Guild Wars 2

When I kill or cap (even in tournaments), my rank point total doesn’t instantaneously go up like it used to. I get all the rank/glory points I earned in that match added to my total at the end of each match only. I’ve confirmed that this happened to at least one other player. Is this intended? Perhaps as a way to encourage people to finish matches?

No sure if trolling.jpg

Not trolling…

This just prevents people playing tournaments to play hot join while waiting. Sure you can play hot join, but you won’t be able to get any rank points there since you probably won’t be till the end of the match.

Amplifier.1704:

This just prevents people playing tournaments to play hot join while waiting. Sure you can play hot join, but you won’t be able to get any rank points there since you probably won’t be till the end of the match.

THIS.

I love to play hot join while I wait for my next match in SoloQ which can take around 5-20 minutes of waiting. Now, I have to just sit there and wait. It’s awful.

What were you thinking? Now I cannot progress at all sometimes. I have a pregnant wife with twins and there are several times I have to leave a game to assist her so that means my glory I have earned goes to waste. Or if I DC 20.000 times which my guildies has started to do much recently. Thanks…………………………………

EDIT: AND WE HAVE ALREADY ASKED YOU TO BAN GLORY FARM SERVERS AND REVOKE THEIR CUSTOM ARENA PRIVILEGES! SO THIS ACTION IS WAY TO DESPERATE AND STUPID!

I have no problem with this change, I realize some people have valid reasons for going AFK or leaving a match, but as the person doing this, if there is a price to be paid, it should be by you, not the other players. I don’t see this as unreasonable at all.

Amplifier.1704:

This just prevents people playing tournaments to play hot join while waiting. Sure you can play hot join, but you won’t be able to get any rank points there since you probably won’t be till the end of the match.

Exactly this.

Aeranima.2853:

What were you thinking? Now I cannot progress at all sometimes. I have a pregnant wife with twins and there are several times I have to leave a game to assist her so that means my glory I have earned goes to waste. Or if I DC 20.000 times which my guildies has started to do much recently. Thanks…………………………………

EDIT: AND WE HAVE ALREADY ASKED YOU TO BAN GLORY FARM SERVERS AND REVOKE THEIR CUSTOM ARENA PRIVILEGES! SO THIS ACTION IS WAY TO DESPERATE AND STUPID!

Do you play videogames with a pregnant wife ?…-_-

Aeranima.2853:

What were you thinking? Now I cannot progress at all sometimes. I have a pregnant wife with twins and there are several times I have to leave a game to assist her so that means my glory I have earned goes to waste. Or if I DC 20.000 times which my guildies has started to do much recently. Thanks…………………………………

EDIT: AND WE HAVE ALREADY ASKED YOU TO BAN GLORY FARM SERVERS AND REVOKE THEIR CUSTOM ARENA PRIVILEGES! SO THIS ACTION IS WAY TO DESPERATE AND STUPID!

OK this dude is SERIOUSLY overreacting, but I suppose there wouldn’t be any harm in rank/glory points being earned immediately rather than at the end of the match IN HOTJOIN ONLY. It is “hotjoin” after all, you should be able to drop-in/drop-out freely. You’d just lose out on end-of-match bonuses. That would allow the very very casual players, who don’t have enough free time to play even one match without interruption, to still progress.

Absolutely shouldn’t be allowed in tournaments though, as it’ll only encourage leechers.

They changed it to prevent farming. The problem is a lot of the fun-nature of hotjoins was the ability to PvP when you weren’t able to commit the time to a tournament queue, were waiting for that queue, or didn’t need a full match (sometimes I’d try a build and within a few minutes realize it was crap, why finish the game?), or other such things. It’d still be nice to get my few points instead of never getting anything.

The “fix” just strikes me as lazy. It’d make it so you could only get through a game every 4 minutes, instead of 3 minutes where it was for farming before, and it made it require a small amount more work to abuse. Unless you have no system that can see the amount of glory gained, it should have been possible to fix by giving an auto-ban to people who did ridiculous things like gain a full game’s worth of glory in 2 minutes.

This change really does hurt the legitimate pvp’er. I too would hot join while waiting for a queue to pop. I still do because I enjoy playing the game, but at the same time I would like to progress my character. Sometimes I finish matches within the time, sometimes I don’t.

Part of the problem is that earning PVP levels is such a grind. It can take so many completed matches to gain a level. Sure, level means nothing to some, but it does offer some reward such as a different rank finisher to show progress (still waiting to see a dragon finisher on me) or skins you can’t get at lower levels.

While I honestly do not see the change of finishing a match to get points being reverted back, how about a compromise. Allow the “Glory Booster” to increase glory earned AND increase PVP level points earned. Or create a “PVP Exp Booster.” Perhaps make it something that comes from Gold Rank chests or Tourney chests.

This might sound harsh but in my opinion hotjoin shouldn’t give you rank points to begin with.

John Corpening.9847:

This was to stop an exploit players were using to farm glory and rank points. You will still get all the glory and RP you earned during the match when the match concludes.

well, it did not stop them.
they are still farming glory and rank points.

what happened is, legitimate players unhappy with this change.

the previous system is working nicely until this broke it.

Kwll.1468:

This might sound harsh but in my opinion hotjoin shouldn’t give you rank points to begin with.

I agree with this a bunch, hotjoin should be for fun, not grinding. Who knows we might get a healthy tournament population if people do their grind in tournaments (and possibly become better players for it)

Amplifier.1704:

This just prevents people playing tournaments to play hot join while waiting. Sure you can play hot join, but you won’t be able to get any rank points there since you probably won’t be till the end of the match.

They should add a feature where if you’re queuing for a tournament, that end of match feature doesn’t take effect.

John Corpening.9847:

This was to stop an exploit players were using to farm glory and rank points. You will still get all the glory and RP you earned during the match when the match concludes.

It still adds to the achievement titles before a game ends. Maybe you should look into that, too.

Remove skyhammer and remove rank points from hotjoin (Glory can stay…noone cares bout glory atm)

Just remove rank points/glory from custom arenas. Hotjoins don’t matter as much because it’s much harder to organize these farms.

John Corpening.9847:

This was to stop an exploit players were using to farm glory and rank points. You will still get all the glory and RP you earned during the match when the match concludes.

This was a very short-sighted change that fixed practically nothing about the exploit and made life worse for legitimate players.

Simply teleporting players before landing back into the waypoint areas and adding an unbreakable knockdown animation for the duration of the remaining spawn timer would have had zero affect on legitimate play and dealt a crushing blow to Skyhammer farmers.

I honestly can’t imagine what could possibly be going on in ANet’s decision making process that could lead them to these kinds of horrible decisions.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391, can you explain what part of the change legitimate players are unhappy with?

i think i can.

atm ur change applies for all maps. even the ones not used for farming. i did play hot join during the wait time for soloq. in 95% of all games i cant finish it if the soloq starts. so atm playing hot join during wait time is the same like staying in hotm and just wait.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Is it possible that this change could help to improve hot join in the long run, though? Just curious what your thoughts are, without bias. I know the feeling of disappointment when something is taken away, but I’d like to know if you think this change could actually help the growth of PvP.

From what I understand, people are upset that they can’t come and go from hot join and still be rewarded before the match ends. If hot join is the place where new players are learning PvP, is it healthy for people to be coming and going as they please? Is it good to promote that habit?

Well its mainly the SoloQ is punished as they have to stand in hotm and wait for a match , there can be 15-20 minutes wait ? this time is usually spent in hotjoin but now they get nothing then means no point really , Im against the change , there needs to be a better way tbh

I think a posters suggestion i read , made most sense , Hotjoin only giving glory and solo/team giving rank points is a very good suggestion and would boost competition

As for new players , they could trade glory for rank , like wvw exp etc to rank up at a slower pace than competitive solo/team Q

Allie Murdock.8152:

In 15-20 minutes a hot join match would be over, though.

Yes of course but they then carry on playing untill there match pops for solo Q , this is the point theyre there in the first place killing time untill there game

Allie Murdock.8152:

In 15-20 minutes a hot join match would be over, though.

my experience is follow:

1. queue up for soloq and wait ca. 10 min sometimes more in hotm
2. queue up and really rare get a game immediatly
3. queue up wait some time in hotm and then go hot join, the most time so ca. 100 points before the game ends the soloq pops with the wait timer. and just before the hot join game ends the soloq game starts.

i think your system is good if soloq would not take this long to find matches. but actual they do.

Also , i think solo/team Q should award faster rank up than hot join and custom period

Common legitimate use cases that this change negatively affects include:

-Playing in Hot Join while waiting for solo/team queue now rewards essentially no glory because it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to finish a match before queue ends. Even if you do finish your first match, the early half of your next match would likely reward nothing.

-Players with flaky connections dc’ing before end of match will not be rewarded glory for anything they accomplished before that point, even if they connect back before match ends.

But more importantly, this change doesn’t put nearly enough of a dent in those disgusting glory farm servers that can still gain glory at many times the rate of regular play.

Ban the server owners and anyone who has spent more than a dozen hours in those servers since their introductions (I’m being generous with the definition of willful exploitation here).

This is an exploit that completely destroyed whatever pitiful value Glory, the only currency sPvP players had access to, had remaining. Please deal with it with at least a fraction of the gravitas that you have demonstrated for exploits that devalue gold and undermine the PvE economy.

Frankly this double standard you have shown so far on this issue speaks volumes on how seriously you guys really take sPvP as a game mode.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Is it possible that this change could help to improve hot join in the long run, though? Just curious what your thoughts are, without bias. I know the feeling of disappointment when something is taken away, but I’d like to know if you think this change could actually help the growth of PvP.

From what I understand, people are upset that they can’t come and go from hot join and still be rewarded before the match ends. If hot join is the place where new players are learning PvP, is it healthy for people to be coming and going as they please? Is it good to promote that habit?

It depends on what aspect of sPvP you’re trying to grow.

Growing the Hot Join Only playerbase isn’t exactly healthy for the game. Hot Join should not be the mode that is the most rewarding when considering an equal time investment. This is counter-intuitive to its intended role as a mode to ease players into the officially supported gamemode of 5v5 Conquest.

My suggestion is to change their official names to Practice Arenas to reflect their actual usage in the sPvP realm. They should be something that people can use to jump in, test their builds, jump out, and get rewarded for whatever they accomplish in that time, as was the case in the previous reward model.

Solo Queue and Team Queue, however, need to have their reward models revamped to completely overshadow whatever you can achieve in the same amount of time in Practice Arenas. Because this is the gameplay that the classes, skills and builds are balanced around, and until a new player has experienced these modes, you can’t honestly claim they have contributed anything positive to the health of sPvP.

As a legitimate player who generally does PvE dailies while waiting for solo queue, I hadn’t even noticed this, but I understand the frustration of the other players.

In my opinion, the best option to address this situation is to change rank point back to being earned instantly, and remove rank points completely from custom arenas.

Kaon.7192:

Common legitimate use cases that this change negatively affects include:

-Playing in Hot Join while waiting for solo/team queue now rewards essentially no glory because it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to finish a match before queue ends. Even if you do finish your first match, the early half of your next match would likely reward nothing.

-Players with flaky connections dc’ing before end of match will not be rewarded glory for anything they accomplished before that point, even if they connect back before match ends.

But more importantly, this change doesn’t put nearly enough of a dent in those disgusting glory farm servers that can still gain glory at many times the rate of regular play.

Ban the server owners and anyone who has spent more than a dozen hours in those servers since their introductions (I’m being generous with the definition of willful exploitation here).

This is an exploit that completely destroyed whatever pitiful value Glory, the only currency sPvP players had access to, had remaining. Please deal with it with at least a fraction of the gravitas that you have demonstrated for exploits that devalue gold and undermine the PvE economy.

Frankly this double standard you have shown so far on this issue speaks volumes on how seriously you guys really take sPvP as a game mode.

This x1000. Also, bolded for truth!

hot join is bad for this game..there should just be unranked queue and custom arenas that give NOTHING for rewards(if you make hot join give no rewards fine then)..no ranks not anything.But whatever.. you got to get those moneys i suppose.You need your skyhammer farmers to pay for the arenas sub
Allie in all honesty this game..is dying

Allie Murdock.8152:

Growing hot join is bad, why? Because of the way the format is? What if changes were made to the format to alter your opinions of it? Or are you saying that there is no possible way that hot join could ever be good for the game?

If hot join is a mode to ease players into PvP, why is it a bad thing that we are discouraging people from leaving the game in the middle?

I think the current HJ format is perhaps a bit too “random”.
Growing HJ as it is is bad from a “competitive PvP/rules/skills” standpoint, but good from a “population” point of view (so overall, I would say it is still a positive thing if HJ is growing, as more population = more fun).
I would like to see some changes to HJ, I’m not sure about the priority over other changes though.

When you have experienced the more “intelligent” soloQ/tPvP, HJ feels a bit of a let down sometimes.
I still play HJ from time to time, though, but the best HJ games are the ones ending with the teams scores very close to each other, when there was an actual challenge winning.

People should be allowed to leave the game in the middle of it (and get points for leaving during a game as well, frankly), as I don’t think that because 1-2 people left or joined that the game becomes imbalanced and that you lose 100-500.
I think that the main problem with HJ is that teams aren’t balanced by player level (as people can chose their teams, this can create huge imbalances) – people “hot joining” isn’t the problem, for me the dispatching system is the problem.

Maybe it is desirable for people to be able to chose their team manually so that they can play together? I don’t know.

Glory is practically useless without PVP level/rank (don’t wan the term to get mistaken for leader board rank but rather the PVP equivalent of a PVE level.) The only thing a level 3 player can get that a 10+ can get is tokens for dye consumables for the forge.

That being said, my biggest problem as a legitimate player is that the level gaining is a grind. If I want more armor/finishers options I have to level up. I think GW2 has made most acquisitions in the game fairly non-grindy. Sure some achievements are long but those are achievements, not acquisitions. sPVP seems to have missed this concept. If I want new armors, I have to get new tokens. To get new tokens I have to level up and salvage the award chests or buy with glory from level merchants

Here lies the problem. I don’t want sPVP to become a grind to get rewarded. I want to experience the new stuff that comes with leveling up. Unlike some other aspects of GW2, I don’t know exactly how many matches it takes to level because the points vary with every game. But I want to raise up on leader board and step out of lower tier Solo Q’s. Due to the change, I now have to make a choice as a player. Do I want to spend my time playing against other pvper’s, of hopefully similar skill levels, by riding up the leaderboard in a timely fashion OR do I advance my PVP Level in hot joins so I can acquire new armor and finishers. I can not reliably do both any more since I do not know how long the hot join will last or how long the queue wait will be. Before the change I had the best of both worlds, now I don’t. I now have to choose, spend time leveling PVP or spend time raising up in the leaderboard.

I do that as well, join hot join, well I am waiting for solo queue…

Waiting is really boring…

The number of times I have been cruising to a easy win in hot join only to after leave before the end to go solo queue and then get destroyed in sole queue…

Its a shame not to get any reward for your time in hot join especially when you contributed greatly to the win…

Btw…if hot join gives no glory or no rewards full stop, I would never play hot join again because there would be no point and I assure you 90% of players would do the same. Its pointless without any reward…

Allie Murdock.8152:

Flamfloz.6732:

I think the current HJ format is perhaps a bit too “random”.
Growing HJ as it is is bad from a “competitive PvP/rules/skills” standpoint, but good from a “population” point of view (so overall, I would say it is still a positive thing if HJ is growing, as more population = more fun).
I would like to see some changes to HJ, I’m not sure about the priority over other changes though.

When you have experienced the more “intelligent” soloQ/tPvP, HJ feels a bit of a let down sometimes.
I still play HJ from time to time, though, but the best HJ games are the ones ending with the teams scores very close to each other, when there was an actual challenge winning.

People should be allowed to leave the game in the middle of it (and get points for leaving during a game as well, frankly), as I don’t think that because 1-2 people left or joined that the game becomes imbalanced and that you lose 100-500.
I think that the main problem with HJ is that teams aren’t balanced by player level (as people can chose their teams, this can create huge imbalances) – people “hot joining” isn’t the problem, for me the dispatching system is the problem.

Maybe it is desirable for people to be able to chose their team manually so that they can play together? I don’t know.

Sure, I totally get where you’re coming from. I think the context here is that players are saying that the change we made to hot join is bad because they want to still earn rewards even if they leave the match early.

What I am asking is whether or not these changes made to hot join could actually make hot join a better place for new players. What I’m asking is whether making changes to hot join, away from what it currently is, could be better for the health of PvP. What I am not saying is that we are trying to build a playerbase on the current system.

Also, to add to what you are saying “the best HJ games are the ones ending with the teams scores very close” – is it not difficult to achieve that type of game when people are coming and going as they please?

We’ve had tons of threads and players upset about leavers in tPvP, but why should it be ok for people to randomly leave hot join?

These are questions I hope you are all asking yourselves when you share your feedback about this change here.

Thanks so much for keeping it constructive!

cause its HOT join and not competive? isnt that the purpose of HOT join? jump in, do something, jump out? if not, then i think it should be deleted and all the discussions are meaningless.

Allie Murdock.8152:

But if it’s supposed to also act as a place for new players to learn PvP, is it not setting a bad example for them with all the leavers?

I’m just trying to understand – do you guys think this is bad for the health of the game? Or is it just bad because you want to rank up without playing the full match? You want to leave the match without being punished?

People say hot join is bad because it’s a FFA, but this change takes an aspect of that discord away by encouraging players to care more about playing the full game. Or am I completely off-base here?

isnt that a question for a designer to figure out how to bring both needs in 1 boat? even in the actual system there will always be leavers. i think even with leavers it would teach ppl more than actual. and if they want play without, well there are tourneys

the other a symptom for low population or bad leaderboard matchmaking what takes to long. so i see no point in discussing that without fixing the algorithm for matchmaking.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I’m not asking the designers, I’m asking you. These are all questions that we ask ourselves internally, and are a huge part of development. I’m trying to help you analyze this situation without bias, and with the overall health of the game in mind. This is what we do.

It feels like you’re saying there will always be leavers, so we should just let them run rampant and stop caring. Is that wrong?

I’m not denying that disconnects feel bad, but other players are being punished by people leaving these matches. If this is one step in the direction of reducing the amount of leavers, should it not be taken?

Here’s another interesting question: If this change was something that was always a part of the game since launch, would it still be bad? I know it’s hard to think without bias, especially when many of us have been playing the game for a very long time, but try to imagine what it would be like if this were always the case.

it would still be bad, yes.

i said also that a lot of leavers are ppl that queue for soloq and that it is a symptom of bad matchmaking or low population or why ever it takes so long to find a group. with a proper and fast popping game in solo and teamq the amount of leavers in hot join would dramatic be less then now. then only ppl who dont want to play anymore or has a disconnect would leave.

swith the actual state it is bad for players and dont teach newbies anything. now normal players suffer because of skyhammer-farmers and the farming ppl has no disadvantage. any discussion for future change are actual unnecessary, cause it would be biased on a broken state. who knows how the needings are if the systems actual would work like it should be.

Allie Murdock.8152:

People say hot join is bad because it’s a FFA, but this change takes an aspect of that discord away by encouraging players to care more about playing the full game.

I was going to make a cuttingly witty remark about your use of the FFA acronym, but then I realized it was kind of fitting. “Future Farmers of America,” you know… And people “farm” it… Heh. Well, I know it was funny because I chuckled as I wrote it.

Anyway, I don’t do much sPvP (I think I’m rank 14), but I do support this change. I totally get what you’re saying. Gotta break ‘em in right—don’t let them think it’s acceptable to leave mid-match, and maybe they won’t do it so much when they grow up.

In my honest opinion HJs are bad because:

• People that wan’t to play “seriously” without risking their rank in LB (leaderboard) don’t have any alternative. Want to play seriously? Go to solo queue and risk your rank. Don’t want to risk? Go to play random games in HJs.
• New PvPers go to HJ, play a few matches (most probably the 8v8 zergfests) and think "oh, so PvP is… “this”? seems a giant random confusing brawl, not really “technical” as it should be". And bye bye to newcomers.
• New PvPers learn to play in HJ which basically means they do not learn anything because compositions are completely random, there is no strategy involved, teams keep changing since people can leave and join anytime… They can train 1v1 if they are lucky enough to meet alone players around the map but that’s all. No teamfight or strategy learning.
• Since HJs are the “default” match, people don’t think “let’s do a match” since a game where players keep changing and teams are always unbalanced is NOT a match, is a FFA random brawl.

Solution:

• Remove HJs.
• Add Co-op (players vs bots). It will be awesome as a training ground for new players/builds (and people aiming for daily achievements will go there rather than ruining matches).
• Add a tutorial (not 3 no-sense quests) the first time you enter the Mist. The tutorial should be a simulated match with bots (maybe the player vs 1 bot). It should explain how the game works (capture points, kills, secondary objectives).
• Add a new type of matches, called “normal” (or whatever). Basically they will work the same as Arena but without leaderboards involved. Matchmaking will be PVP rank based (not Glicko based).
  It means that whenever you want to play a not-ranked (I use term “ranked” for leaderboard matches) match, you can solo queue or create a roster and the server will match you against a team of solo queuers or team with the same average PvP rank (with lowest deviation possible).
  Obviously if you queue in 2 and get in a team with a 3-man queue, then server will search for a similar composition (2+3) with same average rank.

Basically this system is the common system in online competitive games. It will also prevent all those empty HJs room so the arena list will show only custom arenas.

Good Evening,

Allie Murdock.8152:

I’m not denying that disconnects feel bad, but other players are being punished by people leaving these matches. If this is one step in the direction of reducing the amount of leavers, should it not be taken?

I think there are so many other aspects of the game to be focusing on which are more important than hot-join currently. That being said, I’d like to start with some questions.

Is Hot Join (HJ) ANet’s method of introducing new players to sPvP? Is it the right means of introduction? HJ is nearly always a zerg-fest. New players will not learn about profession tactics, map/team strategies or about counter-play.
They will learn:
1) how to spam buttons mindlessly
2) how to get insta-gibbed by zerker thieves
3) how to get immobi-stomped by warriors

Will changing time of the point awards make a significant impact on reducing the number of people who leave HJ? Or will it simply change when they leave the HJ match? It has been my experience that most HJ matches are decided after the first big team fight. Will this change simply mean players on the losing team will leave within the first 2 minutes of the match now, thus accentuating the problem?

Lastly, what is the problem in HJ? Are you trying to remedy the ailment or suppress the symptoms?