Guild Wars 2

There has been a lot of discussion surrounding Sanctum Sprint and people stopping to let others have first place. Is it just good sportsmanship, or is it ruining the fun of those who want to play the race as intended and earn their first place?

Today, for the first time in a long time, I stopped by keg brawl, which happens to be included in the dailies. When trying to play the game as intended, I was told not to try and stop the other team scoring, because everyone was trying to get their assists. I was supposed to “play on my own side” and make the score come out even between the teams.

Clearly there’s a problem here with the way achievements and mini-games intersect. It divides the player base between those who actually want to play the mini-game and hope to get their achievements/dailies along the way, and those who just want to exploit their way to achievement completion.

Kneejerk reaction would be to remove minigames from achievements altogether. Achievement hunters can go off and get their points in other parts of the games, leaving people who actually want to play the minigames to enjoy them. The consequence of this, though, would probably make it so that it’d be hard to find anyone ever doing mini-games, outside of the current living story one. Would people be regularly playing keg brawl if there was no daily tie in?

Is there a solution to this that would keep people playing the mini-games as intended?

That always happens with minigames though. Similar stuff happened in Crab toss, to let people take turns getting first.

I wouldn’t say it’s good sportsmanship. After all, if people are letting others win, I’d argue it’s more akin to sports in schools nowadays, where everyone wins.

IMO, good sportsmanship is not badmouthing the losers if you win, or having a strop if you lose crying ’It’s not fair, I want that achievement too. That guy cheated, I call hax’ ect ect

It’s just a minigame.

If you want to win, you run in first. If you want to flex and stop right before the finish line, then do it. There are no rules to the Sanctum Sprint minigame.

I laugh at the people who goes ‘’I will report you because you used the shortcut.’’

As said, there are -no- written rules on how Sanctum Sprint is supposed to be done.

My apologies, this was really about my experience in keg brawl, systemic exploiting of mini-games for achievements and harassing of those who don’t. I accidentally posted after writing just the first paragraph, and had to go back and edit in the rest.

Almost all of the runs of Sprint I have played were very competitive. I think I’ve only seen somebody stand shy of the finish line once or twice.

I’d say for the Keg Brawl that does take away the fun of it. Of course there is nothing stopping you from just scoring. The other team would either have to try and stop you resulting in the actual game being played, or you should just win rather quickly.

As for the sanctum sprint, I have a large post on it in the Bazaar sub forum, but long story short, I don’t think it takes away from the fun at all to let others get first.

If you are second, or third, and you come to the finish line and see win people waiting there and you want to earn your first, then I suggest you wait there too until someone elses crosses and attempt your first in subsequent games.

There are some players who the achievement is more important thent he mini game, this will be especially true now that we are rewarded for acheivment points. It takes nothing away from that actual expirience of the race if people are waiting at the end.

CryxTryx.9208:

I’d say for the Keg Brawl that does take away the fun of it. Of course there is nothing stopping you from just scoring. The other team would either have to try and stop you resulting in the actual game being played, or you should just win rather quickly.

True, as long as you are willing to ignore the harassment in chat. I suppose you could just put all the other players on ignore.

Good points about Sanctum Sprint

Good points. Though I felt a lot better about finally winning first after trying over eight or nine games and coming in 2nd a few times than if I had blown over the finish line only to see people standing there waiting. That’s what happened one of the times people did stop at the end.

The real trouble is when players don’t choose to stop at the end and are subject to harassment by those who have.

Gibson.4036:

CryxTryx.9208:

I’d say for the Keg Brawl that does take away the fun of it. Of course there is nothing stopping you from just scoring. The other team would either have to try and stop you resulting in the actual game being played, or you should just win rather quickly.

True, as long as you are willing to ignore the harassment in chat. I suppose you could just put all the other players on ignore.

Good points about Sanctum Sprint

Good points. Though I felt a lot better about finally winning first after trying over eight or nine games and coming in 2nd a few times than if I had blown over the finish line only to see people standing there waiting. That’s what happened one of the times people did stop at the end.

The real trouble is when players don’t choose to stop at the end and are subject to harassment by those who have.

Um, yeah I’ll agree with you some what there. I did eventually start giving away wins myself when players became angry which is not all that fair.

The flip side of that coin is I don’t think everyone has an equal opportunity to come in first. I have a great ping, and I’m great at the race. I’ve come in first up to 9 times in a row with only 2 or 3 of those being close races. Someone with a poor ping doesn’t have a chance really.

It doesn’t REALLY take anything away from me If I stop and /sleep at the finish line instead of finishing 1st. I don’t gain and special loot, status or points aside from seeing the scoreboard at the end.

It seems unfair that it is demanded of me by other players, but at the same time I see their perspective.

I don’t troll a lot. But when someone tells me to stop playing the game for the achievement, I decide to completely ruin it for them. And when I’m tired of reading the chat, or their “I’ll report you to Anet”, they join the dozens of players already on my ignore list.

For Sanctum Sprint, no one has the right to ask player to stop before the finish line. If they want to stop they will, if they don’t want to, try to beat them.

RedStar.4218:

I don’t troll a lot. But when someone tells me to stop playing the game for the achievement, I decide to completely ruin it for them. And when I’m tired of reading the chat, or their “I’ll report you to Anet”, they join the dozens of players already on my ignore list.

For Sanctum Sprint, no one has the right to ask player to stop before the finish line. If they want to stop they will, if they don’t want to, try to beat them.

I’m not sure it hurts to ask. Depening on the person though it might hurt to be TOLD what to do.

The other side of the coin is that IMO you can really only make that request if you are coming in the top 3 consistatnly. I mentioned in my rather long post on this subject here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/bazaar/The-Zepher-Sanctum-debate-and-tips/first#post2407318 ,

The first time I did decide to give up first for someone was because I saw he had come in 2nd the last 4 or 5 times I came in first.

There is not much point in me waiting at the finish line if the person requesting comes in 7 or 8th because not everyone is going to wait.

This is what happens when you offer rewards for achievement points. People begin farming anything and everything to benefit from it. I’ve got a ton of AP myself but am really not a big fan of them electing to give things out for it because of stuff like this.

CryxTryx.9208:

I’m not sure it hurts to ask. Depening on the person though it might hurt to be TOLD what to do.

Oops, used the wrong word, I meant “no one has the right to force you” xD

It happens for me every single time it’s the Keg Steals in dailies.
And it has been happening for quite some time:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Keg-Brawl-Cheating-Issue/first#post1908136

They grab a keg, leave the field, and the rest of the team ends up unbalanced or even empty while 2-4 guys thrash the poor 1-2 guys left in the other team.

This is like when people hijacked pickup areas to do 1vs1 duels.

If you wanted to play normally, they’ll harass you, even though you have all the right in the world to play as intended.

The solution to that was custom arenas.
You set the arena, you set the rules, and whoever doesn’t follow them, gets kicked (they are still working on permissions and stuff, but the idea is there).

So far I’ve gotten all of the Keg daily achievements playing normally, but I have to spend a lot of time grabbing kegs from cheaters that go outside the bounds of the map to hide and do their dailies or the other achievements.

For people who want to play differently, there should be a way to let them do activity custom arenas or something like that, just disabling the achievements if they password-protect them, but still being able to cheat their achievements if they want to, as it’s their arena and they do not bother anyone in the pickup arenas. They will have to pay the price of renting the arena, so it’s a fair exchange, achievement points are a sort of currency anyways.

For people who want to cheat in the pickup arena, there should be a match manipulation/cheating option in reports (available for pickup non-custom arenas, tournaments and activities), and invisible walls in the borders of the field in Keg Brawl, so even if they do cheat, at least we don’t have to run all over the place to grab their kegs and put them back into play until they get tired and leave.

Also, when the match ends, there’s a little time until the map resets. Maybe those ‘technique’ achievements like steals and fumbles should count after the match during that time, so they can wait until that time to do them, and play normally during the match.

Or maybe they should replace all keg brawl achievements with victory ones, so each team always focuses just on winning, although there’s still the Activity achievements.

Also, there should be a global daily limit of 10 daily achievement points and bring a 5th random PvP achievement that changes each day.
That way, when there’s 11 PvE/WvW and 5 PvP, you can choose which 10 you want to do. Get the laurel doing the 5PvE or 4PvP you want, and get the remaining 6-5 daily points doing other stuff, instead being able to do every single thing.
So these daily cheaters will probably rather do something else for that daily 10.

Gibson.4036:

Is there a solution to this that would keep people playing the mini-games as intended?

Incredibly easy. Just don’t make dailies that reward things other than winning.

0/1 Keg Brawl Wins should be the only achievement in Keg Brawl.

As to farming assists, I’ve played over 800 Keg brawls and am coming close to my 500 wins. In all that time I’ve gotten 136/500 assists. The way assists work is illogical, and cannot be gained legitimately except in the rarest of circumstances and only at the expense of your teams performance.

Gibson.4036:

Is there a solution to this that would keep people playing the mini-games as intended?

More incentive to win. The reward for 1st place and 2nd-12th in SS isn’t that great, give 1st place something worth wanting and less people will let others win. It’s not foolproof, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Also, there should be a global daily limit of 10 daily achievement points and bring a 5th random PvP achievement that changes each day.

I think this would be a cool improvement.

Complaining about people letting you win….

Zacchary.6183:

Complaining about people letting you win….

There’s always two teams.

Some people in one team letting you win means that others in the other team is being forced to lose.

I don’t mind letting someone else get first if they need it for the achievement and ask for it, but harassing people who just want to play to win is ridiculous. It’s a RACE. You’re SUPPOSED to be trying to win.

Incidentally, I’m glad I earned my title the hard way.

I think that each minigame needs to have 2 different “leagues”: casual and competitive. Anyone can join in a casual match to farm achievement points. Anyone can play competitive mode, but you would have to pay an entry fee, and winners would get a reward.

That’s the only way I could see to fix this problem, yet still keep people playing the minigames.

I don’t mind throwing a win in something like sanctum sprint once I’ve got my acheivement, it’s a limited time so I say let other people get a shot at first. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to race like the kittenens to get to the finish, I just might not be in a hurry to cross the finish line. Ill wait for the first 5 or so people to finish before I go.
However I don’t approve of abusing the system to the point where the outcome is totally fixed. Now If a small group of players go out of their way to ensure victory for one person or a select group of people repeatedly then I draw the line.

I got this again today.

It’s getting worse and worse.

This time about 5 people were doing it. Sometimes 1&4, sometimes 2&3.

They keep taking kegs out of the field and throwing them to each other and doing other things to cheat their activity achievements (not just the dailies), and harassing and insulting anyone who wanted to pick the kegs and bring them back into play.

This is simply unfun. Some sot of quick and dirty temporary fix should be done, like an invisible wall so they can’t leave the field, or even disabling the activity and removing it from the dailies until its issues are fixed.

Zacchary.6183:

Complaining about people letting you win….

Um… yeah. It makes the game pointless and dull. I wouldn’t think that would be so hard to understand.

Gibson.4036:

Is there a solution to this that would keep people playing the mini-games as intended?

Single player instances, or have the groups added randomly so the aforementioned players are less likely to be in the same one. PVP in GW1 had the random grouping system iirc.

Gibson.4036:

Zacchary.6183:

Complaining about people letting you win….

Um… yeah. It makes the game pointless and dull. I wouldn’t think that would be so hard to understand.

Err you mean every mini game isnt pointless and dull and UNFUN to begin with? Once I got my achieves never going to play these time wasters. By the way if you see me in a mini game you know wat to do

TheDaiBish.9735:

I wouldn’t say it’s good sportsmanship. After all, if people are letting others win, I’d argue it’s more akin to sports in schools nowadays, where everyone wins.

IMO, good sportsmanship is not badmouthing the losers if you win, or having a strop if you lose crying ’It’s not fair, I want that achievement too. That guy cheated, I call hax’ ect ect

Yes mini games are esport spin-offs of the great esport success that is GW2.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Gibson.4036:

Zacchary.6183:

Complaining about people letting you win….

Um… yeah. It makes the game pointless and dull. I wouldn’t think that would be so hard to understand.

Err you mean every mini game isnt pointless and dull and UNFUN to begin with? Once I got my achieves never going to play these time wasters. By the way if you see me in a mini game you know wat to do

Keg Brawl can actually be immensely entertaining when everyone plays legitimately. I’ve had great fun with it. But it only takes one person jumping over the sidelines with a keg to unbalance the teams and ruin that fun.

I have less problems when it’s Keg Brawl Victor for the daily as opposed to stealer or fumble forcer. I agree with an earlier poster that this should be the only achievement.

Regarding people farming the Kegmaster title… yeah they’re annoying, but whatever, they should have their stupid title soon enough and get out of our hair. It’s dailies that are more of an issue because those are ongoing.

ZBeeblebrox.4928:

Keg Brawl can actually be immensely entertaining when everyone plays legitimately. I’ve had great fun with it. But it only takes one person jumping over the sidelines with a keg to unbalance the teams and ruin that fun.

I have less problems when it’s Keg Brawl Victor for the daily as opposed to stealer or fumble forcer. I agree with an earlier poster that this should be the only achievement.

Regarding people farming the Kegmaster title… yeah they’re annoying, but whatever, they should have their stupid title soon enough and get out of our hair. It’s dailies that are more of an issue because those are ongoing.

I feel pretty confident that > 98% of GW2 players disagree with you. I was in games with 6 players at most at primetime with a daily achieve thrown in.

If Anet refuses to get the message, there is nothing that can be done.