While I understand OP concern and point of view, I think this idea is like forcing flower to bloom by punching it repeatedly.
Issues
- Glory farming = zerging.
- 8v8 is an unplayable mess of AOE and spamming.
Yeah – I hate that too. But at least – there are some players playing now. It’s not like Anet didn’t see it was coming. Playerbase interested more in clean PvP moved to greener grass already (that’s my opinion). We’re left with what we got. If You take glory farming, zerging, 8vs8 from players who enjoy that, PvP playerbase will shrink even further. So yeah. Good concept, not sure if it’s good idea alltogether.
- No one defends points (key aspect of the conquest gametype).
Not newcomers/casuals fault, that main reason to play conquest doesn’t seem appealing at all. Look what Anet did with PvP daily some time ago – they turned medicore ideas to improve PvP daily into some horrific chores by absurdly bad execution. “New” abandoned daily, was promoting, no, not promoting – it was almost forcing zerg attitude. So they got back to old daily, that is only appreciating zerg attitude. Step back in right direction. How ironically. If You add to the pot those guys who like to do duels etc. You’ve got Your answer.
- No teamplay: general disregard for allies (doesn’t affect personal glory gain).
- Random joining / leaving affects teamspirit and social motivation.
Well… yeah. But I doesn’t see as a problem. Or big problem at least. It’s a hot join – I join there to do my daily fast way if the mood hits me. Or to farm some purple points. Or to kill some time before my guildies will gather for a dungeon. Join/leave anytime I like gives me flexibility, that You want to deny me, for reasons I do not understand.
If I want higher culture of PvP I go for a tournament. Premade that is…
- Lack of educational aids <> initial learning curve of the gametype.
Heh… tell me how to make this education thingy in more tournament environment and I’ll buy You a beer. I help from time to time strangers meet in PvP – the thing is that it doesn’t happen too often, because PvP is hazardous environment in almost every game. That, and the fact that I’m not super pro winning tournaments, so I’m no authority for even newcomers. But when I help people to learn something (mostly new to the game friends from RL) I’ll do it in hot join… because it’s easier. People don’t treat it as seriously as tPvP, they are nicer overall and leave game when they are asked politely, so we can waste as much time without arena tokens as we want. Can’t really see that coming without hot join.
- Varrying skilllevels makes it unenjoyable for both new and veteran players.
Disagree – it’s awesome farmfest. Sometimes I find people on matching skills or better than me, so I can’t even say it’s predictable. And there is something sweet with carrying almost singlehandedly a loosing team to a win. Never saw that in tPvP. There is no autobalancing there, best player on my can’t suddenly change his team to rise from knees other. Doesn’t happen to often, but I was in that positions once or twice and I can tell You it feels better than winning tPvP match with good premade against good premade. Not as rewarding in term of points etc., but feels awesome.
- Autobalancing restricts playing with friends.
For this, You’ve got arena tokens and premade tPvP. So actually You say, You want to deny those who like that kind of russian rullete their shoot, because You don’t like it? … yeah. Right.
- Gap between Hotjoin and Tournaments on multiple fronts.
What is the “gap” You are talking about? That two different types of Conquest doesn’t seem clone like to You? I say GOOD. That was the idea. If the hot join should be more like tPvP, it would be unnecessary, so – as You imply, Anet should let it go. But it’s not, that’s why it’s still necessary however broken it is.
- Map rotation: no one likes Raid of the Capricorn.
For one – I like it. Actually it’s the best map (in my opinion) to work with newcomers on some easy tactic actions with proper coordination.
And I can drink to that!
While I agree that we’ve got looooot of bad things in hot join, I doesn’t see cutting it down as an answer. I can live with semi-broken hot join if Anet will fix bigger problem that is corrupting PvP – the whole concept, borringness and apathy that is known as “Conquest”. And no viable rewards for anyone who bought GW2 to play only PvP (but again, that is my opinion).
Forcing people to play conquest more properly doesn’t change fact that whole mode will get old after 2 weeks of playing. With or without hot join.