Guild Wars 2

As the thread name says will the Keg Brawling return? For those who do not remember what it was. Keg brawling was the mini game in the Norn City of Hoelbrak. It was removed like a month after the game was released and has yet to make a return…

Any thoughts?

Uhhhh I don’t’ know about you, but I’ve played Keg Brawl recently.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Keg_Brawl

Isn’t it still part of the activity rotation?

It was never removed?

Keg brawl wasn’t removed a month after release. It was still in the game. It is still available but it is part of the activity rotation, so not available every day.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Activity

Ah ty. Anet please close thread ty.

Basically, it wasn’t removed, but the access to it got severely restricted for no good reason.

Astralporing.1957:

Basically, it wasn’t removed, but the access to it got severely restricted for no good reason.

Actually I thought the reason was pretty good. It sat there empty for ages on end, and you couldn’t get a game going for most of the day, until it went on a rotation. I know because I used to try.

When it went on the rotation there were actually games played. I’d call that a pretty good reason.

Astralporing.1957:

Basically, it wasn’t removed, but the access to it got severely restricted for no good reason.

For a good reason, actually, as Vayne said. If there’s only one activity available per day, then all the people who want to do activities are doing that activity, rather than being spread out over several of them. Granted, not many people do activities anyway… it worked a lot better when Daily Activity was a daily every day. But at least you can join in and actually have a game start, most of the time.

Olvendred.3027:

Astralporing.1957:

Basically, it wasn’t removed, but the access to it got severely restricted for no good reason.

For a good reason, actually, as Vayne said. If there’s only one activity available per day, then all the people who want to do activities are doing that activity, rather than being spread out over several of them. Granted, not many people do activities anyway… it worked a lot better when Daily Activity was a daily every day. But at least you can join in and actually have a game start, most of the time.

There’s no way I’m gonna let this argument continue to fly.

I like Keg Brawl, but I can’t play it on Monday through Saturday… Why would I suddenly have an urge to play Sanctum Sprint when I like Keg Brawl? Those two game modes are fundamentally different. The only values they share is that they’re labelled activities and you compete against others in an instance. Everything from the structure of the game type, to the type of mechanical skill and strategy to perform each one is very different, so the assumption that because someone doesn’t have access to one, they’ll play the other is poor reasoning at best.

Furthermore, I can guarantee I’ve played more Keg Brawl than 99.999% of this game’s player base (sitting somewhere between 500-1k hours inside of that instance) so the assertion that the arena was constantly devoid of players is anecdotal experience and not a total representation of the game itself. I definitely didn’t spend 500 hours playing KB alone.

This is not to say that there were not times when Keg Brawl was, in fact empty, but there’s plenty of other reasons besides population dilution that could be responsible for this. Absolute tons of people have done world completion and, prior to the update that put an NPC in the center of Lion’s Arch, many didn’t even know the mini game existed. Furthermore, this was in a time period when no other activities were playable besides Keg Brawl. So, applying the reasoning in this thread, more people should have been playing it, right? On top of this, at pretty much the exact same frequency, I still encounter times on both Saturday and Sunday when I’m in a game alone for up to 10 minutes, so I’m wondering if it even solved the problem?

There’s so many other avenues they could have took besides straight up removing KB for 6/7ths of the year. Way back in 2012, I created a Keg Brawl guild specifically meant for having a roster of people who can call on in case you want a full match (Brawl Capital [PUNT]). If you genuinely wanted to find more people to play with, it couldn’t have been too hard to find one of these players or make/join your own. At peak it totaled roughly ~40 members actively playing GW2 out of a ~70 man roster. And after the guild server merges, the guild had 60k Influence (and people only repped if they were playing KB).

Finally, it actually stands against one of the primary ethics of the games development, which is to encourage people to play content, not forcing them to. This is the primary design philosophy that guides Ascended Gear, Gift of Mastery, daily achievements, exclusive rewards to zones like Dry Top and Silverwastes, as well as high end rewards for living story content in general. Is the previous content removed or made obsolete by any of these additions? No. However, to put everyone in one place and avoid population dilution, they encourage going to these areas through one means or another. So how hard was it exactly to just make a daily activity reward for a specific activity and leave the others up?

As you say, the situation you’re talking about is very old. I don’t recall exactly when activities were put into the rotation, but I’m pretty sure it was late 2013. People are willing to try things out, but most generally don’t stick around forever. The few that do are mostly just grinding achievements.

Keg Brawl wasn’t removed altogether, it was put into a predictable schedule. If you know about activities, you know Keg Brawl is on Sundays (or Saturdays or Mondays, if it’s different for other timezones). And it’s still hard to find games… despite that it’s only there one day per week… despite that it’s much better advertised in the centre of LA than in a corner of Hoelbrak… despite that it’s the only activity people can play that day… despite that it’s the weekend, when player numbers are generally higher.

The unfortunate fact remains that people generally don’t seem interested in activities, or if they do, it’s only for small amounts of time or rare occasions. Having the daily rotation was not about making things better, it was about trying to limit the effects of decline.

@Serelisk

I agree that for those who really love Keg Brawl, this is not an ideal situation. But I think that percentage of the population is pretty small. Are there a hundred of you? Fifty of you?

It would be great if Anet added an minigame arena to the cash shop like a private arena for PvP, because that at least would pay back the time it would take to find a better solution.

But I don’t think there are enough people who love keg brawl like you do for any real change to make sense.

It’s not part of the activity rotation, Keg Brawl is available on Sundays only, every Sunday

Activities activity is down after the latest daily achi update. Before that, “Daily Activity Participation” was there several times a week. Now we’re lucky if it’s up even once per week.

Prior to the megaserver patch it was subject to the same restrictions I’ve always played with: heavy lag after 6pm and during weekends, but after the patch it’s severely lagged 24/7 regardless of performance in the rest of the game. I’ve always been irked it was never fixed, but having it available only during Sunday is just salt in the wound: not only has it never been fixed, even if it is fixed I’ll never be able to play it without lag.

Thanks, ANet.

Oh and I’d like to add that I also like Keg Brawl. It’s one of the few activities that has real tactical depth into it. Probably because it’s team-based. Sad thing is that most players don’t even pass the keg, ever.

@Vayne

Bottom line is that I I fundamentally do not believe that Keg Brawl only being available on Saturday night/Sunday has had any positive impact on the state of the game.

The changes that have made KB attractive to anyone after the Activity Rotation update was either the introduction of the Daily Activity achievement, or the fact that it was much better advertised being in the center of the most populated capital city in the game. Both of these things could have happened without moving it to one day a week.

However, the very negative thing that happened was 8 people out of that 40 man active roster I mentioned not only quit playing Keg Brawl, they quit Guild Wars 2 entirely almost immediately after the update. The rest became largely inactive, and the overwhelming majority of them did not continue to play, even on the day it was up.

I have to agree with Serelisk as I too absolutely believe closing Keg Brawl for 86% of the year has done nothing but harm it. The healthiest time for Keg Brawl in recent memory was during the Festival of the Four Winds where you could get into Keg Brawl several times a week because Sanctum Sprint was taken out of rotation. It was always crowded and there were multiple instances. While there were 2 (actually 3 if you count the Aspect Arena) activities up at a time during the festival, none of them had any population issues.

The popular opinion of the activities rotation is that it was implemented to encourage people to try multiple activities/different things. In fact all it does is add to the ever-growing list of time-gated things in this game. Want to work on the Keg Brawl achievements? Well you’ve gotta spread it across weeks when in reality it could be accomplished more quickly than that, because Keg Brawl is only here for one day. When I go into activities I see the same people- but they’re unique to the activity. If I go into Sanctum Sprint, I see Shane. He loves racing games and in fact was a top tier rollerbeetle racer from GW1. If I go into Keg Brawl I see Serelisk and the gang from [PUNT]. If I go into Crab Toss I see the same cheeky asura that loves to farm the fishing pole. The reality is the activities are very different, and this attempt to force people into playing different activities does nothing except waste time because if people don’t like an activity, they simply aren’t going to take part in it.

To get slightly off topic a bit: It is incredibly disappointing and frustrating that ArenaNet has adopted this new ethos that time-gating things is healthy. Rather than introduce compelling content to keep their players interested, they have decided to take the cheap route and force (and pretend like it’s not forcing) us to play for longer periods of time than should be necessary to accomplish things in the game. If I already have all the materials to make a set of celestial armor (for example), why should I be forced to wait an entire month to create it? What purpose does time-gating serve other than to sucker players into staying logged in to their game?

I would like to see Keg Brawl separated from the other activities (as it was originally designed as such anyway), or ideally all activities separated from one another unless ArenaNet can provide valid reasons for this current system.

Serelisk.6573:

@Vayne

Bottom line is that I I fundamentally do not believe that Keg Brawl only being available on Saturday night/Sunday has had any positive impact on the state of the game.

The changes that have made KB attractive to anyone after the Activity Rotation update was either the introduction of the Daily Activity achievement, or the fact that it was much better advertised being in the center of the most populated Capital City in the game. Both of these things could have happened without moving it to one day a week.

However, the very negative thing that happened was 8 people out of that 40 man active roster I mentioned not only quit playing Keg Brawl, they quit Guild Wars 2 entirely almost immediately after the update. The rest became largely inactive, and the overwhelming majority of them did not continue to play, even on the day it was up.

I don’t think it matters if 40 people quit playing Guild Wars 2 because they can’t play Keg Brawl. I’m sure more people left over the other changes made.

A business has to have a list of priorities. Things they can do/fix fast. No matter what they do to Keg Brawl, I’m not convinced it would have have more than a tiny niche. This isn’t SAB. This doesn’t have the same broad appeal.

I’ve seen a couple of people go into Keg Brawl matches, get totally creamed by people who knew, and they left, probably with the idea of never coming back again.

Companies make these types of sacrifices all the time. I lost customers when I removed the Apple section from my software shop, but I made money.

I just don’t believe you have the numbers to take people away from other projects to work on fixing what was wrong with Keg Brawl.

The issue is that they spent money on breaking it further. At this point I just want it playable year round. I’ve lost all illusions that any substantial fix to Keg Brawl is ever going to happen but no way could I have foreseen they would basically remove it. If no one’s playing it, that means I can find the ones who do enjoy it, and schedule events and we can get our own arena going. Right now it’s in no better shape than it was prior to the update.

Serelisk.6573:

The issue is that they spent money on breaking it further. At this point I just want it playable year round. I’ve lost all illusions that any substantial fix to Keg Brawl is ever going to happen but nowhere could I foreseen they would outright remove it. If no one’s playing it, that means I can find the ones who do enjoy it, and schedule events and we can get our own arena going. Right now it’s in no better shape than it was prior to the update.

Did you try playing Keg Brawl before it was put into the rotation? I can tell you it was a graveyard. You could play whole rounds alone with no one else appearing to play. Now you’ll at least usually get some other players there, too. Maybe even full teams if you play on prime time.

I played almost every day for a year. Spent that time actively going out of my way to try and make games more fun for everyone. Passing to newer or less skilled players, or playing with self imposed handicaps so that every game felt competitive and everyone was involved if I could help it. The only time [PUNT] ever team-stacks is to counter and deny aggressive lobbing (#2-skill on keg makes games less fun for everyone but 1 person).

And I genuinely do not think that Keg Brawl was this supposed graveyard you make it out to be. Possibly on less populated timezones, for sure. But I can almost guarantee the reason that changed was because of the higher degree of advertisement which came with the same update, not because it’s only available on a single day.

(Edited to be less of a jerk)

It is unlikely that the gamemode of keg brawl itself has been benefited from being limited to one day a week. Instead of simply increasing the activity one day of the week to make it worth even existing, anet should just advertise it more in some way to make it played 7 days a week. Even only having it open certain times per day would work to prevent late night deadzones. An activity central area would be a good addition to have all the games central. New players would see that and even if they didn’t play the games, they would atleast be aware that they existed; rather than the randomized system it currently is.

Serelisk.6573:

I played almost every day for a year. Spent that time actively going out of my way to try and make games more fun for everyone. Passing to newer or less skilled players, or playing with self imposed handicaps so that every game felt competitive and everyone was involved if I could help it. The only time [PUNT] ever team-stacks is to counter and deny aggressive lobbing (#2-skill on keg makes games less fun for everyone but 1 person).

And I genuinely do not think that Keg Brawl was this supposed graveyard you make it out to be. Possibly on less populated timezones, for sure. But I can almost guarantee the reason that changed was because of the higher degree of advertisement which came with the same update, not because it’s only available on a single day.

(Edited to be less of a jerk)

There were many times I tried to play Keg Brawl befroe the change and stood in an completely empty arena for an hour. You can say anything you like but this happened. Not once. Not twice. Not three times.

If you think that makes a good impression on people playing the game, you’d be wrong.

I’m not saying your anecdotes are not true. My reasoning is that the increase in activity had nothing to do with Keg Brawl being only available one day a week, and everything to do with the increased advertisement of,

1.) making it available from the center of Lion’s Arch, which gives it 1,000x more visibility for the player base at large and,

2.) Making Daily Achievements for Activities so people many people were encouraged to just visit that same NPC each day

Think about it. Why is it that Keg Brawl was the only permanent activity before the update, but yet you apparently had to wait an hour for games. Why would that change now that people have other games to play?

The primary appeal of a casual game type whose largest asset is the enjoyability of playing the game itself, is being able to play that game and have fun when you want.

The dream would be highlighting certain activities each day without removing the others entirely, so when I meet all those new players from Keg Brawl’s increased exposure and find people who enjoy playing, I don’t have to wait a week before I play with those people again.

Keg brawl was inherently going to be slanted to people who learned it first. Most people aren’t going to sit there and play it over and over again and build up their skill while consistently getting their kittens kicked.

That’s a good reason not to move it front and center. You love keg brawl so you don’t see the frustration it caused people. Even on daily activity days when it was an activity, I heard tons of complaints about it.

You like it. You’re a tiny percentage of the player base. Anet can’t reach out to every small niche group and make it right for them. It’s not reasonable to expect them to.

I don’t know if I understand your overall point. My argument is that they could have did everything they did in the activity rotation update (namely move the NPC to where he is now, in Lion’s Arch) but keep all the activities open 7 days a week where the Activity Daily would be for a specific activity. So Keg Brawl will have increased population on Sunday instead of only available on Sunday. You know, the exact same way they’ve been incentivizing content since Guild Wars 1

Serelisk.6573:

I don’t know if I understand your overall point. My argument is that they could have did everything they did in the activity rotation update (namely move the NPC to where he is now, in Lion’s Arch) but keep all the activities open 7 days a week where the Activity Daily would be for a specific activity. So Keg Brawl will have increased population on Sunday instead of only available on Sunday. You know, the exact same way they’ve been incentivizing content since Guild Wars 1

So all activities available every day, but activity-specific dailies (and preferably one every day)? Not bad. I like this suggestion. It would be like the best of both worlds, really.

Tom Gore.4035:

Serelisk.6573:

I don’t know if I understand your overall point. My argument is that they could have did everything they did in the activity rotation update (namely move the NPC to where he is now, in Lion’s Arch) but keep all the activities open 7 days a week where the Activity Daily would be for a specific activity. So Keg Brawl will have increased population on Sunday instead of only available on Sunday. You know, the exact same way they’ve been incentivizing content since Guild Wars 1

So all activities available every day, but activity-specific dailies (and preferably one every day)? Not bad. I like this suggestion. It would be like the best of both worlds, really.

I don’t think it would change anything. I still think like six guys would love Keg Brawl and it won’t make a bit of difference to anyone else. I’m obviously exaagerating, but it’s really a non-issue.

This thread should be closed, anyway, because this is all off topic. The OP got the answer he was looking for.

Vayne.8563:

Tom Gore.4035:

Serelisk.6573:

I don’t know if I understand your overall point. My argument is that they could have did everything they did in the activity rotation update (namely move the NPC to where he is now, in Lion’s Arch) but keep all the activities open 7 days a week where the Activity Daily would be for a specific activity. So Keg Brawl will have increased population on Sunday instead of only available on Sunday. You know, the exact same way they’ve been incentivizing content since Guild Wars 1

So all activities available every day, but activity-specific dailies (and preferably one every day)? Not bad. I like this suggestion. It would be like the best of both worlds, really.

I don’t think it would change anything. I still think like six guys would love Keg Brawl and it won’t make a bit of difference to anyone else. I’m obviously exaagerating, but it’s really a non-issue.

This thread should be closed, anyway, because this is all off topic. The OP got the answer he was looking for.

It might not change anything, except that we would not see these threads complaining that activity X is not available on time Y. After all, it would be in line with the “play how you want” mantra.

Removing (or heavily restricting) content because it isnt popular seems like an odd expenditure of resources to me. Spending money to remove options is odd. I can totally see the argument for not spending money introducing a new activity that doesnt seem likely to be popular, but actively spending money to remove something that some people enjoy because others dont seems odd.

The people who dont like keg brawl are not likely to be significantly impacted by having a game mode they dont want to play anyway removed. The people who do like it will be negatively impacted by the restriction.

I just dont see the upside to this sort of decision. The people who like KB are negatively impacted and those who dont are not likely to care.

Actually removing items not being used, isn’t odd at all. It gives players a bad feeling when they go to do something and can’t get anyone to do it with them. I know because that’s how I felt when I wanted to play Keg Brawl.

It would have been better, for me, not to have the option at all, then to stand around, waiting and hope someone eventually comes in.

With the way it stands now, Keg Brawl arenas are almost never empty and I do get a game.

Vayne.8563:

Actually removing items not being used, isn’t odd at all. It gives players a bad feeling when they go to do something and can’t get anyone to do it with them. I know because that’s how I felt when I wanted to play Keg Brawl.

It would have been better, for me, not to have the option at all, then to stand around, waiting and hope someone eventually comes in..

Good point. Thank you for a different angle.

@Vayne

Based on my own anecdotal experience (Of which I have legions more to draw on than you do), I’m going to say your post is an exaggeration and caution anyone from taking that as a fact. There’s no way you’ve had so few Keg Brawl games that removing it entirely is a reasonable solution. I just can’t fathom. It sounds like you’re saying that you’ve never or only rarely got into a functioning Keg Brawl match, and there’s no way that’s the case.

[PUNT] had at least 1 person playing actively in almost every timezone from OCX to Euro (including myself during breaks from school or when work schedule allowed it), with the main one being NA and I’ve never heard testimony that remotely resembles yours. Sure, are there dead periods? Yes. Could you never find a game ever? Probably not.

And the ideal that the higher degree of advertisement would not help to further alleviate those issues is a pretty bold one.

Serelisk.6573:

@Vayne

Based on my own anecdotal experience (Of which I have legions more to draw on than you do), I’m going to say your post is an exaggeration and caution anyone from taking that as a fact. There’s no way you’ve had so few Keg Brawl games that removing it entirely is a reasonable solution. I just can’t fathom. It sounds like you’re saying that you’ve never or only rarely got into a functioning Keg Brawl match, and there’s no way that’s the case.

[PUNT] had at least 1 person playing actively in almost every timezone from OCX to Euro (including myself during breaks from school or when work schedule allowed it), with the main one being NA and I’ve never heard testimony that remotely resembles yours. Sure, are there dead periods? Yes. Could you never find a game ever? Probably not.

And the ideal that the higher degree of advertisement would not help to further alleviate those issues is a pretty bold one.

I’m in Australia mate. My prime playing time might well account for my experiences. It doesn’t change how I feel about Keg Brawl though. I found it a major disappointment.

Vayne.8563:

Tom Gore.4035:

Serelisk.6573:

I don’t know if I understand your overall point. My argument is that they could have did everything they did in the activity rotation update (namely move the NPC to where he is now, in Lion’s Arch) but keep all the activities open 7 days a week where the Activity Daily would be for a specific activity. So Keg Brawl will have increased population on Sunday instead of only available on Sunday. You know, the exact same way they’ve been incentivizing content since Guild Wars 1

So all activities available every day, but activity-specific dailies (and preferably one every day)? Not bad. I like this suggestion. It would be like the best of both worlds, really.

I don’t think it would change anything. I still think like six guys would love Keg Brawl and it won’t make a bit of difference to anyone else. I’m obviously exaagerating, but it’s really a non-issue.

If it wouldn’t make a difference for everyone else, but benefit the dedicated keg brawl players (of which there are more than 6 in this game, i’m pretty sure), and it could be accomplished by simply enabling original keg brawl npc in Hoelbrak, no more changes necessary, then why don’t do it?
Currently it seems you are claiming, that the keg brawl should remain restricted not because it benefits anyone, but just to spite the dedicated players, and only because you, personally, didn’t like that activity.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Tom Gore.4035:

Serelisk.6573:

I don’t know if I understand your overall point. My argument is that they could have did everything they did in the activity rotation update (namely move the NPC to where he is now, in Lion’s Arch) but keep all the activities open 7 days a week where the Activity Daily would be for a specific activity. So Keg Brawl will have increased population on Sunday instead of only available on Sunday. You know, the exact same way they’ve been incentivizing content since Guild Wars 1

So all activities available every day, but activity-specific dailies (and preferably one every day)? Not bad. I like this suggestion. It would be like the best of both worlds, really.

I don’t think it would change anything. I still think like six guys would love Keg Brawl and it won’t make a bit of difference to anyone else. I’m obviously exaagerating, but it’s really a non-issue.

If it wouldn’t make a difference for everyone else, but benefit the dedicated keg brawl players (of which there are more than 6 in this game, i’m pretty sure), and it could be accomplished by simply enabling original keg brawl npc in Hoelbrak, no more changes necessary, then why don’t do it?

Like I said, my experience turned me off from keg brawl. It’s entirely likely that more people like it from it being full of people doing it than not. I think that’ sthe reason they did it.

Anet has the stats on how often it sat empty, we don’t.

This is one of those situations where it might be better for more people doing it this way.

For a team vs. team activity I’m actually kinda curious why it’s a “hotjoin” activity and not an alternate mode in sPvP. Having map listings, segregation by skill level, and a mechanism to balance team sizes would have been beneficial to keg brawl.

(Not saying ANet should invest time and effort to do this now, just found it odd this wasn’t how it was designed from the start)

Vayne.8563:

Tom Gore.4035:

Serelisk.6573:

I don’t know if I understand your overall point. My argument is that they could have did everything they did in the activity rotation update (namely move the NPC to where he is now, in Lion’s Arch) but keep all the activities open 7 days a week where the Activity Daily would be for a specific activity. So Keg Brawl will have increased population on Sunday instead of only available on Sunday. You know, the exact same way they’ve been incentivizing content since Guild Wars 1

So all activities available every day, but activity-specific dailies (and preferably one every day)? Not bad. I like this suggestion. It would be like the best of both worlds, really.

I don’t think it would change anything. I still think like six guys would love Keg Brawl and it won’t make a bit of difference to anyone else. I’m obviously exaagerating, but it’s really a non-issue.

This thread should be closed, anyway, because this is all off topic. The OP got the answer he was looking for.

You are acting like your opinion is the only opinion in the world. First of all, you don’t have the metrics, so you don’t have the right to use them as a argument for discussion. A lot of players play Keg brawl. Empty maps happen often because of a bug with merging maps, leave and rejoin, and lemme tell you, you’d be surprised how often you get a full run.

Keg brawl is the most discriminated dialy activity atm, all activities goes TWICE A WEEK, and KEG BRAWL ONCE. Not fair. Keg brawl should at least go twice a week as well.

If your way of ‘closing an argument/thread’ is the way to go, then lemme go offtopic for once: You like NPE, 90% dislike it. Your opinion doesn’t matter, the other 90% wins hands down and Anet can only focus the 90% and not your niche. See what I did there? Used an argument to win in a cheap way. Just stop it already Vayne. If you dislike Keg brawl, you shouldn’t be wasting time here. It’s like you’ve been wanting ages for Keg brawl to be removed, and now this thread appears you are jumping on it… A person who doesn’t like keg brawl, doesn’t post here, doesn’t play and and that’s the end of it.

Part solution proposal: Make all activities go on turn including keg brawl, wich is locked to sunday now. This will rotate all activities every week to different days, and keep a fair ‘every 4 days on diff day is my favorite activity’ schedule.

Perfect solution: just re-enable keg brawl in hoelbrak.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Vayne.8563:

Tom Gore.4035:

Serelisk.6573:

I don’t know if I understand your overall point. My argument is that they could have did everything they did in the activity rotation update (namely move the NPC to where he is now, in Lion’s Arch) but keep all the activities open 7 days a week where the Activity Daily would be for a specific activity. So Keg Brawl will have increased population on Sunday instead of only available on Sunday. You know, the exact same way they’ve been incentivizing content since Guild Wars 1

So all activities available every day, but activity-specific dailies (and preferably one every day)? Not bad. I like this suggestion. It would be like the best of both worlds, really.

I don’t think it would change anything. I still think like six guys would love Keg Brawl and it won’t make a bit of difference to anyone else. I’m obviously exaagerating, but it’s really a non-issue.

This thread should be closed, anyway, because this is all off topic. The OP got the answer he was looking for.

You are acting like your opinion is the only opinion in the world. First of all, you don’t have the metrics, so you don’t have the right to use them as a argument for discussion. A lot of players play Keg brawl. Empty maps happen often because of a bug with merging maps, leave and rejoin, and lemme tell you, you’d be surprised how often you get a full run.

Keg brawl is the most discriminated dialy activity atm, all activities goes TWICE A WEEK, and KEG BRAWL ONCE. Not fair. Keg brawl should at least go twice a week as well.

If your way of ‘closing an argument/thread’ is the way to go, then lemme go offtopic for once: You like NPE, 90% dislike it. Your opinion doesn’t matter, the other 90% wins hands down and Anet can only focus the 90% and not your niche. See what I did there? Used an argument to win in a cheap way. Just stop it already Vayne. If you dislike Keg brawl, you shouldn’t be wasting time here. It’s like you’ve been wanting ages for Keg brawl to be removed, and now this thread appears you are jumping on it… A person who doesn’t like keg brawl, doesn’t post here, doesn’t play and and that’s the end of it.

It’s irrelevant whether the NPE is 90% dislike or not. Not only is your number wrong, it’s much less than that now, but also, it’s 90% of a bunch of people posting on forums. Those changes weren’t made for them, so what they think…not really relevant. And just because a bunch of forum people cry wolf doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a bad thing.

More to the point, if the metrics showed that Keg Brawl was so amazingly popular, then why is it the game that’s only once a week? Do you have an answer for that?

Logically, the game they put once a week is the least popular game. It makes sense.

Those that like it don’t want to admit that the other games are more popular, but I can’t think of any other reason Anet would have made Keg Brawl the odd man out.

My opinion doesn’t matter. Your opinion doesn’t matter. The opinion of the people who don’t play it, which would be most of the player base, probably does matter.

So you can supply a reason why Anet made Keg Brawl the only minigame that’s only once a week?

Cause it was just after Ellen Kiel’s ellection (and all the achievements linked to their respective activities like southsun survival, etc), when the hype for the new ones was still hot, and people learned them because daily ap, that they were a bit more popular. Secondly, Anet wanted activities on fixed days i think, and they needed to discard one of the activities for dual days. Keg brawl was discarded because it was temporary less popular then because the other ones were hyped/fresh because ap.

And please stop trying to turn numbers in your favor. It’s making your posts loose value. There’s a lot of ‘I think that it’s that much players’ ,‘I think it’s a niche’, ’I’m pretty certain it’s a bigger number then you think’ wich quick ‘So this matter and that doesn’t matter’ conclusions in your posts. Seriously they don’t go together, and especially not to back up your opinions. Metrics players posts are just that: impressions, and not conclusive. Turning them into your own favor thinking your post gaines value with it, is just not really constructive.

Every problem in gw2 is worth discussing. Even niche player ones. Stop trying to play the god of the forums and discard all niche players problems cause you feel you are better then it. Sorry but this has to be said. You are also acting like re-enabling keg brawl more days, would hurt anets time. I wouldn’t. The mini-game is finished! all they have to do is change schedule or re-enable npc in hoelbrak. I’m not saying it won’t cost time, but definitely not as much as you make it out to be.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Cause it was just after Ellen Kiel’s ellection (and all the achievements linked to their respective activities like southsun survival, etc), when the hype for the new ones was still hot, and people learned them because daily ap, that they were a bit more popular. Secondly, Anet wanted activities on fixed days i think, and they needed to discard one of the activities for dual days. Keg brawl was discarded because it was temporary less popular then because the other ones were hyped/fresh because ap.

And please stop trying to turn numbers in your favor. It’s making your posts loose value. There’s a lot of ‘I think that it’s that much players’ ,‘I think it’s a niche’, ’I’m pretty certain it’s a bigger number then you think’ wich quick ‘So this matter and that doesn’t matter’ conclusions in your posts. Seriously they don’t go together, and especially not to back up your opinions. Metrics players posts are just that: impressions, and not conclusive. Turning them into your own favor thinking your post gaines value with it, is just not really constructive.

Every problem in gw2 is worth discussing. Even niche player ones. Stop trying to play the god of the forums and discard all niche players problems cause you feel you are better then it. Sorry but this has to be said. You are also acting like re-enabling keg brawl more days, would hurt anets time. I wouldn’t. The mini-game is finished! all they have to do is change schedule or re-enable npc in hoelbrak. I’m not saying it won’t cost time, but definitely not as much as you make it out to be.

Your reply is very entertaining Phoebe. Obviously Anet has no experience with reading metrics and was easily fooled by the situation of new games being more popular than old games. Of course, in some ways, those new games are better games because they’re not team games, so you don’t randomly have to depend on team mates who have to clue to win. That might also be a reason why Keg Brawl wasn’t as popular.

But you know, I’m not trying to be the god of the forums, and I don’t care that you think I am.

See, I was there when Serelisk made posts in the past about Keg Brawl that received on these forums virtually no support. So much so that he even commented in those post at how little support he received. If that doesn’t tell you something, I guess there’s not much to say.

This thread was about Keg Brawl not being there at all, it was answer. Serelisk highjacked it and changed the topic and I answered.

It doesn’t matter what you think or I think if Anet has the numbers, but Anet has the numbers.

It’s been nice chatting with you.

Vayne.8563:

More to the point, if the metrics showed that Keg Brawl was so amazingly popular, then why is it the game that’s only once a week? Do you have an answer for that?

Logically, the game they put once a week is the least popular game. It makes sense.

Those that like it don’t want to admit that the other games are more popular, but I can’t think of any other reason Anet would have made Keg Brawl the odd man out.

My opinion doesn’t matter. Your opinion doesn’t matter. The opinion of the people who don’t play it, which would be most of the player base, probably does matter.

So you can supply a reason why Anet made Keg Brawl the only minigame that’s only once a week?

So, the issue with basing all of your judgments about things on metrics is that it doesn’t address why things happen or why numbers look the way they do. I’m sure you’ve been told this and should probably be an important element of maintaining a business.

So, the question in this thread was never “Is Keg Brawl unpopular?”. It was “Why is Keg Brawl unpopular?” and my suggestion is that it has far more to do with the poor exposure and advertisement of the game, than it ever had to do with how often the activity was accessible.

Meaning, I believe that making it only available 1 day a week had such small positive impact that it is thoroughly outweighed by the myriad of negative things that the update brought. Where as any large positive impact from the update were the result of Daily Activity achievement and the Activity NPC being placed in the center of Lion’s Arch. Again; both of those things could have been done without making keg brawl unplayable.

I just want to say, fumble recoveries are insane to get. While I am finally starting to max some of the other achieves (not that I have played a super duper much since it is only up Sundays and that is the day I play the least). But I probably have 150-200 games played and 9 total recoveries…. crazy achieve.

Serelisk.6573:

Vayne.8563:

More to the point, if the metrics showed that Keg Brawl was so amazingly popular, then why is it the game that’s only once a week? Do you have an answer for that?

Logically, the game they put once a week is the least popular game. It makes sense.

Those that like it don’t want to admit that the other games are more popular, but I can’t think of any other reason Anet would have made Keg Brawl the odd man out.

My opinion doesn’t matter. Your opinion doesn’t matter. The opinion of the people who don’t play it, which would be most of the player base, probably does matter.

So you can supply a reason why Anet made Keg Brawl the only minigame that’s only once a week?

So, the issue with basing all of your judgments about things on metrics is that it doesn’t address why things happen or why numbers look the way they do. I’m sure you’ve been told this and should probably be an important element of maintaining a business.

So, the question in this thread was never “Is Keg Brawl unpopular?”. It was “Why is Keg Brawl unpopular?” and my suggestion is that it has far more to do with the poor exposure and advertisement of the game, than it ever had to do with how often the activity was accessible.

Meaning, I believe that making it only available 1 day a week had such small positive impact that it is thoroughly outweighed by the myriad of negative things that the update brought. Where as any large positive impact from the update were the result of Daily Activity achievement and the Activity NPC being placed in the center of Lion’s Arch. Again; both of those things could have been done without making keg brawl unplayable.

In my opinion, Keg Brawl would have been more popular if you could have an organized team and get on the same server. That wasn’t how the game was laid out. It was laid out with random teams and sometimes your team sucked.

The other three mini games in the rotation, you basically are responsible for yourself. You might get stuck in a hard arena with a lot of good players, but you sink or swim on your own merits.

Keg Brawl was mishandled from day one. It was too easy for people to throw stupid shots from mid court that new people couldn’t defend against. It was too easy to throw kegs out of bounds. If it weren’t for the achievements it would have been even less popular than it was.

Your idea that it wasn’t popular because it wasn’t advertised is a nice theory but there’s nothing to back it up. There’s just too much stuff to do in the game for people to really get on board with it at this point.

Sorry you don’t agree, but that’s my opinion.

And btw Vayne, you should read Gaile’s posts more often. She repeatedly said ‘we notice a lot of player repeat their opinion, even go in a fight over it, to hope their opinion would gain more value, but fact is, it still remains 1 opinion’. Maybe you don’t get the meaning of this yet? You have probably more posts then any forum member, but you still are one person and your many posts won’t turn you into a clone system.

“Actually I thought the reason was pretty good. It sat there empty for ages on end, and you couldn’t get a game going for most of the day, until it went on a rotation. I know because I used to try.

When it went on the rotation there were actually games played. I’d call that a pretty good reason."
@Vayne

This is your post which has the quintessential argument I was responding to. Furthermore, the post is about bringing back Keg Brawl. As I’ve only talked about the activity rotation as it pertains to bringing back Keg Brawl, I fail to see how either the post is off topic, or how I was the one who hijacked the thread.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

And btw Vayne, you should read Gaile’s posts more often. She repeatedly said ‘we notice a lot of player repeat their opinion, even go in a fight over it, to hope their opinion would gain more value, but fact is, it still remains 1 opinion’. Maybe you don’t get the meaning of this yet? You have probably more posts then any forum member, but you still are one person and your many posts won’t turn you into a clone system.

Sure. I get the meaning.

But since you keep replying to me and make vague attempts at personal attacks, I don’t know why you’d think I wouldn’t respond. However, it doesn’t really matter. I’m leaving this thread and you can get the last word.

Because in the end, though I don’t give a kitten about Keg Brawl anymore, it wouldn’t hurt my game if it was around every day.

That doesn’t mean I think it’s worth doing and I don’t think that Anet is going to do it, but it wouldn’t hurt my game.

And for your sake, I hope it happens…I just don’t think it will.

Keg brawl could use some looking at

(1) Autobalance shouldn’t steal your victory away. It should work like it does in hot join
(2) How about instead of running on a weekly schedule, activities run on a 4 day schedule, so keg brawl isn’t always on Sunday’s?
(3) keg recoveries and assists are nearly impossible to get in normal play. The achievements for these are only gained from cheating

Dark Magi.8947:

As the thread name says will the Keg Brawling return? For those who do not remember what it was. Keg brawling was the mini game in the Norn City of Hoelbrak. It was removed like a month after the game was released and has yet to make a return…

Any thoughts?

You are certainly misinformed. It is on rotation like any other activity. I played it a couple of days ago.

You just can’t start one whenever you want, you have to wait until it is up on rotation.

I’d like to chime in with a slightly different perspective. I was a latecomer to KB – I tried it out at launch but found the controls clunky (and also wasn’t a very good player at all yet, because, launch) and didn’t go back for a long time. Thanks to the Daily Activity achievements, I started giving it a shot on Sat/Sun, and began to find I liked it, at least enough to try to get the activity achievements.

I guess maybe I had the perfect onboarding to the game, because through the weeks I went up against a lot of different skilled players, each of whom seemed to specialize in a different tactic. It was like Megaman, I was able to absorb their unique powers, so to speak, by studying and playing them, and over time got better at the game. I found myself wanting to complete the Kegmaster achievement to actually show pride in a game mode I liked, not to just tick a box. To this day, every time I start to get kitteny and think I am super awesome I come across players who are better than me at some aspect or do something slightly different that I can learn from, which is humbling and fun.

When I was doing the achievements, I certainly found it very frustrating that the game was only available once a week. I liked playing and wanted to keep progressing, and even playing a ton on that one day it was slow for some of them. Selfishly, now that I’m done with grinding, I kind of like that KB is a weekly event, just because I like doing lots of stuff in GW2, and LOVE Keg Brawl, so having a day when I can say “this is my Keg Brawl day” knowing I’m not gonna get much else done is helpful to my sanity. I have a feeling that a good number of the other top players feel the same way, mentally marking out that time block for KB, and we’d see less coverage of skilled players if it were available more often.

That said, I also think there’s room for a private mode of the game available at any time, so interested parties could coordinate tournaments or practice sessions. It would be even better if in the private instance you could choose teams a la hotjoin to get balanced matchups. I also agree that activities as a whole are poorly managed overall, and could be a MUCH bigger part of the longevity of the game if they were given more attention.