View Full Version : Low Level Arenas
I was playing in the lvl 10 arena today and I noticed that tons of people had Droknars armor and max damage weapons. Another thing I noticed was the use of very powerful skills (even some elites), seems to me that the lvl 10 and 15 arenas have turned into the lvl 20 arenas, only with lower health, but not that much lower since they have sup.vigor and +60 staffs. I think this exposes the need for a lvl req. for weapons and armor other than the current skill based one that doesnt even prevent low lvls from wearing the armor or weapons. Discuss.
I agree completely, and this all stems from players ability to be rushed to droknars. Originally, this was a small matter. I remember seeing the first rushed character in droknars, actually not too long after game was officially released. He was the "talk of the town" and everyone was asking him questions. Now, it's become normal, with hired "runners" and others bringing along 3+ people at a time. As soon as this group reaches droknars, it's get armor, get skills, and off to battle versus newbies in ascalon arena! Not all that fair, but I'm guessing anet has something planned in the future to prevent this.
Pythonix
30-06-2005, 22:38
Kind of sad really, owning "noobs" with money so to speak - so whos the noob?
Crimson Stigmata
30-06-2005, 23:01
I pity those who do this trick. They're fooling nothing but themselves. Cheap tactic at its lowest.
Yeah, this is a sad reality right now. Frankly, most people who do this are mediocre players needing an ego boost, and I was able to still be competitive with one of my lowbies (regularly got over 5-10 wins with normal skills & armor). However, thinking about all the true, first-time players coming up and getting turned off to the awesome PvP in this game just pisses me off.
Cheap tactic? I say exploit. This hurts the PvP portion of the game way more than farming ever will.
Shadowspawn X
05-07-2005, 18:52
It is not an exploit. Everything that happens in this game is allowed so you can go anywhere and don't have to follow the storyline if you don't feel the need to do so. I think the people who do this are of low moral charactor, but I can't force my morals or value system on anyone else, nor would I want to, after getting the heck beat out of me in the Crystal Desert and acsending to get to Donkars. I feel good about my armor and weapons in a way these players will never know. This is where they cheat themselves out of the best playing experience possible. They can't cheat me only themselves. I would like to see A-net come out with some honor points that are given if you are good guy and play the game as designed. I just don't understand where they get the money so early in the game.
Shadowspawn X
Akisame Kiyoraba
05-07-2005, 19:04
Getting a max damage weapon shortly after you get to post-searing is hardly difficult, people are selling max damage swords for 1-3k everywhere, but most people don't sell max damage of other type weapons until lions arch from what i've seen. That and I always thought you needed to be at least as far as beacon's perch before you could get rushed to droknar's. Now i'm not quite sure where people get all the elite skills either, being rushed to droknar's doesn't even pass you over any of the locations on the site, except snake's dance and talus chute, suggesting that the elite skills bosses section is either outdated or they've been rushed much farther than droknar's. Yes, droknar's armor is very lame to use in early game arenas, but i don't really see any such way to limit an arena "By X item equiped", or "X skill acquired", just level, and people can be droknar rushed as early as they want (Although if they didn't already have a high level character with a good stem of money i have no idea where they would get enough money either)
RaithTheDark
05-07-2005, 19:13
Heh, if you get in some guilds you can get rushed straight through and elites collected without having to contribute to group at all. They should have level requirements on it, yes. Do I really care? No. I am usually past lvl 10 the day I make the character and I don't slowdown to pvp in arenas when im lvling a char.
Poor Tom
06-07-2005, 04:32
There is a simple solution to this....
Allow people in arenas to get XP as well as Faction Points...
They'll be lvl 11 in no time. and they will have waisted their time.
Easy fix and everyone (except for the current exploiters) will be happy! :)
Peace
Surfacing
06-07-2005, 08:06
I saw a level 1 on the run to draknors it was hilarious.....
Maybe they should make it so that you have to be ascended to wear draknar armor since you should be already ascended before getting to draknars :happy14:
Chuckiefresh
07-07-2005, 08:51
Agreed. The low lvl arena is in a sad state of affairs right now. I was playing tonight and it seemed every few matches I ran into someone with Droknar's.
II was with a team tonight that was coordinating attacks really well and we killed 3 out of 4 on the opposing team within seconds. Unfortunately, there was a warrior/mo with Droknar's plate and none of us could touch him. All four of us on our warrior heavy team couldn't outdmg his heals and physically attacking him was pointless, lots of -0 and -1 over his character.
I feel the worst for those new to the game because their initial experience with pvp is ruined by twinks who need to use exploits in order to compensate for their lack of skill.
Chung Wei Shan
07-07-2005, 10:19
I play in Ascalon Arena a lot and I notice max damage weapons, Droknar's armor, runes, and Elites all the time. Yeah, it sucks a lot but hopefully I get on a team with such players. It's not like I'm going to write, "What? You have the best stuff? I'm out of here." So blame me because I don't care too much about it.
Sure it's humiliating to get completely destroyed in a matter of seconds because the other team was just randomly picked to be outstanding. I'll get over it and start another mission. I enjoy playing PvP a lot more than worrying about who has what items.
I also feel the win is so much sweeter if my team beats a team with Droknar's armor, best weapons, and elites. Which I haven't done yet unless my team is like that too. :eek:
It's all in good fun. I remember a team who apparently had over 40 consecutive wins (they eventually got tired and quit after they obliterated my team), but most of us had a good attitude about it. At least I did.
I started to play in the level 10 arena again and now its worse than when i left. I ran into a stacked team several times and we got wiped in less than a minute. Seems to me that some of them try to get stacked teams by all joining at the same time or something. Also ran into the same thing in the lvl 15 arenas. Now its nearly impossible to get 25+ wins in a row with all of these stacked teams going around.
One could say that playing with those armors and weapons in this location is being "good" at playing the game.
I would even say: "yes, thats really cool and needs some work to be acomplished" as twinking in general needs some organisation in most games.
BUT ... you destroy the game for the real beginners!
My Wife enters arena with a lvl 8 char and BOOM .. nothing for her to do and esp. nothing really to learn besides that there are "mighty people". I call em moralic cheaters and I don't care about that's "legal play". It is a question of morale and so it is not a question at all as you can't expect morale.
So after some time she is like "PVP sucks and I will not play this again" and she is right. It is pointless to play against such items...
So is the lvl 10 / 15 arena made for twinkers?
Why does the shortcut to droknars exists?
I had my last character run to the Forge, mostly because I was curious (that, and I had some loose plat sticking around that I wanted to spend). I noticed a few things:
1) Pinesouls are quite easy to solo if you know how to dodge projectiles.
2) Camp Rankor's doors were CLOSED when our forge runner ran through them. Same with Droknar's Forge. This leads me to believe that these areas are normally closed off to non-ascended people.
3) Our forge runner was a really nice guy who actually apologized when he died the first time because of lag. He was really patient with us, and he even waived his fee for a couple of players who didn't have the plat at the end of the run, even though I offered to cover for them.
Afterwards, I shopped around for some armor, and headed off to the Ice Caves of Sorrow. With seven 20th level henchmen, it was quite easy to get there without dying. I completed the Ice Caves mission quite easily as well (a rather easy mission to do with henchmen as long as you don't aggro the Mursaat all around). I ended up at the Iron Mines of Moladune. With the same henchmen, I did the mission, taking it very slowly and managed to Infuse my armor and even cap an Elite (Life Transfer)...
And this is where the story gets ugly. So I took said Necromancer and leveled him up from 13 (at the time of the run) to 15, and headed to Yak's Bend arena, using a typical Life Transfer/Dark Pact Blood Magic spam build. Life Transfer is a bit of a shock against your typical 15th level Yak's Bend PvP group, even with Droknar's armor, because it penetrates armor like butter. Same with Dark Pact and other Blood Magic. More often than not, I found myself targeted for destruction as soon as they saw I was flinging around Life Transfer and my Dark Pact/Touch of Agony/Dark Aura combo. I died at least twice on most battles, but I was lucky enough to fall in with a group of three Mesmers (yes, it was three Mesmers and a Necro, an odd PvP combo) who all carried Rez Signets (I carried one as well). I found that being the target of all of the attacks allowed my Mesmer pals to tear apart the opposition, while I was able to suicide myself into taking down at least one of them (usually leaving at least one Bone Minion in my stead to take up the torch). Rangers in particular are weak to this build (I know this, being the author of the Ranger Guide at GameFAQs), and they were all particularly pissed at my performance against them. I was called many names that I don't care to repeat on this forum.
After about 15 wins, I was a bit sickened at what I was able to do, and logged off, having had enough of the slaughter. This is too much, folks. I won't PvP in that arena again, and I fully support any effort on the part of A.net to prevent folks from using the "Droknar's Forge run" advantage in the arenas. I could have EASILY done this at level 10, too, if I wasn't so thorough about questing with my Necro character. I will admit that I had fun on the actual Forge run, but that was more because of the company than what I was doing at the time.
Because the doors ARE closed to characters who haven't ascended, maybe they should have un-Ascended characters locked out with a message that says "You cannot enter this zone without Ascending" or boot them back to Beacon's Perch.
... Because the doors ARE closed to characters who haven't ascended, maybe they should have un-Ascended characters locked out with a message that says "You cannot enter this zone without Ascending" or boot them back to Beacon's Perch.
BUT .. why would anybody do a run to Droknars Forge IF he is already ascended?
I really think arena.net "wants" twinks... and I think thats not good for the first time players...
BUT .. why would anybody do a run to Droknars Forge IF he is already ascended?Because he teleports along everyone else in his party, Ascended or not. And can get paid for such services. This is the whole point of the Droknar's Forge run... an Ascended 20th level character runs low level people down to Droknar's Forge, in exchange for cash money.
There's also sights to see along the way, and certain boss monsters ONLY spawn in that path.
Because the doors ARE closed to characters who haven't ascended, maybe they should have un-Ascended characters locked out with a message that says "You cannot enter this zone without Ascending" or boot them back to Beacon's Perch.Good idea, hahnsoo. Could you submit this to Anet, please?
Now you guys have me afraid to try the arenas until I'm leve 20....
granted I've made the run (lvl 13), but that was so I could go back and buy armor when I have the money to, and the better armor is so that I don't keep getting slautered in PvE as I'm an E/Me and it's either deal with pick up groups <which run in and get one kill 72% of the time> or use the henchies <which the fighter runs in and attracts a mass horde of badies too!>
Anyhow from what I've seen said here I would agree that those who make the run and buff out their armor should stay out of the arena. At the same time though you can't condem those who are just wanting to be able to solo a little and survive.
I don't see what the big deal is about running to droknar's, the armor isn't all that much better than what you can get from the collectors in the desert. I ran my R/E and a W/N to the desert, got there at levels 11 and 9 respectively, with a group of henchmen (ran to hot springs, then to temple of ages, down to fishermans, and sanctum cay) the only thing the henchmen did in my grp was to distract the first one or 2 grps i ran past (since you can't tell the henchmen to not engage and run with you, so they stop and die quickly) it may take many tries and runs to finally get there, but it can be done w/o being rushed by a high lvl player
Chuckiefresh
11-07-2005, 05:41
I don't see what the big deal is about running to droknar's, the armor isn't all that much better than what you can get from the collectors in the desert.
True, there isn't much difference between the armor at Droknar's and the armor available at Amnoon Oasis. However, there is a world of difference between the armor available at Ascalon City/Yak's Bend and Droknar's Forge.
The focus of this thread is on the situation in low lvl arenas. Droknar's armor tips the scales quite a bit in low lvl pvp. I've personally given up on playing in the low lvl arenas with my lower lvl characters. I only stick to the lvl 20 pvp now because I like skill rather than equipment to be the most important deciding factor in who wins the match.
I like the idea of that someone mentioned before; only allowing those who are ascended into Droknar's. Either that or allow for some exp again in the arenas to get the twinked/no skill trash up to lvl 20 pvp where they can be rightfully owned like they deserve.
The Lornar's Pass would not exist if arena.net would not have thought about getting twinks into the arenas.
I was not asking "why people do it" but "what may be the reason to do it" and there is just one I can think of: Creating a twink.
I personally think that is nothing a beginner should encounter in the Ascalon Arena.
They should make the armor depending on lvl's and the "Droknar's Forge" one should have a label: "lvl 16+" or at least "lvl 11+".
Chung Wei Shan
13-07-2005, 03:41
While Droknar's Armor definitely impacts the arena, that doesn't solve the problem (depending on your point of view) of characters using Elite spells or spells most level 10 (and under) characters cannot defend against.
The Ranger's Poison Arrow Elite is probably one of the biggest threats in the Ascalon Arena because not many (if any) character has Mend Condition/Ailment or any counter-acting skills versus poison attacks. This elite, of course, is the greatest counter to anyone with Droknar's Armor.
By the way, I've been on these Elite Rushed Teams and while we do win a lot of battles, eventually every Elite Rushed Team meets their match (another Elite Rushed Team), or gets too bored to continue playing, or gets too cocky.
The only solution: bar people with Droknar's Armor and Elites from Ascalon Arena.
If people want to rush to Droknar or get Elites on their level 6 character, that's their business if they're doing PvE. If they're just doing it to prey on beginner PvPers, heck I admit I do it too: preying on beginners that is. Backfiring spellcasters who don't realize I just did it is my bread and butter. And power spiking Mesmers while they're trying to Backfire me is the greatest thing ever.
pale mamba
13-07-2005, 04:56
I had the same experience last night. I was in ascalon arena with my monk ranger when I tried to cast a spell on another monk...<Target is protected by spell breaker> I was like WTF? Spell breaker in lvl 10 arena? Then i noticed 2 of my warrior teamates whacking the crap out of him only to do -0 damage....hmmmm that pissed me off big time so I let him know about it. I asked him if his penis was so small that he had to get endgame armor and beat up on ppl in low lvl arenas to compensate for his small genitals. Im sure i hit a nerve as even ppl on his own team were laughing. He told me i was a lazy noob and that i should go to droks and do that same thing.
5 minutes later i see "trigger Happy" yet again...so b4 the match starts i let it be known that he was cheating and again was called a noob. Im not sure that its me who's the noob. I really hope AN does something about this as it made me so angry to lose against that guy twice in a row that i contemplated quitting till they change this unfair imbalance. Frankly its ruining my pvp fun in the lower levels.
On a side note, I was on a team with a warrior who said"keep me alive I have droks armor" hit the "M" key and went back to the arena. I dont want to be apart of that either. Its not fair to me or my enemies, whether its on my team or theirs. PLEASE PUT A LVL REQ. ON ARMOR !
Stop all these noobasshats from having armor that makes up for their obvious lack of skill. Any chimp can play a monk that cant take anymore than -0 damage at any one time and win. /end rant
So.. The update changed players to get XP in the arena for kills (again).
Will this not solve the "problem" too now.
You can rush your char... play maybe some hours in Ascalon Arena.. hitting eleven but still be inside arena.. but sometime you need to log off.. and can't rejoin.. so you move on to yak's bend... and even there you will gain XP and earlier or later you are lvl 16 ... and the fun is over?
How long will it last till you are 16? Will people still rush to have this "fun"?
Chuckiefresh
14-07-2005, 09:42
So.. The update changed players to get XP in the arena for kills (again).
Will this not solve the "problem" too now.
You can rush your char... play maybe some hours in Ascalon Arena.. hitting eleven but still be inside arena.. but sometime you need to log off.. and can't rejoin.. so you move on to yak's bend... and even there you will gain XP and earlier or later you are lvl 16 ... and the fun is over?
How long will it last till you are 16? Will people still rush to have this "fun"?
Yeah, I think this latest update pretty much solves the problem. If people really want to go through all the trouble to twink their character now for just a few hours of "fun" then so be it. I think the exp will drastically reduce the number of people we see in the arena with the elite skills and Droknar's armor in the low lvl arenas.
I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to Anet for taking measures to solve this problem. If by some small chance anyone from Anet reads this, job well done and I really appreciate it.
Chung Wei Shan
14-07-2005, 12:33
Since the new Update, now I have to battle in Yak's Bend arena. It's a shame though, I was getting used to the "regulars" in the Ascalon Arena.
I even started to try the Level 20 PvP arena and realized that I do not have the playing skills for that yet. I keep forgeting that I'm not the only one that uses defense spells anymore (another Mesmer's Hexbreaker was killing me, E/Mo had Smite hex... arrg).
I have a long way to become a relatively good PvPer.
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