Guild Wars 2

Situation:
Playing spvp, my team is winning, so people on the other team leave.

Problem:
The losing team now has a significantly worse chance of catching up, which makes the match not fun.

Current solution:
Autobalance a player to keep the teams even in strength. Select one at random if no one volunteers.

My reaction:
Please don’t be me, please don’t be me… le sigh it’s me.

Now I never liked this, but with the new team select option, there’s a new element of serious rage-worthy grief… I’m trying to do my best on this team way behind, and to my surprise, I run into the very opponents from the other team that left.

In my own personal experience:
I’ve seen three different players manage to switch to the winning team with the help of autobalance. One of these players did it in two consecutive games. And in the bizarro game that made me compelled to write a post here, three players from the losing team managed to switch with the autobalance to the winning team at the very end.

I understand the importance of autobalance, as much as it sucks to be put on the other team, trying to keep the competition somewhat interesting has its place.

Now the game can’t be perfect, but I hope most people will agree with me that when someone can leave a losing team, force members of that team to get autobalanced, then rejoin the winning team… is pretty ridiculous, unfun, and should not be part of the game.

What I would love to see:

I would really love the option (if I have been autobalanced) to select to go back to my original team if new players do come in. Similar to the volunteer when autobalance is implemented, you get a choice to rejoin your original team. If several people have been autobalanced, and they all want to be returned to their original team, select one of them at random. This hopefully should make it more riskier for people who simply jump in to a game at the last minute just looking for a easy win (another, but more minor pet peeve in spvp).

I know from reading a dev post in another thread that a leaver penalty is coming down the pipes. I seriously hope part of this penalty will help make sure leaving to switch to the winning team is also impossible. Right now, for me, autobalance feels like a dirty word in pvp.

I’m not a regular forum reader, so I apologize if this topic has been brought up before. But having this happen to me upset me enough that I felt the need to share. I hope I’ve expressed myself in a constructive way, especially considering how much the situation annoyed me.

I’d really like to see the devs address this issue, too.
I just got into sPvP after the patch (playing a warrior) and autobalance was quite a pain for me, too. Especially the team-swap option is pretty senseless.
In my opinion you should not be able to swap the team on your own and the autobalance should kick in before one team has 200 points of a lead. So here is my idea for making sPvP a bit more “professional”, considering ANet’s ambitions to be a serious eSport game:
I’d like to see a system similar to those of popular MOBA games where you queue up for every game and wait for all players (or an amount of players which can be devided into two equal teams, so that others can join in later). The players should of course encounter opponents of a similar skill level, which you could for example implement by evaluating the data of the leaderboard (which was worked over recently if I’m informed correctly). That would also have the consequence that you would create a “pro-level” of player skill, because the better your opponents become, the better you become yourself. That’d also be very eSport promoting: you’ll never have a game considered as eSport without having a pro-level player tier.
I’d even say that the players should not be autobalanced during the match, just as it is handled in MOBAs: the better team wins.
Still, there is a problem that occurs: players should be able to communicate. Without communication that whole queueing system would not work. A system like that and the chaotic state of teamplay would only make the community be mad at queueing times. Maybe a pingsystem and a better use of the “world map drawing sytem”, but for the minimap, and about 30sec of time for organising your team before the game starts could be a solution to that.
What should not change though, is the idea of hot joining PvP. Queuing should be done in less than a minute so that sPvP does not lose its fast pace.

Any other and/or more ideas?

Edit: just had a look at another thread, where it seemed as if Anet was working on a queue system, so please be soft in judging my knowledge of current affairs

Well, you are talking about hotjoin, right?

I always considered it nothing more than a fun-mode, where you duel and test builds. But to do this, I always pick lowly-populated servers, trying not to hinder those lovely rookies who want to get glory.

IMHO, the most important thing they should do is wipe out 8v8 maps. That mode is just pointless to me.

Guess so, just got into PvPing.

Why would you wipe out 8v8 maps? Because of less AoE potential?

Because they are a mess. Too chaotic to play decently and understand the game mechanics.

When i was new, I played into hotjoin. Getting jumped by three people all the time. The only rule in 8v8 is stick with the zerg. Not a great idea.

For instance: there’s no way you can bunker in 8v8. If you played there, and then you start tourneys, you might have a bad surprise.

And IMHO you can’t learn anything if most of the fights you play are 5v5s on a point, and you can barely tell where YOUR character is.

I agree. 8 vs 8 on the current map size can be messy at times. Especially when a lot players are carrying high particle effects and A.I controlled pets. It can be very frustrating when you have 2 ranger hounds on you, 3 minions and a phantasm..sigh..and that’s not even the players.

If the maps were considerably larger and had more nodes there is reason for larger teams to spread out and less chance of dog piling in the middle. Also some of the maps lack a certain sandbox feel. They are very linear in how you get about them. If your in teams of smaller size, it is still about nodes and holding them, so larger maps with more nodes for smaller teams still doesn’t make a negative impact.

I would also love to see that when you target closet, you can’t target pets unless you manually do so. Trying to target an asura among an elite engineer drop is difficult. You can try to select next and you have to toggle through all the turrets, a coupe of birds, a minion, throw in a few clones and finally you got the person your wanting to engage.

There is also few things more depressing than when your team gets wiped 67-500. You get to the point tally and 90% of your team is under rank 6-8 and the oppositions lowest rank member is 27..the entry level players just had their behinds farmed terribly to the point that i wouldn’t blame them if they never wanted to play pvp again.

I am not saying PvP is not without it’s high points, but their is no synergy between PvE and PvP either..no natural progression. Nothing in the PvE world prepares a player for the assault THEY WILL face in PvP..they don’t even get the comfort of at least having their armour skin..so even if they do get ganked, at least they can still look good getting face rolled.

There is just this feel about PvP where a lot is missing, but also something addicitive that makes you come back hoping that this time those missing pieces will be there, but they never are. It eventually for me has lead to me only looking for maps where few players are. Even then when I find a map where it is 4 vs 4..I’ll be facing the same people next round more or less. The same people I thrashed last time I will thrash this time. The same people where the duel was fairly even and enjoyable, well sadly they’re on my team this time, so no bragging rights competitions will happen this round..and that same person would is just traited so well to absolutely destroy me that they continue to destroy me until I retrait and come back.

I would also love to see obstacle events. An event that randomly happens where both teams are required to dismiss it..just to remind people occasionally that were all here playing a game. A giant svanir that destroys all unless all destroy them first would make for a pleasant reminder it’s a game and keep moral high between players..once the obstacle is gone, back to being enemies again.