BHC an opinion

[lightsage]

There are several threads concerning BHC currently on these forums. They have some overlap and to make some points in these threads I’m tempted to argument things that’d make them go off topic. In an attempt to avoid this, I have written the following here:

The general consensus appears to be that BHC Is a contest for the ‘elite fighters’ as a display of skill and strength. I’d assume the aim of participants ought to be to win. As a side note I like to think it’s supposed to be fun.

Let’s first have a look at the fighting part. Back in the day having to get a victory was introduced to make it more challenging (Ann. 395). Through time the challenge has become smaller and smaller, angiens, unholy priests and tokens have resulted in the stronger players simply being able to crush the weaker ones and get a victory out of it. The ritual I personally use I’d also be likely to use in a tournament or torch contest in outgoing fights for the best chance at beating my opponent. Those that are weaker than the one they’re attacking generally use mirrorritual which enables an easy victory. Frankly through, there’s not a lot of fighting going on.

So what does happen? Well other than the spells being thrown about making people unable to attack or attack the way they intend there’s a lot of movement. Back when I participated in the normal HC what you’d do if someone took your heads is either hit them back right away or wait. There wasn’t that many places they could go and if you waited you might be able to take the more efficient path. They’d never get that far as AP counts were low as well as other people going for the heads. Now, it’s different though. Because of certain items and high max AP counts, people don’t run out easily. Assuming two players click at the same rate, you’ll need to chase to the end of the map to have a shot at catching up. This is not a huge problem with people hiding in Golemus or Loreroot as they are essentially a circle and you could catch up from either side with multiple contestants. Necrovion is a bit harder but manageable.

The edge of the map is a long way with the current size of it. Most of the new scenes available are located in the tribunal. They have high AP cost and it takes a long time to get through the tribunal even if you use all the consumables you can produce. There is one exception to this: People with tribunal land loyalty. With enough of this they can go all over with barely any AP limitations. This makes it near impossible to catch someone who does have plenty of land loyalty there. The difference in AP cost is just too big even if you were to chase with several people.

As for the rewards, personally I’m not really willing to put in effort for the difference between first and second place. Don’t get me wrong I’d love to have a BHC medal and an extra morph for the collection does look fancy. However, I considered skilldamage a downside to winning first place, a price you have to pay. Second place offers a tainted, which is worth roughly the same as a morph according to recent sales, is a lot less effort and the BHC medal versus the skilldamage is a close call. In addition to this I don’t really find BHC in its current setup enjoyable.

Why don’t I have fun in this contest? It’s boring. There’s hardly any action, head balls get picked up and shipped off to remote locations, if you approach the location the people there have an advantage and are gone before you get there. When you get the heads, all you can do is sit somewhere and wait for people to come for you. You can’t hunt heads because you’d enter territory with high viscosity making you run out of AP and turning you into a sitting duck. I don’t find it enjoyable to merely be able to refresh my screen every 15 seconds or so to see rather someone is moving towards me. The contest is way too long to be able to maintain that as well. It will take a long time before anyone hits 400k. On top of the value difference between first and second place in my opinion is so small, I’m rather content to just pick up second. Currently, I appear to be able to do this while hanging about MDP.

BHC has become a test of endurance; most people can’t compete because they lack the creatures or spells. Amongst the remaining there’s hardly anyone finding it enjoyable and for the time required to be invested should it really be a competition the rewards are lacklustre. BHC is currently merely grinding higher return than your investment. A test of endurance. It should, however, not be mistaken for a contest of strength or skill.



[color=#808080][size=2]I’d appreciate people out to discuss certain specific points in detail to open a new topic and avoid derailing this one.

Should you have need for clarification on what I’m trying to say, a PM would be preferable to a post as it avoids cluttering the topic and makes it easier to read. If needed I will edit the clarification into this post.[/size][/color]