.

 

This warzone could be won in 3 minutes or even less. A single play could be done in less than 30 seconds which results to a score. It does take decent players to do this however, even the most decent opponents would find it extremely hard to stop them.

 

I have a shadow and Huttball is my favorite when I'm playing my shadow. It's just too easy for me, I get into position at the right place at the right time and there's no stopping me or I'm going to be too quick, gone and about to score before the opposing team could even make a move.

[entropicdecay]

This warzone could be won in 3 minutes or even less. A single play could be done in less than 30 seconds which results to a score..

It doesn't require pull/leap to do this. It only takes 10-15 seconds to get from the ball spawn to a point at the bottom of the pit where you can pass to someone waiting on the ledge. This is only one pass. It's even faster if you have multiple passes.

[NDiggy]

Lots of people are missing the point. I never said HUTTBALL was unplayable or is too hard for other classes.

 

HUTTBALL was designed as a warzone of many obstacles. However some classes are just able to bypass all these obstacles making the whole warzone seem like nothing but a flat plain to them which then trumps the whole design of the warzone.

 

This warzone could be won in 3 minutes or even less. A single play could be done in less than 30 seconds which results to a score. It does take decent players to do this however, even the most decent opponents would find it extremely hard to stop them.

 

I have a shadow and Huttball is my favorite when I'm playing my shadow. It's just too easy for me, I get into position at the right place at the right time and there's no stopping me or I'm going to be too quick, gone and about to score before the opposing team could even make a move.

 

Will said. The problem with Huttball is that often it rewards team composition over skill. This is easily fixed, but BW seems to disagree with our views on Huttball. I'm sure that if/when we get ranked WZs well see the true power of these anointed classes and BW will be forced to eat crow.

[Zintiel]

Well OP I read up until you started whining about how the game was unbalanced for certain classes (or at least that's what I thought I read) before I really just stopped.

 

Everyone has a role in Huttball. I've seen snipers on platforms that were all 'YOU SHALL NOT PASS', I've seen pyrotechs control mid, I've seen vanguards make that ball move real fast, I've seen operatives who would JUST NOT DIE THEY KEEP HEALING.

 

If you can't figure out how to play huttball, that is your problem, not the developer's.