Guild Wars 2

Please! DON’T remove Spectator Mode. There’s got to be a better way. It really looks as if every solution has its cons. Is there really no perfect solution other than removing Spectator? It just seems like a terrible shame in my opinion. Well… at least this is an issue that’s actually being addressed instead of simply being ignored. cough cough horrible AIs and the poor rangers that are stuck with said horrible AI cough cough

yes, thanks evan for joining us in this discussion.

at least we know something will be done about it.

initial things to change
remove team select, upon joining the game sorts teams out as evenly as possible using rank.

change spectator to allow the person 20 seconds to rejoin the team they left before not letting them rejoin and the game treats it as if they’ve left the match (auto balance, allowing people to join etc).

joining while the match is underway
if teams are even and someone joins, that person gets put on the team with the lesser score.
if teams are uneven and someone joins, that person gets put on the team with the least players.
if both team and score are even (i.e a 4v4 before any points are capped near the start) the game puts them on the team with the least total rank.

i’m fairly confident that this would make games far more balanced and enjoyable!

one last suggestion for auto balance, if noone offers to switch then the game could switch the highest ranking person from the winning team, as they are most likely to be the one who can bring the losing team back in to the competition (and also were probably carrying the winning team).

Liewec.2896:

initial things to change
remove team select, upon joining the game sorts teams out as evenly as possible using rank.

change spectator to allow the person 20 seconds to rejoin the team they left before not letting them rejoin and the game treats it as if they’ve left the match (auto balance, allowing people to join etc).

joining while the match is underway
if teams are even and someone joins, that person gets put on the team with the lesser score.
if teams are uneven and someone joins, that person gets put on the team with the least players.
if both team and score are even (i.e a 4v4 before any points are capped near the start) the game puts them on the team with the least total rank.

i’m fairly confident that this would make games far more balanced and enjoyable!

one last suggestion for auto balance, if noone offers to switch then the game could switch the highest ranking person from the winning team, as they are most likely to be the one who can bring the losing team back in to the competition (and also were probably carrying the winning team).

aye i support what Liewec proposed.

looks simple and easy enough to implement.

i would replace rank with total number of games played though, if possible also take number of solo arena and team arena games played into account as well.

DaveGan.8065:

People are simply under the delusion that if you make one single “simple” change people’s mindsets will completely change and these issues will be fixed.

For any “simple” (knee-jerk) proposal implemented it would take just minutes to show how it would be exploited just as badly as right now, or how would drive everyone from hotjoin.

1) This problem came about after spectator mode+team swap was implemented. I have played since launch and never saw this issue of players manipulating games to win (to this insane extent) until I came back to the game recently.

2) Indeed you are unlikely to change people’s mindsets, that is exactly why a game should have solid rules that are not easy to exploit. There may have been faults with hotjoin in the past, but this one is the biggest and needs to go.

3) The devs need to take a stance. If the current abuse of the system is what they want out of the game then keep it. If they think it sucks then move rapidly to change it.

I am glad a dev is at least thinking about this issue. Hotjoin is a shambles atm because of it.

Yasha.5963:

DaveGan.8065:

People are simply under the delusion that if you make one single “simple” change people’s mindsets will completely change and these issues will be fixed.

For any “simple” (knee-jerk) proposal implemented it would take just minutes to show how it would be exploited just as badly as right now, or how would drive everyone from hotjoin.

1) This problem came about after spectator mode+team swap was implemented. I have played since launch and never saw this issue of players manipulating games to win (to this insane extent) until I came back to the game recently.

2) Indeed you are unlikely to change people’s mindsets, that is exactly why a game should have solid rules that are not easy to exploit. There may have been faults with hotjoin in the past, but this one is the biggest and needs to go.

3) The devs need to take a stance. If the current abuse of the system is what they want out of the game then keep it. If they think it sucks then move rapidly to change it.

I am glad a dev is at least thinking about this issue. Hotjoin is a shambles atm because of it.

The problem arised when the community wanted to move away from personal progresion and move to the universal > winner take more points – looser less .
I mean coomon there is the same ppl that wanted the new system and in the same time wanted to have Damage Done -Kills -healing for each person > wich like the old points system awarded single players for their effrod ….

Its the same ppl that wants new gamemodes , but they wants Spirit Watch and Skyhhammer to be removed …..

Or they wanted 8v8 to be deleted , while the same ppl or other in the community wants Deamatches-Capture the Flag or even King of the Hills > which is the the mass battle that they hated ……..

When will the community say ATLEAST 1 SORRY > something like > ’’In the past i wanted this feature , but it didnt work , i am sorry , but the new thing i want i believe will benefit them game"" ,
rather thatn going all the time …… WHY THE DEVS ARE NOT FIXING IT

For the love of the olympian god , COMMUNIT SAY A SINGLE SORRY OR STOP TALKING ….

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Yasha.5963:

DaveGan.8065:

People are simply under the delusion that if you make one single “simple” change people’s mindsets will completely change and these issues will be fixed.

For any “simple” (knee-jerk) proposal implemented it would take just minutes to show how it would be exploited just as badly as right now, or how would drive everyone from hotjoin.

1) This problem came about after spectator mode+team swap was implemented. I have played since launch and never saw this issue of players manipulating games to win (to this insane extent) until I came back to the game recently.

2) Indeed you are unlikely to change people’s mindsets, that is exactly why a game should have solid rules that are not easy to exploit. There may have been faults with hotjoin in the past, but this one is the biggest and needs to go.

3) The devs need to take a stance. If the current abuse of the system is what they want out of the game then keep it. If they think it sucks then move rapidly to change it.

I am glad a dev is at least thinking about this issue. Hotjoin is a shambles atm because of it.

The problem arised when the community wanted to move away from personal progresion and move to the universal > winner take more points – looser less .
I mean coomon there is the same ppl that wanted the new system and in the same time wanted to have Damage Done -Kills -healing for each person > wich like the old points system awarded single players for their effrod ….

Its the same ppl that wants new gamemodes , but they wants Spirit Watch and Skyhhammer to be removed …..

Or they wanted 8v8 to be deleted , while the same ppl or other in the community wants Deamatches-Capture the Flag or even King of the Hills > which is the the mass battle that they hated ……..

When will the community say ATLEAST 1 SORRY > something like > ’’In the past i wanted this feature , but it didnt work , i am sorry , but the new thing i want i believe will benefit them game"" ,
rather thatn going all the time …… WHY THE DEVS ARE NOT FIXING IT

For the love of the olympian god , COMMUNIT SAY A SINGLE SORRY OR STOP TALKING ….

aye, yeah.

i miss good old hotjoin, before the stupid change to the rewards system.

i can try my best and even if the team lost, i would be rewarded accordingly for my efforts.

nope. they just have to go and break it.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Hotjoin is going to be chaotic no matter what we do since people are free to leave at any time. For people who are wanting a more structured experience, why not play solo or team arena? I’m not asking this to sidestep your concerns, but rather to find out why there is a desire to force structure upon hotjoin when there is already a more structured game mode. This would help us determine if hotjoin actually needs some restructuring, or if there is a better place these types of players can go.

I understand it’s going to be chaotic, but right now it’s so chaotic that the idea of having a winning or losing team seams completely arbitrary. I believe adjusting games to start out with a moderate roster instead of next to none could at least straighten up hotjoin into a more reasonable experience.

It doesn’t sound too hard to make the player auto join the outnumbered team, which is the major concern here right?

Accepting the chaos for what it is, the worst feeling is then to be on the losing team and have another person join the winning team to outnumber you further more.

Evan has a good point.

The trade of for being able to enter and leave hotjoin at will is that teams become unbalanced.

It’s kind of a roll of the dice whether you get the extra win bonus. And to me, the Force Autobalance Mini-Game™ is an interesting feature.

If you hate this, just join SoloQ. We need you. Or form a team and do Team Q.

Evan Lesh.3295:

This thread started with finding a way to NOT let people force auto-balance through spectator mode to get on the winning team. Now I’m hearing that this must be preserved with any hotjoin changes because it ‘balances’ the match. I would much prefer players sit an extra minute in a 4v5 to let someone new fill the spot then let players constantly jumble the teams.

I believe the op also mentioned how spectator mode is a problem even before the auto balance stage at mid match. It is also a huge problem before the game even begins. I’m certain I am not the only one who has noticed like the OP that many people at the beginning will just sit at spectator mode looking at the ranks of each potential team and join the highest ranking team, or if a spot isn’t available on the higher ranked team, wait for someone to join the lower ranked team and then quickly join the other team. I’ve noticed this so much since I came back to play guild wars 2 a couple months back and I think it’s quite common to see teams comprised mostly of r60+ v low ranks.

Now I know many people say that rank is no longer an indication of a player’s skill given the rampant rank farming that has been going on, but if at the beginning of a match, you see an r5 on one side, and an r80 on the other…I think you would be very tempted to join the r80 thinking it will be an easy win and I think this has become a not uncommon mentality amongst people in hotjoin. A lot of the matches where I have seen auto balance manipulation going on has been in matches with these unbalanced teams, where lower ranks will try to auto balance to join the winning team. In truth, I have some sympathy for them although it is still clearly wrong to manipulate auto balance like that. On the other hand, it is also wrong for high ranks to all join the bandwagon before a match begins.

Because of the above, I have come to believe that the problem is cyclical. If you want to fix the problem with spectator mode, you have to also target it at the beginning of the match. My first suggestion is simple, make it impossible to see ranks until later in the game via either spectator mode, and just clicking a player’s name on the side red/blue team tabs before a match starts. Please consider this in addition to however you may wish to address the auto balance issue mid game. The issue is leaving a bad taste.

If you want a slightly more complicated suggestion, then here’s one: in the pvp tab, make a ‘spectate now’ button in addition to the ‘play now’ button, and make it so that when you press ‘play now’, you are automatically and randomly placed in a team and cannot swap. If you choose to ‘spectate now’, you go into spectator mode and lose the ability to join the match you are spectating but can go spectate other matches. Was this how hotjoin was in the beginning? I forget. This way, you can spectate if you wanna learn, or play if you wanna play and there’s no abusing spectator mode.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Hotjoin is going to be chaotic no matter what we do since people are free to leave at any time. For people who are wanting a more structured experience, why not play solo or team arena? I’m not asking this to sidestep your concerns, but rather to find out why there is a desire to force structure upon hotjoin when there is already a more structured game mode. This would help us determine if hotjoin actually needs some restructuring, or if there is a better place these types of players can go.

Because solo and team queue are “competitive”. Not all players wish to participate in more stressful, competitive queues, especially for those that are still learning, or want to experiment new builds, or want to play with friends for fun. But that does not means that they want to be left with a structureless mode where match quality is sacrificed and biased because of that (and where playing in the same team with your friends is hard and completely dependent on other factors).

Let’s say that, currently, players have to choose between two extremes: either they go full competitive, or they’re left with mindless, unstructured chaos.

In other words, there’s no alternative, outside of competitive queues, that offers structured matchmaking for a quality pvp experience.

(Cough We need an unranked/ leaderboardless queue cough)

DiogoSilva,

SoloQ already is a leaderboardless queue, for all practical purposes.

I don’t play hotjoin except to practice new builds, so I have literally no horse in this race, but it seems to me that this problem only started (or at least got a lot more widespread very suddenly) when 8v8 was removed. That could be for two reasons:
a. 7v8 is a lot more forgiving than 4v5, and
b. it’s harder to manipulate auto-balance to get you ont he winning team when there’s 16 players in a match rather than 10.

If that’s the case, wouldn’t bringing back some 8v8 arenas alleviate the problem?

I realise this suggestion wouldn’t do anything to fix 5v5 arenas, but I read someone else’s suggestion a few pages back that I think would work too: instead of removing spectator mode, make it so you forfeit rank rewards and reward track progression if you go back into spectator mode before the match finishes. So in other words, once you pick a team, you have to stick with it unless autobalanced to the other team. Dropping back into spectator mode means no rewards for you.

Evan Lesh.3295:

This is what I want to get answers to. Is this entire thread a product of not having enough room for casual players to progress within our modes? If we did have an unranked arena, would hotjoin be as big of a problem?

If unranked queue existed and was the default mode for all new players, I think the community would easily accept hotjoin (as in, anet servers in custom arenas) for what it is: a relaxing, mindless break from normal pvp to farm stuff or to give you something to do inbetween queues.

Evan Lesh.3295:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Let’s say that, currently, players have to choose between two extremes: either they go full competitive, or they’re left with mindless, unstructured chaos.

In other words, there’s no alternative, outside of competitive queues, that offers structured matchmaking for a quality pvp experience.

(Cough We need an unranked/ leaderboardless queue cough)

This is what I want to get answers to. Is this entire thread a product of not having enough room for casual players to progress within our modes? If we did have an unranked arena, would hotjoin be as big of a problem?

^ this, I´m as casual as they come, love to play pvp but due to only being able to play at around 2 am (dailies, dungeon runs, and trait farming) I tend to avoid the solo arena, I just want to get in, play a little pvp to have fun…but with the constant auto balancing or uneven teams that sometimes leads to unnecessary frustration.

Please make a casual friendly arena ( always 5 vs 5, when someone leaves or spectates, place the next player in the queue on the game )

Excelsior

DiogoSilva.7089:

If unranked queue existed and was the default mode for all new players, I think the community would easily accept hotjoin (as in, anet servers in custom arenas) for what it is: a relaxing, mindless break from normal pvp to farm stuff or to give you something to do inbetween queues.

Lets say they implant a unranked que
What would be the backfire for leaving a match ?
With how many freinds you can join with ?
What will be the rewards for it ?
It Unranked que have 1000 ppl playing and Soloque will have only 100 , then can we delete Soloque ?

Yasha.5963:

1) This problem came about after spectator mode+team swap was implemented. I have played since launch and never saw this issue of players manipulating games to win (to this insane extent) until I came back to the game recently.

2) Indeed you are unlikely to change people’s mindsets, that is exactly why a game should have solid rules that are not easy to exploit. There may have been faults with hotjoin in the past, but this one is the biggest and needs to go.

3) The devs need to take a stance. If the current abuse of the system is what they want out of the game then keep it. If they think it sucks then move rapidly to change it.

I am glad a dev is at least thinking about this issue. Hotjoin is a shambles atm because of it.

1. A tactic needs to be discovered in order to become widespread. As others have said, it is more likely that it arose after rewards became win/loss, and took time to develop into what we currently have.

2+3. Change is what we all want. However some people want to see change simply for the sake of change and others want to make sure the change is effective. Yes it’s good that Evan has taken a look at this thread. I just want to remind him and others that hotjoin needs much more than a simple bandaid.

Make it less desirable or meaningful to manipulate the match (during both team formation and mid-game), rather than more restrictive

Evan Lesh.3295:

Hotjoin is going to be chaotic no matter what we do since people are free to leave at any time. For people who are wanting a more structured experience, why not play solo or team arena? I’m not asking this to sidestep your concerns, but rather to find out why there is a desire to force structure upon hotjoin when there is already a more structured game mode. This would help us determine if hotjoin actually needs some restructuring, or if there is a better place these types of players can go.

The current issue Hot-join is experiencing was not there before you introduce spectate and select team system. You guys ruin it and said it’s chaotic by nature, but you guys are the one that made it chaotic.

Also, you guys messed up Solo Q either by introducing Skyhammer map that drives away many MANY competitive players. And you guys refuse to remove Skyhammer from Solo Q makes people much less motivate to play Solo Q. Now I rather play Team Q than Solo Q despite not having a team, because the map selection are much better and the ranking is much fairer compare to Solo Q.

And like I said in my earlier post, if you want to give people places to test build and play with friends, create rooms with NO REWARD and NO RULE so they can test all they want w/o interfering other for enjoying the matches.

The unranked queue should work with hidden MMR.

It would also be really cool if you could join it with any number of friends.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

DiogoSilva.7089:

If unranked queue existed and was the default mode for all new players, I think the community would easily accept hotjoin (as in, anet servers in custom arenas) for what it is: a relaxing, mindless break from normal pvp to farm stuff or to give you something to do inbetween queues.

Lets say they implant a unranked que
What would be the backfire for leaving a match ?
With how many freinds you can join with ?
What will be the rewards for it ?
It Unranked que have 1000 ppl playing and Soloque will have only 100 , then can we delete Soloque ?

It would work like the current team queue, with “all” the incentives to not leave a match halfway included, except with no leaderboards and an hidden matchmaking.

Because it would serve a different purpose than solo queue, I don’t think one would cannibalize on the other. Players would basically train or have fun in the unranked queue, and then go to solo/ team arenas to put their skills to test.

Really this issue is motivated by the same things that caused you guys to drop 8v8.

What many players want is a casual enviroment to test builds/classes that can effectively simulate a game of conquest, albeit without even matchmaking.

What spectator mode (and more to that effect, uneven teams) does is prevent a ‘reasonable’ simulation of conquest for things to be tested. That limits the hotjoin experience to either very new players, farmers, or players like me who have played so many thousands of tpvp games that its more of a moving golem experience.

But that said seeing how it operates, i can see many players new and old alike being turned off due to team unbalance.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Hotjoin is going to be chaotic no matter what we do since people are free to leave at any time. For people who are wanting a more structured experience, why not play solo or team arena? I’m not asking this to sidestep your concerns, but rather to find out why there is a desire to force structure upon hotjoin when there is already a more structured game mode. This would help us determine if hotjoin actually needs some restructuring, or if there is a better place these types of players can go.

in that case, please change half of the official hotjoin servers back to 8 vs 8.

please.

I dislike hotjoin because when I press Play Now 90% of the games are 3v2 or 4v3 with a score of 320:50. If I join the losing team someone joins the winning team immediately to keep up the status quo.
I dislike soloq because I have to wait way too long to get in a game.
The best middle ground would be Random Arena from GW1. You press Play and within seconds you are in a fair 4v4 random match.

Evan Lesh.3295:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Let’s say that, currently, players have to choose between two extremes: either they go full competitive, or they’re left with mindless, unstructured chaos.

In other words, there’s no alternative, outside of competitive queues, that offers structured matchmaking for a quality pvp experience.

(Cough We need an unranked/ leaderboardless queue cough)

This is what I want to get answers to. Is this entire thread a product of not having enough room for casual players to progress within our modes? If we did have an unranked arena, would hotjoin be as big of a problem?

no, there are enough hotjoin rooms around.
the problem is that the current system allows certain unpleasant things to happen.

- spectator mode allows people to see the rank of the players and this causes players to try to follow high ranked players to stack teams

- players forcing auto balance via spectator mode so they can join the winning team while abandoning their original team (not me, i force so my original team has a better chance as the winning team is leading in scores by a lot anyway)

- many hotjoin rooms 5 vs 4 from start till end with many spectators not wanting to join the losing team

…
…

just make official hotjoin servers behave like the other pvp activities in the game. keg brawl, auto assign teams, let the system shuffle a bit based on player experience.

and if a player enters spectator mode to check other people’s build, they cannot see the rank of those players.

and upon joining spectator mode, they can only join back the losing team.

…

…

please, you ruined hotjoin by removing all the 8 vs 8 servers.
it is only fair if you attempted to fix it.

thank you for listening.

I think what would fix this is if any custom matches could be used for match points. Then you could remove spectate if you didn’t like it.

It seems to me that spectator mode is a fantastic tool for novice players to learn and improve. I’m no longer a novice at this stage but I still use spectator to learn about various builds and player strategies.

The idea of hotjoin shuffling teams is cool. Kinda of like GW1’s random arenas, except it happens every match. This way, players will have to stick to the team the game has put them into, instead of manipulating the match into their favor.

Only problem is that it’ll make playing with friends even harder, unless the game detects if the player is in a party or if he has someone on the friendlist, kind of like the mega servers do.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Hotjoin is going to be chaotic no matter what we do since people are free to leave at any time. For people who are wanting a more structured experience, why not play solo or team arena? I’m not asking this to sidestep your concerns, but rather to find out why there is a desire to force structure upon hotjoin when there is already a more structured game mode.

there is a huge difference between loose structure and the ability to switch to/join the winning team.

the suggestions i made further up the page would still keep the freedom of people joining and leaving but it would restrict the cause of these aweful one-sided landslide matches, which is team select and spectator allowing you to switch teams.

The bottom line is this—people play hotjoin. Saying they should go elsewhere is meaningless; most probably would never get see message because they are casual to begin with.

We are not just concerned about our own experience here—it sucks to see so many low skill players getting used for others’ benefit and driven away from the game. Calling it chaos is just absurd because sheer random assignment of teams would produce much better results.

There is no need for team selection, if people want to pvp with friends and be on the same side, they can queue up together for tpvp.

Remove the “Conqueror” achievement, or modify it to be updated only when a rated SoloQ or TeamQ match has been won. I think the problem here isn’t the hotjoin structure (or lack of), nor the spectator mode, or the autobalance forcing: the problem is the conqueror achievement: remove it and no one will swap team to join the winning one.
Sorry for my English I’m not a native speaker.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Hotjoin is going to be chaotic no matter what we do since people are free to leave at any time. For people who are wanting a more structured experience, why not play solo or team arena? I’m not asking this to sidestep your concerns, but rather to find out why there is a desire to force structure upon hotjoin when there is already a more structured game mode. This would help us determine if hotjoin actually needs some restructuring, or if there is a better place these types of players can go.

I like hotjoin just as it is minus the ability for players to manipulate spectator and team swap.

Yasha.5963:

I like hotjoin just as it is minus the ability for players to manipulate spectator and team swap.

No issues with 4v5 or team stacking then?

Just want to clarify this explicitly.

DaveGan.8065:

Yasha.5963:

I like hotjoin just as it is minus the ability for players to manipulate spectator and team swap.

No issues with 4v5 or team stacking then?

Just want to clarify this explicitly.

i think someone enjoys being on the 5 players team steam rolling the 4 players team.

look at the reply “minus the ability for players to manipulate spectator and team swap” that is kinda obvious this person does not want the 4 players team to leave so that person can continue to stomp them from the 5 players team.

DaveGan.8065:

Yasha.5963:

I like hotjoin just as it is minus the ability for players to manipulate spectator and team swap.

No issues with 4v5 or team stacking then?

Just want to clarify this explicitly.

There is no team stacking without abuse of spectate mode and the ability to team swap.

The issue of uneven team numbers is exacerbated by the current set up.

By randomly assigning players to teams, stopping them from swapping teams and going to spectate/ rejoining, there is no more team stacking and players can’t manipulate uneven team numbers to gain a win.

Yasha.5963:

DaveGan.8065:

Yasha.5963:

I like hotjoin just as it is minus the ability for players to manipulate spectator and team swap.

No issues with 4v5 or team stacking then?

Just want to clarify this explicitly.

There is no team stacking without abuse of spectate mode and the ability to team swap.

The issue of uneven team numbers is exacerbated by the current set up.

By randomly assigning players to teams, stopping them from swapping teams and going to spectate/ rejoining, there is no more team stacking and players can’t manipulate uneven team numbers to gain a win.

randomly assigning players to teams is not good enough, there is a chance that one team may be randomly assigned all experienced players while the other is not.

a simple shuffling system should exist, based on rank, so that each team has equal number of experienced and less experienced players.

also, spectator mode should never real the rank of the player.

and, finally, remove the public score board.

replace the public score board with a personal score board that shows your accomplishments in the match.

the players do not need to know the scores of other players anyway.

Breaking Bad.6241:

The best middle ground would be Random Arena from GW1. You press Play and within seconds you are in a fair 4v4 random match.

That’s not how I remember it… you would press play and within seconds you are in a 4v3 fight because someone quit on account of his team not having a monk. And this would happen 3 times before you get a team with a monk. And then it would be a smiter. Until you rerolled to a monk, and then the first game you joined your team would have 2 more monks in it.

Granted the team comp issues would be less pronounced in GW2 but you would still get people ragequitting 2 minutes into a match because they think the other team is using OP builds, or they think their teammates are useless, or they just entered a match and went afk for some reason. And then everyone else would be stuck in a 5v4 match for 10 minutes, because conquest to 500 points takes longer than the simple elimination of Random Arenas.

So no, if it’s to be a truly casual game mode hotjoin has to be “hotjoin” – ie. drop in/drop out. And for that to work there needs to be a bit of a buffer: 5v4 is not only unwinnable, but a total slaughter. 7v8 is far less so.

Yasha.5963:

There is no team stacking without abuse of spectate mode and the ability to team swap.

The issue of uneven team numbers is exacerbated by the current set up.

By randomly assigning players to teams, stopping them from swapping teams and going to spectate/ rejoining, there is no more team stacking and players can’t manipulate uneven team numbers to gain a win.

You say this as if spectate/autobalance was the cause and 4v5/stacking was the effect, rather than the other way around. Here is the issue, taken from a previous post of mine.

1. Rank 50 player joins red
2. Rank 35 player joins blue
3. Rank 70 player joins red because 50 > 35
4. Blue is now taboo because everyone who is watching wants to join red
5. Blue gets a few 20, 25, and 15 players that don’t know better. Meanwhile red gets 15, 40, and 60 players that are watching.
6. Server is now 4v5 with red up 150-50.
7. The original rank 35 player rightfully deems the match illegitimate and decides if people are going to farm, he will too. He goes to spectate to force autobalance.

See the problem? It started from (3) to (5) when score doesn’t indicate a winning/losing team. You’re suggesting we fix the problem at (7).

Until win-loss rewards are addressed I could simply manipulate the system by switching servers until I find one (what to look for: servers with 2, 4, 6, or 8 players where I will become the imbalance) where I’m put on the side with more points and/or greater numbers. Remember 1 win = 2.5 losses at the moment so it’s almost always advantageous to leave a match with high probability of losing.

Without some kind of compensation or incentive I have no reason to stay and try to help that rank 5 PvE player trying to get his daily AP, and even less reason to join his team if it’s 4v5. Throw all the restrictions at me that you want, but they’ll apply to everyone and just turn hotjoin into Solo Queue with crappier rewards.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Yasha.5963:

DaveGan.8065:

Yasha.5963:

I like hotjoin just as it is minus the ability for players to manipulate spectator and team swap.

No issues with 4v5 or team stacking then?

Just want to clarify this explicitly.

There is no team stacking without abuse of spectate mode and the ability to team swap.

The issue of uneven team numbers is exacerbated by the current set up.

By randomly assigning players to teams, stopping them from swapping teams and going to spectate/ rejoining, there is no more team stacking and players can’t manipulate uneven team numbers to gain a win.

randomly assigning players to teams is not good enough, there is a chance that one team may be randomly assigned all experienced players while the other is not.

a simple shuffling system should exist, based on rank, so that each team has equal number of experienced and less experienced players.

also, spectator mode should never real the rank of the player.

and, finally, remove the public score board.

replace the public score board with a personal score board that shows your accomplishments in the match.

the players do not need to know the scores of other players anyway.

All I want is the current easily abused system to be tweaked so players can’t blatantly manipulate matches.

I don’t particularly care if hotjoin is not totally balanced in terms of player ranks and so forth. If the game randomly assigns players, as it did in the past, sometimes you will get a strong team sometimes you won’t.

DaveGan.8065:

Yasha.5963:

There is no team stacking without abuse of spectate mode and the ability to team swap.

The issue of uneven team numbers is exacerbated by the current set up.

By randomly assigning players to teams, stopping them from swapping teams and going to spectate/ rejoining, there is no more team stacking and players can’t manipulate uneven team numbers to gain a win.

You say this as if spectate/autobalance was the cause and 4v5/stacking was the effect, rather than the other way around. Here is the issue, taken from a previous post of mine.

1. Rank 50 player joins red
2. Rank 35 player joins blue
3. Rank 70 player joins red because 50 > 35
4. Blue is now taboo because everyone who is watching wants to join red
5. Blue gets a few 20, 25, and 15 players that don’t know better. Meanwhile red gets 15, 40, and 60 players that are watching.
6. Server is now 4v5 with red up 150-50.
7. The original rank 35 player rightfully deems the match illegitimate and decides if people are going to farm, he will too. He goes to spectate to force autobalance.

See the problem? It started from (3) to (5) when score doesn’t indicate a winning/losing team. You’re suggesting we fix the problem at (7).

Your line of reasoning 1-7 is what happens now. If teams are randomly assigned and players cannot choose teams/swap then the whole process from point 1 to 7 is eliminated, problem solved.

It has nothing really to do with rewards, its mainly about winning.

Not only am I correct from a logical standpoint, but I played spvp hotjoin before it became the Neverwinter Online version we have now and never saw this issue.

YES! Bring back 8v8 servers please. I know that 8v8 is not ideal for competitive tournaments (as it starts to get a bit too zergy), but that very fact makes it ideal for Hotjoins, where any disparity in team skill can be covered up by sheer numbers. Builds that are too strong in smaller teams (e.g. spike, AI) often crumble when faced with a larger force.

Another poster once said that a 4v5 match is a 33% drop in strength for the undermanned team. A 7v8 match, on the other hand, is only a 13% drop in strength.

I played spvp hotjoin before it became the Neverwinter Online version we have now and never saw this issue.

Please don’t use your supposed account age to try to strengthen your argument or weaken those of others, as it’s having the opposite effect. My account was created in beta and the early PvP reward system (based on individual score) was one of the primary reasons (along with magic find gear) I deemed GW2 a joke and quit the game for over a year.

It has nothing really to do with rewards, its mainly about winning.

I think you’d be a minority opinion who believes that. Some here believe win-loss rewards won’t become balanced because it would drive some of the hotjoin custom server farmers to AFK Team Queue matches.

Your line of reasoning 1-7 is what happens now. If teams are randomly assigned and players cannot choose teams/swap then the whole process from point 1 to 7 is eliminated, problem solved.

Let me rewrite the scenario for you with randomly assigned teams

1. Rank 25 player is assigned to red, Rank 50 player is assigned to blue
2. Rank 70 player is assigned to red, Rank 45 player is assigned to blue
3. Rank 60 player is assigned to red, Rank 40 player is assigned to blue
4. Rank 10 player is assigned to red, Rank 30 player is assigned to blue
5. Rank 60 player sees who just joined red and leaves to try to become the imbalance in Server 2.
6. The game tries to fill in the missing spot with a Rank 55 player. The Rank 70 player leaves for Server 3.
7. The game tries to fill in the missing spot with a Rank 80 player. It turns out he’s just testing a build and doesn’t care about win/loss. As a result the Rank 25 player leaves for Server 4.
8. In Server 2, the Rank 60 player became the 9th player to join and turned a 4v4 match into 5v4. Quickly helping to establish a lead, people kept leaving the other side and the match never became 5v4 for long.
9. In Server 3, the Rank 70 player found himself assigned as the 10th player in a 50-150 game, as it had remained 5v4 like Server 1. He quickly leaves Server 3 for Server 5.
10. Did Server 4 turn out like Server 2 or Server 3? Who knows? But we’re pretty sure it was lopsided either way.

Let me spell it out for you. There are more ways to manipulate matches than there are ways to stop them by force. Until you understand this you’re going to continue to be disappointed by people who “blatantly manipulate matches.”

Evan Lesh.3295:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Let’s say that, currently, players have to choose between two extremes: either they go full competitive, or they’re left with mindless, unstructured chaos.

In other words, there’s no alternative, outside of competitive queues, that offers structured matchmaking for a quality pvp experience.

(Cough We need an unranked/ leaderboardless queue cough)

This is what I want to get answers to. Is this entire thread a product of not having enough room for casual players to progress within our modes? If we did have an unranked arena, would hotjoin be as big of a problem?

I absolutely think there is room for something in the middle. An unranked arena option that starts with queues and has the normal arena rules against observers and team swapping, but lets people join mid-match and doesn’t try as hard to group people by rank like ranked arena matches (therefore shorter queue times, which IMO is really the biggest strike against arena compared hotjoin) would be perfect. You’d probably give it a rank cap like hotjoin (though hopefully a higher one) to keep people moving onto the ranked matches, but an extra step there with a few more regulations over hotjoin, but not as any as ranked would be my new sPvP home.

The real problem is, I would rather win than WASTE my time ATTEMPTING to carry people (in a game where only 3-4 classes are even remotely capable of it) who are unwilling to listen, rage when asked to do ANYTHING, refuse to accept any form of criticism, have no idea what a mini map or pings are, and are the direct cause of the loss; especially since by “being the big man” and joining the losing team at the start of the match rewards ME for LESS.

Why on God’s green earth, would I CHOOSE to be rewarded less and NOT win? To white knight a hotjoin game?! I have better things to do, like progress my reward track since it takes 40 wins compared to 80 losses….

The REAL REASON why hotjoin is in the state it is in, is because 8v8 was removed for custom only. With 5 people per team, each person has to pull their weight or your team WILL lose, some people are incapable of that whether it be inexperience or build wars (something that is VERY real in this rock paper scissors balance). The only reason why “team stacking” is even a thing is because it is ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE for 1 person to genuinely carry a team, they cannot be in mid holding against 3 people while also taking far that is left unattended. I would MUCH rather choose to join the team where I know people are at least able to operate a keyboard and enough synapses firing off to perform whatever role they are planning to play.

Also, I have a serious issue with the fact that 1 person doing their absolute best decapping, teamfighting, etc. and actually trying to make a difference is rewarded the exact same amount as some one who is not. Another SERIOUS issue I have is the fact that “because it’s conquest” kills are actually only worth it to secure a cap, there is no REAL point gain from completely wiping the enemy team, other than now u have 30 seconds of free cap time. You get 25 points for killing an entire enemy team, in less than 10 seconds you get equivalent (or more) points for holding.

This rewards heavily defensive setups (welcome to our meta) and 1 person can hold a point from being decapped/capped until they are stomped or leave the point, despite the entire enemy team being on the point, as well as the use of overpowered builds to compensate for the lack of damage throughput (fire/air carry, celestial pirate rune/might stacking in general) that do not get remedied in ANY reasonable amount of time.

So in short, it is easier to win when you are with people who know what and when to do it. No one is going to CHOOSE to lose a game, unless they are trolling or a masochist. Add delayed spectate to QUEUED MATCHES, and give an incentive to join the losing team in hotjoin and attempt to make a difference. Or you could just actually take the time to balance the game, being able to carry is skill based not build/numbers advantage.

The current problem is that going to spectate from the match allows a player on the losing team to hop to the winning team, wait for that autobalance and volunteer. That way, they get 25 extra rank points AND the win bonus. Not allowing players in the match to go into spectate would fix this problem. hotjoins will likely always be somewhat unbalanced due to the nature, but having an autobalance war in the middle of the game is silly, especially because by the time 400 points roll around, nearly everybody has win credit.

Phaeton.9582:

Really this issue is motivated by the same things that caused you guys to drop 8v8.

What many players want is a casual enviroment to test builds/classes that can effectively simulate a game of conquest, albeit without even matchmaking.

What spectator mode (and more to that effect, uneven teams) does is prevent a ‘reasonable’ simulation of conquest for things to be tested. That limits the hotjoin experience to either very new players, farmers, or players like me who have played so many thousands of tpvp games that its more of a moving golem experience.

But that said seeing how it operates, i can see many players new and old alike being turned off due to team unbalance.

I agree with this sentiment. There were a few issues with hotjoin before the removal of 8v8, but they were usually masked by having large team sizes. Personally, I have barely done any sPvP since the 8v8 arenas were removed, excluding the month after the change was made since I was checking out the new Courtyard map and reward structure. Nowadays, its very difficult to find an 8v8 arena with people in it. Anyways, the two biggest reasons by far for me leaving sPvP were:

• The removal of 8v8 standard arenas. I enjoyed them over 5v5 for multiple reasons, especially for their semi-chaotic nature.
• The SpectatorModeAbuse (SMA for short) to switch teams.

I can understand why players would at least believe that there was an increase of SMA after 8v8 was removed, although it was present both before and after. Reducing the team sizes means that each player’s individual contribution is more important than before, and that a player’s lack of skill puts a greater burden on the team; and a player’s high level of skill is an even greater boon. In an 8v8 the burden of a poorer player could be better hidden because other players could pick up the slack, and over the course of filling out the teams the teams’ skill levels would tend to balance out. In a 5v5, that’s not going to happen, and the performance of a single player who is significantly better or worse can greatly affect the odds of victory. So attempting to stack on the team with the better player(s) is a lot more tempting and the probability of being rewarded for doing so are greater, because your chances of victory are much higher and there are less players on the other team to try and make up the skill difference. Also, with less players in the 5v5 match, your more likely to notice it happening.

I think the timeout after entering spectator mode is one change that is definitely needs to added. Regardless of why people do it, they are able to do it because they are pretty much guaranteed the spot on the team they want to stack onto. Introducing a timer for re-entry allows another player to take that spot before them, greatly reducing their success rate; though not doing much to tackle the original incentive.

As for disabling spectator mode, on the 8vs8-10vs10 custom arenas, there were generally 2 approaches to balancing the teams.
1. Standard AutoBalance.
2. Disabled SpectatorMode to prevent team switching.
Standard AutoBalance After 2-3 games, players would recognize who were the better players and would attempt to get onto that team at the start of the game. If a player failed to get onto the stacked team, then the SMA may begin. Depending on a variety of factors, this could go on for a long period of time or kill the arena, at which point that may have been the last active 8v8 arena until the next day.

Disabled SpectatorMode This method was a lot more effective at balancing teams than AutoBalance. What would happen is that as players entered the room, they would immediately be assigned to a team and would be unable to swap teams since spectator mode was disabled. The random assignment made the vast majority of games balanced. The downside of this was that, in order to make changes to their build players would have to either leave the room or go AFK (as viewed from other player’s perspective). The AFK timer usually did a good job of keeping the number of AFK players down in this regard by kicking inactive players. The biggest downside of this method was that due to the high velocity of exiting players due to having to make build changes or the AFK timer kicking them, there was a large flow of players exiting the room every few matches. This meant that to keep the semi-chaotic (8v8) nature of the arena up and running, an equal number of players would have to find and enter the custom arena. This requires a near constant inflow of new players that, without the “Play Now” button’s support, meant that the presence of these rooms typically didn’t last for over an hour before they dropped to 4v4 and below level and thus emptied. And of course, randomizing teams doesn’t address the issue of those players who want to play with friends for fun; even if they are the best players in the room, which would be an issue.

As for the original change that highlighted this behavior, the removal of 8v8, I don’t think it has worked out and the default “Play Now” needs to change back to 8v8. It looks like the purpose of the change was to (1) increase the number of people entering into ranked matches and possibly (2) help new players learn the game mode. The number of participants in ranked matches has probably increased due to the rewards changes alone, especially since hotjoin is basically the same thing as ranked arenas but with better rewards in this all 5v5 format. But with regards to (2) learning the game mode, the removal of 8v8 has removed a way for players to test out builds and learn the conquest game mode in a slower-paced and more forgiving manner. 8v8 allows newer players to learn over time while enjoying a low level of success; 5v5 beats them down constantly until they do or quit. Neither 8v8 nor 5v5 teaches them what/how to learn the game; but at least 8v8 lets them fumble around in a more enjoyable manner, thus making it more likely that they’ll return. IMO, having low to moderate success in an 8v8 has a much greater chance of encouraging future participation and giving them time to learn than constantly getting beat in a 5v5. And then if/when players want to earn better rewards, they can move to the ranked ladders. As for the transition from 8v8 to 5v5 goes, that’s the whole point of the lower end of the ladder. Newer and less skilled players start near the bottom, and as they get better and learn right from wrong they move up; always playing with players of equal rank and skill.

In conclusion, for spectator mode my preference would be to have a timeout for players who enter spectator mode so that the likelyhood of that player being able to switch to the team they want to stack on is greatly diminished. At this point simply fixing the auto-balance abuse wouldn’t be enough to get me back into sPvP personally since it now lacks a game mode that I enjoy, but it would be a big step in the right direction.

forum new page bug.
i moved my post to the next page.