Guild Wars 2

Hello, just a suggestion that I thought might help to make custom games a little bit more fun, I realise there may be an obvious reason why this isn’t done, if there is such a reason please accept my apologies.

The Problem
Due to the nature of custom arena, players will frequently join a match while it is under-way. In the event that there are even numbers of players on each team then such a player joining the match is able to choose which team they would like to join and understandably will usually choose to join the team that is currently ahead, which gives the winning team an even greater edge through numerical superiority.

The effect of this is to make games incredibly difficult to win for the team that is behind (which may well be down to number imbalance in the first place), as at some point in the game there is bound to be an odd number of players present and so the winning team gets to push home their advantage.

As anecdotal evidence I have been in the situation several times where we have started a custom game 2v3 or 3v4 and been behind on points. Another player has joined (making even numbers) and we have started to fight back but then a further player joins, picks the winning team and that is gg.

TL;DR version – the winning team will often have a numerical advantage in custom arena but the losing team will almost never have an extra player meaning they slip further and further behind.

A solution
When players join a game with an even number of players after the game has started, they should be forced to join the team that is behind. This means that rather than the team with the upper hand pushing even further ahead, it will balance things out a bit and make for a closer game which is more fun for everybody.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I sincerely apologise if I have missed some obvious reason why this wouldn’t work.

p.s. I anticipate a response to this might be to go and play unranked/ranked arena if I want to have a fair game. I can see the logic in this but 1.) I am still learning pvp and I would just be a burden on teamates if I did which is unfair on them. 2.) Custom Arena should be a legitimate and enjoyable option for people who just want to learn and have a bit of fun.

I don’t think it’s a bad suggestion, although here is at least one possible limitation/problem if you want to hear some cons:
Imagine a 4v4, both teams fight hard. Score is now 300v150, so one player quits in team #2. Two new players joining, both go to team 2 with these rules and team 2 now gets the win because they have more players. Players of team 1 are frustrated.

Then again, it depends on if you care about winning or not, capping or not, etc. I’ve seen it all in hotjoin.

On a side note, I think this problem was actually less of an issue when hotjoin was 8v8.
The player difference was comparatively less: with 5 players, 1 player is 20%. With 8 players, 1 player is suddenly only 13% so it’s more forgiving when you’re missing one player – you can compensate.
Also, even with players leaving all the time, you always had at least 5-6 bodies to cover your 3 bases and objectives.

Are these 8v8 still available for random servers? I don’t think so.

hi

your ps right there shows a lack of self confidence. man up. if you know the layout of the maps, youre ready to leave the cancer that is hotjoin. you will only be able to learn the proper tactics that you dont know by playing a game mode that isnt cancer. the best solution is to move to unranked.

you will fail while you are learning. i guarantee it. but this is a game, and failure is something you should learn from, because it does not mean the end of your consciousness.

if you die 10x in a match and someone calls you out for it, defuse the situation by saying “yep, i suck. pls wat do?” and if they say “quit”, block them, because that isnt a viable option.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to stay in Hotjoin. It’s the mode I normally stick to as well. I’ve tried out Unranked a few times, but I know from that experience that I’m not quite good enough to make it at that level of PvP. (My reflexes aren’t as good as they used to be, and coupled with my ping from Australia means that I’m usually operating at a 200+ ms lag compared to my US opponents.)

At the same time, recognise that Hotjoin is not really the place for “fair and balanced competition”. Hotjoin is just as its official name suggests, for “Practice”. It is a place where people go to try out new professions, new builds, or to farm their Dailies. Players are free to join and leave at any time, so if you see that the opposing team is obviously stacking (and if you haven’t already gotten your Autobalance win buff), nobody will blame you for leaving a sinking ship either.

Now, if you want to change it so that people don’t just stack on the winning team in Hotjoin all the time, here’s my suggestion:

If you pick “Random Team” when you join a match, you get a special buff that DOUBLES the rewards at the end of the match (capped at the winner’s normal reward). This means that if you picked a random team, and your team ended up losing, you’d still get the same rewards as if you’d lucked out onto the winning team anyway. This has the following benefits:

1. There is no incentive to hop teams. You’d get the same reward staying on your random original team as you would switching to the winning team. This discourages “Autobalance Wars”.

2. Because rewards are calculated based on the length of time someone is in the match, it encourages people to join the match at once instead of watching until it becomes clear which team is superior. This discourages waiting in Spectate and should thus help solve the issue of 4v5.

These changes means it’s most profitable to instantly hit “Random Team” the moment a match starts, and then see it out to the end, win or lose.

Note that the Random Team buff only applies to Hotjoin; it does not appear in Unranked or Ranked.