Guild Wars 2

forum 2nd page bug strikes again.

my original message in case anyone misses it.

no, no, you all got it wrong.
hotjoin is fine.
spectator mode and auto balance is fine, both working as intended.
the problem is, the people are not using it to help their team.

Zaxares.5419:

[…]

So Player A ended up getting more points based on what they did in the match, even though their team ended up losing. I think this would motivate players to be more willing to join the losing team.

We actually had a personal reward system at the begining.

All it did was cause players to farm their points by doing stupid stuff like caping points with 3+ people or chasing enemies off point to get a kill (and a possible re-cap of the point they just lost).

what about this?

1) remove option to choose teams
2) add a player queue
3) remove ability to see the score

I don’t believe that spectator mode is being used as intended. It seems that the points are setup to encourage us to play a certain but there are several problems with this. One is that the points system is very opaque. Another is that playing on a team with one less player is simply not fun. So yes, people will forgo potential points to be on a winning team, because it is a more enjoyable experience.

Even if Spectator mode wasn’t being used for autobalance abuse it still gives an advantage to the people spectating. They can see the builds of the other players and then choose their side and apply counters.

I think a simple solution that keeps spectator mode but stops abuse is to not allow people to join the match that they are spectating in. People can still watch matches and learn from other players, but they won’t be able to turn those battles through just watching and switching sides. In addition, this will return hotjoin to how it was before spectator mode, which was far more enjoyable for casual players.

Rengaru.4730:

Zaxares.5419:

[…]

So Player A ended up getting more points based on what they did in the match, even though their team ended up losing. I think this would motivate players to be more willing to join the losing team.

We actually had a personal reward system at the begining.

All it did was cause players to farm their points by doing stupid stuff like caping points with 3+ people or chasing enemies off point to get a kill (and a possible re-cap of the point they just lost).

We did? Didn’t know that (only starting playing PvP in the last few months).

And if that’s true, wouldn’t it still be better than the situation of everybody dogpiling onto the winning team, or constantly team-swapping or using Spectator Mode to force autobalances before joining the winning team? At least this way people are actually playing, even if they’re playing in non-optimal ways.

What they promised a long long time ago which everyone forgot about is that ‘We plan to increase the number of spectators in game’. Since more people wanted to watch a official tournament live in game.

Since then nothing has happened.

If they added spectator mode that hides them from the actual game and not allow them to enter the game this might work. Where you would click spectate instead of hotjoin server game.

Click spectate, than go from game to game, only thing visible is other spectators and score, but the actual players cannot see them when they look at scorecard.

Then when people look for games, they automatically assigned to the game, no picking red or blue team. Just like before.

Have two separate things in the pvp window to separate people watching and playing.
1. Server list for joining a game to play.
2. Spectate mode, to watch games.
(Both are in pvp window, its not join a server THAN pick to play or spectate. It’s decide to play or spectate BEFORE joining any servers type deal)

To play a game you have to go back to leave spectator mode, which brings you to hearts of mist than go and join the game and be automatically assigned.

This way you can still watch games, but if you want to join the winning team, its going to take a lot of time to do so.

Evan Lesh.3295:

At what point are you seeing players join teams from spectator mode? Rewards are based on time played on a team, so are people forgoing partial rewards to be on the winning team?

This is not the problem.

The problem is players not wanting to lose. So they switch teams or try..not matter what the rewards are. Here is a typical example of what goes on in hotjoin:

• Everyone is new to the server, match starts and its 5v5

• In the first 2mins blue obliterates red on center point then proceed to take other points

• Two people from red quit, one goes to spectator

• Auto balance happens and some one from blue goes to red, then the guy who quit red goes to blue

• The original blue player doesn’t like being switched so he goes to spectator, its 3v5 again. Auto balance happens and another blue is forced to go to red. The original blue player returns to his team. The match is still 4v5

• Someone new joins the server and finally red team has a 5th man.

• After losing once to 3 people ganging up on him, he leaves the server. Its 4v5 again

• Match finally ends with the score of 500 to 90

This is how the typical hotjoin game plays these days. I see a lot of people say GG after the match, I’m guessing 4v5 is a good game in their eyes since 4v5 is now the standard match. Its sad because no matter what server you go to it always ends up happening.

DaveGan.8065:

Then they should implement something to fix it. If switching teams gets more rank points than not switching, of course people will switch. If rewards for winning are 250% the rewards for losing, of course people will want to win at any cost. When you can spend 3min12sec on the winning team to get the same reward as 8+min on the losing team…

Yeah, I’ve suggested before it could be a simple fix: Don’t allow players to switch to the other team once they’ve picked one. Even if they drop back to spectator, don’t allow them to swap to the other team.

The vocality of the teamswapping you reference is a good thing, not a bad one. Announcing “I’m abusing the system because I can” and making “Afk Cuz Skyhammer” characters in Solo Queue bring these issues to discussion much faster than stealthily switching teams or putting in 1% effort on Skyhammer to bypass the AFK check.

Stop asking players to be honorable. “It’s just hotjoin”, and if you don’t switch teams someone else on the team will. Why him and not you instead?

Just because you can exploit something, doesn’t mean you should. Who wants to play with someone acting like a kitten like that? So if you play a game of chess with a friend, and it’s clear he’s about to win… you flip the board around and claim victory? Do you then just announce “it’s not a tournament, it doesn’t matter.” I mean clearly in that situation if you don’t do it, the other person will, so why not just do it?

IsilZha.3608:

DaveGan.8065:

Then they should implement something to fix it. If switching teams gets more rank points than not switching, of course people will switch. If rewards for winning are 250% the rewards for losing, of course people will want to win at any cost. When you can spend 3min12sec on the winning team to get the same reward as 8+min on the losing team…

Yeah, I’ve suggested before it could be a simple fix: Don’t allow players to switch to the other team once they’ve picked one. Even if they drop back to spectator, don’t allow them to swap to the other team.

The vocality of the teamswapping you reference is a good thing, not a bad one. Announcing “I’m abusing the system because I can” and making “Afk Cuz Skyhammer” characters in Solo Queue bring these issues to discussion much faster than stealthily switching teams or putting in 1% effort on Skyhammer to bypass the AFK check.

Stop asking players to be honorable. “It’s just hotjoin”, and if you don’t switch teams someone else on the team will. Why him and not you instead?

Just because you can exploit something, doesn’t mean you should. Who wants to play with someone acting like a kitten like that? So if you play a game of chess with a friend, and it’s clear he’s about to win… you flip the board around and claim victory? Do you then just announce “it’s not a tournament, it doesn’t matter.” I mean clearly in that situation if you don’t do it, the other person will, so why not just do it?

You’re presenting a false dichotomy here. Hotjoin exploitation happens with strangers. I’m sure if you played it with 9 friends you guys would do whatever possible to ensure teams were as even as possible.

The issue is that this isn’t the case, so you have the prisoner’s dilemma. Exploit or get exploited. Welcome to all of society. Honor isn’t tracked, and rewards are purely based on win-loss.

+1 for Aza, that exactly how games end up if one team is stronger than the other one to a certain extent.

I personally use autoselect everytime i join a match, but some days ago I came to a map where i really just waited till the current match was over, cause it was 450:50 and i had no intention joining such a match 15 sec before the end

People have the right to disagree about hotjoin, in the sense that, should winning and outplaying the other team matter in hotjoin? In a sense hotjoin is supposed to be casual, people can come and go as they please. I think the reason it’s a problem is because a player CAN influence what team they’re on, then they get superior rewards for it. This is different from ranked PvP.

If winning doesn’t matter in hotjoin yet people make 5v4 because of it, make the rewards equal for winners and losers.

It might be enjoyable to have a scaling reward system in Hot Joins. For example you could “lock yourself in” to a channel preventing you from changing teams but your rewards would ramp up every game you play in succession while remaining “locked in” the particular Channel.

This could encourage players to forgo the choice of team stacking for the incentive of better rewards. Making it easier to earn ranks, titles, track progress by increasing the percentage of these rewards received for every game you remained in.

This would of course not be a solution for the players who would simply swap from winning team to winning team but it would reward players who simply wish to play a balanced game and maybe with the promise of more efficient rank/track/ect gain and increasingly greater rewards this mentality could be contagious.

I may just be seeing things, but Spectator Mode can actually cause team imbalance, even if unintentionally.

Let’s say someone actually wants to spectate, so he joins a server. Something I have noticed, is that if the server cap is 10, the spectator counts towards total player count, meaning that the match will be a consistent 4v5 while that one player stays in spectator.

I could be completely wrong, but I have noticed a lot of times when a match ends up as a 4v5, there is one player in spectator, and no new players joining the server due to it possibly being capped.

Aza.2105:

• Everyone is new to the server, match starts and its 5v5

the only problem with what you wrote XD
the games usually start 2v3 or 3v3 if you’re lucky with one team getting 4v3 when the next person joins, it usually takes afew minutes before the server fills, in which time the team with the most players is already winning and the spectator lameness starts

also Anet, will this “600 seconds between posts” nonsense ever end?
its been a week now…

Liewec.2896:

also Anet, will this “600 seconds between posts” nonsense ever end?
its been a week now…

u might have received too many forum infractions recently …

Liewec.2896 wrote, the games usually start 2v3 or 3v3 if you’re lucky with one team getting 4v3
__________________________________________________________________

Sad but true

I remember the GOOD ol days of hotjoin 8v8, games were at least….. EVEN. Even with a 7v8, it still wasn’t a huge blow.

Just think about it 2v3… That’s a 33% loss.
Now a 7v8… That’s a 13% loss

People don’t play hotjoin to get prepped for tpvp, they play hotjoin to have fun.
I don’t play anymore hotjoins really, because its just not fun anymore. Right now its just about winning rather than having fun.

Liewec.2896:

Aza.2105:

• Everyone is new to the server, match starts and its 5v5

the only problem with what you wrote XD
the games usually start 2v3 or 3v3 if you’re lucky with one team getting 4v3 when the next person joins, it usually takes afew minutes before the server fills, in which time the team with the most players is already winning and the spectator lameness starts

also Anet, will this “600 seconds between posts” nonsense ever end?
its been a week now…

You misunderstand, what you are quoting is hypothetical. I said it because one of the only times a match will start off 5v5 is when none of the players have played with each other before. Meaning, in their mind that there is a equal chance of winning.

After the first few mins of the match most players determine who the winners and the losers will be. They will either jump ship or quit the match all together. The next round is different, its then that most players will just try to stack on one team to ensure they aren’t on the losing side.

My man Evan doesn’t seem to be understanding the problem. Maybe because he isn’t playing hotjoin matches and is looking at it from a outside perspective. Rewards are irrelevant, its not the driving force to the current hotjoin problems. Its the winner/loser mentality, that no one wants to lose. Everyone wants to win win win.

Team swapping shouldn’t be allowed when the match starts. In addition leavers should be punished to discourage leaving when you are on the losing side. Many people may argue that this is harsh, since hotjoin should be casual and fun. But the reality is there is nothing fun about a 4v5 match.

In the original gw, one was punished for leaving a random arena match. So I don’t see why it would be a problem here. If you don’t want to lose then don’t pvp, its that simple. Since the nature of pvp is that someone is going to win and lose, losing is just part of the game.

There shouldn’t be a punishment for leaving, hotjoin can be a great way to spend a couple mins while waiting for whatever. But the current set up is unacceptable.

I played a few more matches just to be sure that what I had posted in here wasn’t inaccurate. I think every match I played was affected by the behavior here. One game I joined when it was already 2v2. Naturally the team with the extra player jumps to an early lead and constantly has an extra player. Even when the other team got an auto balance player (me), the match was immediately 5v4 in favor of the win in team, despite the fact that I just evened out the numbers.

It’s super common just to see players not even join the match as it starts, so they can wait to try to join the winning team. It’s sad.

Switching teams needs to go away immediately, and matches should only start with even numbers. I really can’t find anything positive about the current state of hotjoin.

Any chance of a response from the devs? We love you guys, we’re just trying to help!

I feel this issue needs to be highlighted. I just came back from a long break from gw2 and the seemingly rampant match manipulations is making the experience a bad one. If it’s not high ranking players stacking on top of each other at the start of the match to create an uneven playing field before the game begins, it’s the losing team going to spectator mode to force an autobalance and then join the winning team. What results can sometimes be an autobalance war or people just leaving the match altogether. I love the idea of spectator mode and has helped me learn from watching more experienced players since coming back. However, it is clearly being abused and I see it frequently. Sometimes, when I suspect it is happening, I just spectate for a couple games and quite often, my suspicions are confirmed when I see names bouncing to the other side. I don’t presume to know the varied reasons why people do it, but I can guess it may be due to the sour taste of losing (a bad reason), or to break apart a group of high ranking players that stacked at the beginning of matches (a better reason-ish but then the problem becomes cyclical).

So what can be done to alleviate the problem and make pvp less frustrating?
I agree with the solution posted by the OP in this earlier thread which also preserves the intention behind spectator mode:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Two-fixes-to-improve-hotjoin-servers-by-ANet

Please take a hard look at this problem Anet because I don’t think it’s a small one.

uberkingkong.8041:

I remember the GOOD ol days of hotjoin 8v8, games were at least….. EVEN. Even with a 7v8, it still wasn’t a huge blow.

Just think about it 2v3… That’s a 33% loss.
Now a 7v8… That’s a 13% loss

AMEN!
and then out of nowhere anet removed our 8v8 and left us with these half empty lopsided matches…
best patch ever.

The spectator system doesn’t work properly with some servers, forcing uneven matches regardless, but noone wants to admit it’s broken >.>

remove reward penalty for loosing side (in hotjoin at least) Just put reward for amount of time played. Problem solved.

Grenix.1576:

remove reward penalty for loosing side (in hotjoin at least) Just put reward for amount of time played. Problem solved.

This won’t work because how points are rewarded is not obvious. Also, people will still rather be on the winning team, than suffer on a losing team that is getting stomped 4v5.

DaShi.1368:

Grenix.1576:

remove reward penalty for loosing side (in hotjoin at least) Just put reward for amount of time played. Problem solved.

This won’t work because how points are rewarded is not obvious. Also, people will still rather be on the winning team, than suffer on a losing team that is getting stomped 4v5.

Winning is 250% as rewarding as losing. People stack because of this disparity in rewards. This stacking encourages further stacking as people refuse to accept a stacked match as a fair defeat. Few people care about hotjoin win/loss, so long as the matches are somewhat even and the rewards somewhat balanced.

Just reduce the disparity between hotjoin winning and losing (something like 400-300 from 500-200) and add a bonus 25/50/100 points for greatly reducing or eliminating a significant deficit.

People will be less incentivized by rewards to stack (either at the beginning or midgame) and the bonus will give people a reason to fill the losing team in uneven matches. Reduction in the win rewards will keep some stronger players in arenas, and a buff in loss rewards will keep some weaker players in hotjoin where matches may become more even.

Another perfectly fair option in my opinion would be that the teams can only have equal number of players, and when a player tries to join the match or switch teams they are put on a “waitlist” which will only allow them to join a team when both teams can have an equal number of players. That would be a huge start in my opinion and back in GW1 even in RA you didn’t have constant 3v4’s

Zietlogik.6208:

I may just be seeing things, but Spectator Mode can actually cause team imbalance, even if unintentionally.

Let’s say someone actually wants to spectate, so he joins a server. Something I have noticed, is that if the server cap is 10, the spectator counts towards total player count, meaning that the match will be a consistent 4v5 while that one player stays in spectator.

I could be completely wrong, but I have noticed a lot of times when a match ends up as a 4v5, there is one player in spectator, and no new players joining the server due to it possibly being capped.

The hotjoin maps are 5v5 with 20 player slots, so 10 people can fight and 10 can watch. It can cause issues if > 10 players watch and don’t play.

why not just reducingthe winning reward and/or increasing the reward for loosing?
so spectating and trying to join the winning team requires so much effort that it just isnt worth doing?

solo and teamq its good that the winning team gets more

if someone played the whole time in blue team and one whole time in red
red team wins itd be okay if red gets about 400 (maybe 415 or up to 435max if treb repaired destroyed many more of these op stats and voted to vollentaryly change teamdue to auto balance)
whilst the blue one (loosing team) gets about 300 (+top stats etc)

sure it would be more liketime spent = rank up

but it isnt really different in any other game mode
as long as you get rewards as a loosing team at all

Evan Lesh.3295:

At what point are you seeing players join teams from spectator mode? Rewards are based on time played on a team, so are people forgoing partial rewards to be on the winning team?

Spectate is not bad…it’s really good. I wish you could look at people’s gear and traits too.

However, what is bad is the Stacking from Spectate.

What you do is, click on all people on both teams and look down at their pvp rank. then you make the judgement as to which side you are going to join.

Next, if it’s going poorly, you jump in spectate, wait till auto-balance, then jump over to the winning side.

Other thing people do is join a winning side to make it 5 v 4 (or some other imbalance number)

No one cares about losing the points because they joined late, you can make up for that by waiting and then auto-balance volunteering if you care.

People join Hotjoin for two reasons:
1. To practice new specs professions
2. It’s a place for Baddies to beat up on Noobs

Fixes:

1. Randomize start, don’t allow people to pick which side they want to join. (Allow for teams/groups to stay together- some people want to play with their friends)
2. If you are in spectate mode, you are never allowed to join the winning side once it begins.
3. Joining the losing side from Spectate mode counts toward Auto-Balance Volunteer Points.
4. Leaving match to join Spectate debuffs for you for rest of match.

4.

XacTactX.6709:

Zietlogik.6208:

I may just be seeing things, but Spectator Mode can actually cause team imbalance, even if unintentionally.

Let’s say someone actually wants to spectate, so he joins a server. Something I have noticed, is that if the server cap is 10, the spectator counts towards total player count, meaning that the match will be a consistent 4v5 while that one player stays in spectator.

I could be completely wrong, but I have noticed a lot of times when a match ends up as a 4v5, there is one player in spectator, and no new players joining the server due to it possibly being capped.

The hotjoin maps are 5v5 with 20 player slots, so 10 people can fight and 10 can watch. It can cause issues if > 10 players watch and don’t play.

No serious….look at the server list and see how many 10/20 there are….and some of those 10 are in spectator and some are playing….it just doesn’t go above 10 unless you force join the server, no “play now” people will join that server.

So if 1 player is in spectator, the entire match will be a 4v5, without new players joining in….I think it is some kind of bug with their matchmaking and server permissions.

I just really don’t want to see Spectator mode being removed. It’s causing a lot of problems and definitely needs to be overhauled so it can never be exploited in anyway whatsoever. But please don’t remove Spectator, there’s got to be a better option.

DaveGan.8065:

You’re presenting a false dichotomy here. Hotjoin exploitation happens with strangers. I’m sure if you played it with 9 friends you guys would do whatever possible to ensure teams were as even as possible.

The issue is that this isn’t the case, so you have the prisoner’s dilemma. Exploit or get exploited. Welcome to all of society. Honor isn’t tracked, and rewards are purely based on win-loss.

huh, thought I responded to this.. must not have gone through…

At any rate, where did I present a false dichotomy? O.o I haven’t presented anything with “choose from these options.”

Additionally, this isn’t a prisoner’s dilemma either – the exploiting players end with maximum reward and no punishment or downside. You do realize in the prisoner’s dilemma scenario, the act of both exploiting each other results in a middle-ground outcome for both, right? That’s not what happens here… the exploiters all stack on one side and all receive maximum benefit.

Regardless, I presented a simple solution to help really curb the problem, which you didn’t even acknowledge.

IsilZha.3608:

DaveGan.8065:

You’re presenting a false dichotomy here. Hotjoin exploitation happens with strangers. I’m sure if you played it with 9 friends you guys would do whatever possible to ensure teams were as even as possible.

The issue is that this isn’t the case, so you have the prisoner’s dilemma. Exploit or get exploited. Welcome to all of society. Honor isn’t tracked, and rewards are purely based on win-loss.

huh, thought I responded to this.. must not have gone through…

At any rate, where did I present a false dichotomy? O.o I haven’t presented anything with “choose from these options.”

Additionally, this isn’t a prisoner’s dilemma either – the exploiting players end with maximum reward and no punishment or downside. You do realize in the prisoner’s dilemma scenario, the act of both exploiting each other results in a middle-ground outcome for both, right? That’s not what happens here… the exploiters all stack on one side and all receive maximum benefit.

Regardless, I presented a simple solution to help really curb the problem, which you didn’t even acknowledge.

I’ve addressed similar proposals by other people, so forgive me for not addressing yours directly. You are making a kneejerk proposal to combat the problem above the soil, rather than destroy the roots. Your proposal does not address the huge incentive players have to stack and spectate/autobalance in the first place.

Remove team swapping and I and many others will simply spectate until there is a clear favorite. After all I only need to play about 3 minutes of the match on the winning side to get equivalent rewards as if I had lost. The potential loss for not joining earlier is less than the potential loss for playing on the losing side.

To address your statement about prisoner’s dilemma, excessive stacking does have a downside: matches taking longer to start up, and the server quickly imploding on itself as nobody will want to join the other team. This forcefully breaks up the stacking and the parties must spend time to find another room. In other words, mutually assured destruction. Far more prominent in the prisoner’s dilemma than your “middle ground” point, by the way, is that 1.) exploiting always comes ahead of not exploiting, and 2.) people will exploit or get exploited.

As far as the false dichotomy, it probably came to mind when you mentioned turning the board around in chess on a friend. Playing vs a stranger, I am playing to win, so I would have absolutely zero problem switching the board at the last legal moment if it was not restricted by the rules, because that opponent would easily turn the board on me in the same circumstance. Playing with a friend, mutual trust ensures we would not do this to each other, and no longer serves as a valid analogy.

DaveGan.8065:

I’ve addressed similar proposals by other people, so forgive me for not addressing yours directly. You are making a kneejerk proposal to combat the problem above the soil, rather than destroy the roots. Your proposal does not address the huge incentive players have to stack and spectate/autobalance in the first place.

Remove team swapping and I and many others will simply spectate until there is a clear favorite. After all I only need to play about 3 minutes of the match on the winning side to get equivalent rewards as if I had lost. The potential loss for not joining earlier is less than the potential loss for playing on the losing side.

To address your statement about prisoner’s dilemma, excessive stacking does have a downside: matches taking longer to start up, and the server quickly imploding on itself as nobody will want to join the other team. This forcefully breaks up the stacking and the parties must spend time to find another room. In other words, mutually assured destruction. Far more prominent in the prisoner’s dilemma than your “middle ground” point, by the way, is that 1.) exploiting always comes ahead of not exploiting, and 2.) people will exploit or get exploited.

As far as the false dichotomy, it probably came to mind when you mentioned turning the board around in chess on a friend. Playing vs a stranger, I am playing to win, so I would have absolutely zero problem switching the board at the last legal moment if it was not restricted by the rules, because that opponent would easily turn the board on me in the same circumstance. Playing with a friend, mutual trust ensures we would not do this to each other, and no longer serves as a valid analogy.

The terms and concepts you are using do not mean what you think they do.

Kneejerk=automatic and unthinking. Isil clearly thought through his proposal. I don’t agree with it, but it is not kneejerk, unless you are insulting him, in which case you should be infracted.

Prisoner’s Dilemma: This is a game theory concept about cooperation and betrayal. It is not a catch all term for game theory as you seem to be using it.

False dichotomy: This is a logical fallacy of creating limited options. While it is commonly used in thread discussing this issue (e.g. “Play SoloQ.”) it doesn’t apply to Isil’s chess example, which is about fairness and a reply to the actual false dichotomy fallacy you made (i.e. “It’s just hotjoin”). It certainly has no application as to whether the person is a friend or not, which is actually immaterial to Isil’s argument.

DaveGan.8065:

I’ve addressed similar proposals by other people, so forgive me for not addressing yours directly. You are making a kneejerk proposal to combat the problem above the soil, rather than destroy the roots. Your proposal does not address the huge incentive players have to stack and spectate/autobalance in the first place.

Remove team swapping and I and many others will simply spectate until there is a clear favorite. After all I only need to play about 3 minutes of the match on the winning side to get equivalent rewards as if I had lost. The potential loss for not joining earlier is less than the potential loss for playing on the losing side.

It’s a simple initial solution – simpler the better. But anyway, you’re also totally assuming that the teams won’t just fill up. Also many of these players tend to want to play, not help with the objective at all, and then swap (if need be) later rather than just sit around the entire match. I’m not even sure if the “playing 3 minutes on the winning team” is correct or not.

Although all this really says is “I’m going to be a kitten and continue to make hotjoin terrible because I can,” with no more self-justifcation than “exploit or be exploited! rarrrr!”

To address your statement about prisoner’s dilemma, excessive stacking does have a downside: matches taking longer to start up, and the server quickly imploding on itself as nobody will want to join the other team. This forcefully breaks up the stacking and the parties must spend time to find another room. In other words, mutually assured destruction. Far more prominent in the prisoner’s dilemma than your “middle ground” point, by the way, is that 1.) exploiting always comes ahead of not exploiting, and 2.) people will exploit or get exploited.

This… this isn’t a prisoner’s dilemma at all, which involves two opposing sides cooperating for mutual gain and minimal risk. What mutual gain do the non-exploiters get for being exploitative? Oh that’s right, just as you described, the server that collapses because the only players around are the exploiters, and the non-exploiters get nothing out of it.

Did you.. just find a bunch of smart sounding terms and start throwing them around to try to “scare” people away by trying to sound smart? I’m starting to think so since you’re using them all wrong, and…

As far as the false dichotomy, it probably came to mind when you mentioned turning the board around in chess on a friend.

…this isn’t a false dichotomy. It’s a yes or no question. I guess your answer here is no, but on to your new question…

Playing vs a stranger, I am playing to win, so I would have absolutely zero problem switching the board at the last legal moment if it was not restricted by the rules, because that opponent would easily turn the board on me in the same circumstance. Playing with a friend, mutual trust ensures we would not do this to each other, and no longer serves as a valid analogy.

uh-huh – going to really push the ITG image in order to maintain your position I see. What do you think that’ll get you playing that way? How long will that last until you get punched in the face and/or no one will ever want to play with you because you don’t “play to win” – you play to fabricate false, empty victories. Who would see that as a win besides your own delusional self? lol I’m pretty sure Chess rules don’t specify this – but no one will ever want to play with you. Heck, since this kind of play isn’t specified in the rules, I bet people are playing “exploit or be exploited!” everywhere like this, right? It shouldn’t be hard to actually prove that this happens.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Evan Lesh.3295:

At what point are you seeing players join teams from spectator mode? Rewards are based on time played on a team, so are people forgoing partial rewards to be on the winning team?

They are. It’s a fairly easy system to exploit.

Wait until your (undoubtedly losing) team is 1 man down; not enough to cause a rebalance
Enter spectator mode, causing your team to be 2 men down, causing a rebalance
Wait for the rebalance to occur
Join the winning team.

If you’re mainly focusing on getting reward track credit, it’s the way to go. You have to lose 300 or more rank points before it becomes a non-viable tactic, and by that point, the match is almost over. A team will usually have gained enough score advantage from their manpower advantage to pull ahead at about the two minute mark.

Few suggestions to try to fix it;

1. Make hotjoins 8v8. A 7v8 is at a significantly smaller disadvantage than a 4v5.
2. Base earned points more in participation.

The truth is that the points in hotjoin don’t really matter. First, they are capped. Win or lose, you can only get so many points in hotjoin. Second, most players are unaware of the disparity of points between winning and losing. You can’t blame them. Most of them are casuals anyway. Plus, all the autobalancing means you are likely to get points for winning (plus volunteering) no matter if your team wins or not. So it’s not easy to tell how many points you are getting for winning and losing.

The biggest reason for team stacking, as has been stated by many people who do it, is that it is no fun to be on a losing team. More specifically, it is no fun to be on a team that is outnumbered. We see the same complaint in SoloQ and WvW. There’s no reason it should be any different in hotjoin.

Before spectator mode, team stacking wasn’t a problem because you couldn’t do it. If someone didn’t like the team they were on, they left the match entirely. Autobalance kicks in and the game goes on just fine without. Back then, matches were more balanced and more fun (I at least thought so).

Now, if you don’t like your team, you just hop into spectator mode. Then switch to the other team after the autobalance. This generally upsets the person who was autobalanced, so he does the same thing. And this can go on for the entire match.

It’s also common to see people let a match go 2v1 for awhile, letting red, for instance, get ahead a bit. Someone inevitably joins blue, so those waiting spam on red making it 3v2. Even if the match gets to 5v5, red already has a significant advantage from its early lead.

I prefer the solution of separating spectator mode from joining matches. You can spectate any match you want, but you can’t join that match while you are spectating in it. To join it, you’d have to leave and then find the server it is on, and join as you normally would. Play Now would immediately send you into the match instead of spectator mode. Also, you would free to enter spectator mode from the match you are currently in, but you wouldn’t be able to rejoin until you leave spectator match and select the server from outside as before.

(warning: wall of text ahead)

@DaShi: I called IsilZha’s proposal kneejerk because I didn’t think it went deep enough. Call me an insensitive prick, but I honestly don’t care about the amount of thought or effort that was used, only the quality of the end result, which was about as shallow as you could get in terms of addressing the problems. Perhaps I should have credited the effort and instead said it looked no different than a kneejerk proposal?

@DaShi: “It’s just hotjoin” was a quote from another poster here. It was also used as part of my own proposal that the reward gap between winning and losing in hotjoin be reduced.

@ Both: Prisoner’s Dilemma comparision: Cooperation = join early, don’t switch teams. Defection = join later and/or autobalance. The key difference here is that it is difficult to gauge the reward for mutual (total) defection (how much time wasted at start? how much time in match? does the behavior kill the server and force a new one to be found?), so rather than a [I defect/You cooperate] > [We Cooperate] > [We Defect] > [I cooperate/You defect], it is simply [I defect/You cooperate] > [We Cooperate] ?? [We Defect] > [I cooperate/You defect].

We may agree to disagree on what comes to mind when thinking about the prisoner’s dilemma.

@Both (false dichotomy): A false dichotomy “involves a situation in which limited alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option”. Chess “with a friend” does exactly this, and is more representative of a dueling arena or Team Queue than hotjoin.

@IsilZha: I find it a bit ironic to see “ITG image” in the same post you accuse me of using “big words”. Let me finish addressing the overaggressive tone in the last bit of your post.

“False, empty victories”: I am usually on the losing side at the end of the match. This is because I quickly and readily volunteer to autobalance the second it pops up. I have no issue playing for the losing side, but I will not willingly join a losing side without better balance or incentives.

“Punched in the face”: That’s okay, I now have to right to the self-defense excuse, right? Take your best shot.

“Chess rules”: I think color switching is implied to be rule breaking when colors are assigned at the start of the match and the match is to happen on the board. Let me reiterate that I felt such a scenario was already ridiculous when you brought it up, but since you did, I assumed it became a rule and formulated a quick strategy around it, assuming others would also know the rule and try to plan around it.

@All: I’d like to reiterate that I’m not against changing the status quo of hotjoins at all. I’d just like solutions to be able to address the roots of the issue.

EDIT: what is “ITG image”?

I agree because this exploit has been going on too long.

DaShi.1368:

The truth is that the points in hotjoin don’t really matter. First, they are capped. Win or lose, you can only get so many points in hotjoin. Second, most players are unaware of the disparity of points between winning and losing. You can’t blame them. Most of them are casuals anyway. Plus, all the autobalancing means you are likely to get points for winning (plus volunteering) no matter if your team wins or not. So it’s not easy to tell how many points you are getting for winning and losing.

The biggest reason for team stacking, as has been stated by many people who do it, is that it is no fun to be on a losing team. More specifically, it is no fun to be on a team that is outnumbered. We see the same complaint in SoloQ and WvW. There’s no reason it should be any different in hotjoin.

Before spectator mode, team stacking wasn’t a problem because you couldn’t do it. If someone didn’t like the team they were on, they left the match entirely. Autobalance kicks in and the game goes on just fine without. Back then, matches were more balanced and more fun (I at least thought so).

Now, if you don’t like your team, you just hop into spectator mode. Then switch to the other team after the autobalance. This generally upsets the person who was autobalanced, so he does the same thing. And this can go on for the entire match.

It’s also common to see people let a match go 2v1 for awhile, letting red, for instance, get ahead a bit. Someone inevitably joins blue, so those waiting spam on red making it 3v2. Even if the match gets to 5v5, red already has a significant advantage from its early lead.

I prefer the solution of separating spectator mode from joining matches. You can spectate any match you want, but you can’t join that match while you are spectating in it. To join it, you’d have to leave and then find the server it is on, and join as you normally would. Play Now would immediately send you into the match instead of spectator mode. Also, you would free to enter spectator mode from the match you are currently in, but you wouldn’t be able to rejoin until you leave spectator match and select the server from outside as before.

This is pretty much how I feel about it too. It was a good move to change the games to 5vs5 and the added rewards are great too, but the match manipulation that can be achieved with spectator mode has to be dealt with in some way before people like DaveGan become the norm.

I believe (from my experience in other games) that once most people in game think that afking/botting/match manipulation and the like are the right way to play then it is probably too late to fix it.

Now we have one person in a thread saying its fine to manipulate games, give it a bit of time and whenever someone suggests ways to fix such match manipulation there will be ten Daves for every person that just wants to have a fun game again.

I know it sounds impossible, but I have seen it happen so quickly before.

Yasha.5963:

This is pretty much how I feel about it too. It was a good move to change the games to 5vs5 and the added rewards are great too, but the match manipulation that can be achieved with spectator mode has to be dealt with in some way before people like DaveGan become the norm.

I believe (from my experience in other games) that once most people in game think that afking/botting/match manipulation and the like are the right way to play then it is probably too late to fix it.

Now we have one person in a thread saying its fine to manipulate games, give it a bit of time and whenever someone suggests ways to fix such match manipulation there will be ten Daves for every person that just wants to have a fun game again.

I know it sounds impossible, but I have seen it happen so quickly before.

Can we please stop putting words in my mouth? I have thrown out my own proposals in multiple posts in multiple threads now. I have never said that things shouldn’t change, but until they do I will play to win under the current system.

Most of the time that playing to win means joining the stack on one side and then immediately volunteering for autobalance. I don’t enjoy lopsided matches so I am eager to help the underdog team. I am, however, not masochistic enough to simply go and take losses to others exploiting the system.

The only times I actually participate in spectate-autobalance myself is in a match that has never had any legitimacy (outnumbered/severely rank-stacked) in the first place. If others are exploiting the system I will not keep myself bent over with my pants down holding a bottle of vaseline. This is why the things I’ve proposed have focused on 1.) reducing the incentive for players to stack in the first place, and 2.) creating an incentive for newcomers to join the underdog team. These are far bigger problems, and this “manipulation” you guys are crying about is about the only way for most players to avoid becoming exploited.

Lastly: before I am accused of this again, let me remind everyone that anyone actually in a hotjoin match does value the enjoyment of competition. Simply farming rank points is exceedingly easy: get 3 or more people and enter empty server, blue caps, red forces autobalance, blue goes to red, rinse-repeat for guaranteed win rewards + autobalance reward.

DaveGan.8065:

Remove team swapping and I and many others will simply spectate until there is a clear favorite. After all I only need to play about 3 minutes of the match on the winning side to get equivalent rewards as if I had lost.

That is true, so like others have said the best solution is to remove team swapping (apart from autobalance) and not allow spectators to play in that game once a match has started. In the past I think we had a join as spectator option and a join server (to play) option, maybe something like that would work.

Basically at the moment players can easily “cheat” to win and are taking advantage of that. The more I play after my break from GW2, the more I see that this has really damaged hotjoin.

I think the biggest problem with restricting hotjoin like this is that you may as well remove it altogether as it’s basically Solo Queue at that point.

Players could then go to Solo Queue, Team Queue, or non-progression custom maps. it would be like RA, TA, and guild hall scrimmage matches from Guild Wars 1. I wouldn’t mind seeing this kind of change myself, but I suspect that would be too hardcore for many.

EDIT: If you restrict spectators joining the match after it’s started, how do you fill in people once some of them start to leave? Some will still leave once their Solo Queue or Team Queue fill, and I suspect a few will still leave unbalanced matches. This would create a potential for 5v4 midmatch, so there needs to be a way to get around this.

DaveGan.8065:

(warning: wall of text ahead)

@DaShi: I called IsilZha’s proposal kneejerk because I didn’t think it went deep enough. Call me an insensitive prick, but I honestly don’t care about the amount of thought or effort that was used, only the quality of the end result, which was about as shallow as you could get in terms of addressing the problems. Perhaps I should have credited the effort and instead said it looked no different than a kneejerk proposal?

It is called ad hominem.

@ Both: Prisoner’s Dilemma comparision: Cooperation = join early, don’t switch teams. Defection = join later and/or autobalance. The key difference here is that it is difficult to gauge the reward for mutual (total) defection (how much time wasted at start? how much time in match? does the behavior kill the server and force a new one to be found?), so rather than a [I defect/You cooperate] > [We Cooperate] > [We Defect] > [I cooperate/You defect], it is simply [I defect/You cooperate] > [We Cooperate] ?? [We Defect] > [I cooperate/You defect].

We may agree to disagree on what comes to mind when thinking about the prisoner’s dilemma.

The term you are looking for is a two-person non-zero-sum game. The prisoner’s dilemma is an example of such a game, but not all such games are the prisoner’s dilemma. Also, this doesn’t apply to hotjoin, which better fits a multi-person game theory.

Finally, this line of reasoning as presented yields no actionable information. It’s talking just to talk. No one can reasonably base an argument on it.

@Both (false dichotomy): A false dichotomy “involves a situation in which limited alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option”. Chess “with a friend” does exactly this, and is more representative of a dueling arena or Team Queue than hotjoin.

The claim you could actually make here is called false analogy. The claim of false dichotomy doesn’t make sense in this instance. Imagine someone saying, “The grass is always greener” in response to a co-worker leaving. Then another person claims that that statement is a false dichotomy because the grass could be crabgrass or maybe there’s no grass at all. It’s an utter non-sequitur.

DaveGan.8065:

I think the biggest problem with restricting hotjoin like this is that you may as well remove it altogether as it’s basically Solo Queue at that point.

Players could then go to Solo Queue, Team Queue, or non-progression custom maps. it would be like RA, TA, and guild hall scrimmage matches from Guild Wars 1. I wouldn’t mind seeing this kind of change myself, but I suspect that would be too hardcore for many.

EDIT: If you restrict spectators joining the match after it’s started, how do you fill in people once some of them start to leave? Some will still leave once their Solo Queue or Team Queue fill, and I suspect a few will still leave unbalanced matches. This would create a potential for 5v4 midmatch, so there needs to be a way to get around this.

Actually, hotjoin functioned just fine before spectator mode. New players entered by either selecting “Play Now” or by selecting the server that they wished to join. “Play Now” would put them in a random match that filled empty spots. Selecting a server would put them in an empty spot on that server, but they wouldn’t know if the spot was on the winning or losing team.

Calling it the same as SoloQ is way off because SoloQ requires at least finding all ten participants to even open a server and does not have autobalance.

Finally, attacking everyone’s alternative suggestions (poorly, I might add, because you either refuse to acknowledge what others are posting or don’t understand what they are posting) does not make your proposal any more palatable. If you truly believe that your solution is the best, I suggest you try beefing it up and see if it can stand on its own merits..

@DaShi: I only presented points of contention on the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The main bit that stands out to me about the dilemma is the fact that defecting always yields better results than not defecting, true in this case as well, and that’s what I was referencing. I didn’t directly mention this because the > signs were still there where needed. You are simply being semantic about it now.

“Ad hominem”: now you’re throwing words around. Ad hominem attacks focus on things not in the argument itself. I focused solely on the argument, and came to the conclusion it was shallow. Simply calling it so (and backing up the opinion) does not constitute ad hominem.

“False dichotomy”: still relevant because stipulating “with a friend” limits the choices of scenarios presented (situations without a friend, which is in fact more representative of hotjoin). “False analogy” is valid here, but again it’s back to semantics.

(end of pointless semantic debate)
——————————————————————————-

Actually, hotjoin functioned just fine before spectator mode.

“Hotjoin before spectator mode” was fine because it happened before the stacking/farming meta. The main thing separating hotjoin and Solo Queue is that hotjoin still allows you to play on the same team with friends (aka: practice coordinating rotations/damage/spikes). If hotjoin is to be practice for arenas, it needs to support coordination practice as well.

Calling it the same as SoloQ is way off because SoloQ requires at least finding all ten participants to even open a server and does not have autobalance.

I’m not sure this difference is even significant, much less “way off”. Autobalance still leaves much to be desired, and getting 10 people into a match would be pretty trivial if spectating and team selection became disabled.

Finally, attacking everyone’s alternative suggestions does not make your proposal any more palatable.

I wasn’t aware that the quality of a suggestion was judged on the volume of dialogue. I thought that volume was simply an indicator that the suggestion needed rework and more thought. I’m not here to circlejerk/bandwagon the good suggestions, but rather spend time to fill the holes and gaps in the suboptimal ones.

(poorly, I might add, because you either refuse to acknowledge what others are posting or don’t understand what they are posting)

I think this is the pot calling the kettle black. The first half of your last post consisted of you playing ridiculous semantics under the mindset of proving someone wrong, rather than trying to understand, and the latter half carries the same mindset as before, albeit with fewer semantic arguments.

Don’t take what I say personally. Mentions of how I would continue to exploit the match given xyz suggestion is my way of saying that xyz proposal does not effectively counter the problems in the status quo.

DaShi.1368:

DaveGan.8065:

I think the biggest problem with restricting hotjoin like this is that you may as well remove it altogether as it’s basically Solo Queue at that point.

Players could then go to Solo Queue, Team Queue, or non-progression custom maps. it would be like RA, TA, and guild hall scrimmage matches from Guild Wars 1. I wouldn’t mind seeing this kind of change myself, but I suspect that would be too hardcore for many.

EDIT: If you restrict spectators joining the match after it’s started, how do you fill in people once some of them start to leave? Some will still leave once their Solo Queue or Team Queue fill, and I suspect a few will still leave unbalanced matches. This would create a potential for 5v4 midmatch, so there needs to be a way to get around this.

Actually, hotjoin functioned just fine before spectator mode. New players entered by either selecting “Play Now” or by selecting the server that they wished to join. “Play Now” would put them in a random match that filled empty spots. Selecting a server would put them in an empty spot on that server, but they wouldn’t know if the spot was on the winning or losing team.

Calling it the same as SoloQ is way off because SoloQ requires at least finding all ten participants to even open a server and does not have autobalance.
.

I was about to say the same thing, haha.

Also SoloQ is/was much more stressful than hotjoin, it is a highly competitive mode where you try and bring you best game/build to the match.

Hotjoin, even before spectator mode allowed players to manipulate matches, was more about having fun/testing/learning. You wanted your team to do the basics like rezing and having just one player cap, but if they/you didn’t rotate optimally or bring a meta build it really didn’t matter.

Originally, I, and probably many others didn’t even know 5vs5 hotjoin existed because the system at launch had all the 5vs5 servers kind of “hidden”, so there were never enough players in them. A major complaint on the forums became why 5vs5 hotjoin was not more encouraged, because 8vs8 ended up as zerg fests on small maps that were designed for a 5vs5 fight, and that 8vs8 was a really bad introduction to the actual competitive side of the game.

We have been through several reiterations of how the hotjoin server system works, but it feels like every time has been off somehow. It would be great if the much requested 5vs5 hotjoin system, with good rewards for spvpers (also much requested), could be given a better chance to flourish by strictly limiting the spectator mode and stopping team/swapping except for autobalance.

If players are funnelled into servers to fill games first (before sending them to a new empty server) and you take away the temptation of cheating (ie, how spectator mode and team swapping currently work) everything should fall into place on an overall level.

I think an important point in the discussion is to realize that manipulation of spectator mode and team swapping is a built in way to CHEAT. Do we want to continue having cheat-mode built into the game?

DaveGan.8065:

@DaShi: I only presented points of contention on the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The main bit that stands out to me about the dilemma is the fact that defecting always yields better results than not defecting, true in this case as well, and that’s what I was referencing. I didn’t directly mention this because the > signs were still there where needed. You are simply being semantic about it now.

Actually, in the prisoner’s dilemma the cooperative strategy is the better strategy under repeating plays.

“Ad hominem”: now you’re throwing words around. Ad hominem attacks focus on things not in the argument itself. I focused solely on the argument, and came to the conclusion it was shallow. Simply calling it so (and backing up the opinion) does not constitute ad hominem.

You did not come to that conclusion through any logical process. You simply “thought” it wasn’t deep enough and dismissed it. Kneejerk still doesn’t apply, and you are hardly an adequate judge of the quality of the solutions proposed. In short, you were insulting and rude.

“False dichotomy”: still relevant because stipulating “with a friend” limits the choices of scenarios presented (situations without a friend, which is in fact more representative of hotjoin). “False analogy” is valid here, but again it’s back to semantics.

It’s not semantics. You completely misunderstood the point Isil was making and choose to complain about the color of his analogy rather than the substance of it.

The main thing separating hotjoin and Solo Queue is that hotjoin still allows you to play on the same team with friends (aka: practice coordinating rotations/damage/spikes). If hotjoin is to be practice for arenas, it needs to support coordination practice as well.

Begging the question and strawman.

Autobalance still leaves much to be desired, and getting 10 people into a match would be pretty trivial if spectating and team selection became disabled.

You need to finish your argument here.

I wasn’t aware that the quality of a suggestion was judged on the volume of dialogue. I thought that volume was simply an indicator that the suggestion needed rework and more thought. I’m not here to circlejerk/bandwagon the good suggestions, but rather spend time to fill the holes and gaps in the suboptimal ones.

You are not filling in the gaps for the suboptimal ones. Your arguments are incomplete and filled with flaws. They don’t contribute any discussion here. You also frequently misunderstand other posters and go on nonsequiturs about how they are wrong.

In addition, you are claiming some solutions to be suboptimal but give no criteria as to why yours is superior. Volume is the better indicator, since certain solutions have been suggested and approved several times in this forum. In fact, your solution isn’t discussed because it has been largely dismissed. It’s based on unproven assumptions as to what the problem is and doesn’t actually offer a clear resolution. This is why you are seeing alternatives.

I think this is the pot calling the kettle black. The first half of your last post consisted of you playing ridiculous semantics under the mindset of proving someone wrong, rather than trying to understand, and the latter half carries the same mindset as before, albeit with fewer semantic arguments.

But I do understand what you are saying. For example, what you are saying here is: “No, I’m not! You are!”

I am correcting your misconceptions. You don’t fully understand the concepts and terms you are using and this is preventing you from properly expressing yourself. Look at this quoted section about here: “The first half of your last post consisted of you playing ridiculous semantics under the mindset of proving someone wrong…” The first half of my last post is just a description of how hotjoin functioned before spectator mode. Is this what you are referring to? Do you really think that is a semantics argument? How am I supposed to interpret it?

You whinge about semantics, but the problem is that you are misusing terms and concepts. What’s worse is that you are trying to use them to bully others. I’m simply trying to correct these misconceptions so at least you aren’t continuing to spread ignorance along with your hostility.

Don’t take what I say personally. Mentions of how I would continue to exploit the match given xyz suggestion is my way of saying that xyz proposal does not effectively counter the problems in the status quo.

I honestly have no opinion on how you play. Not sure why you think this is relevant. You make far too many false assumptions and then argue them rather than what other people are actually saying. I suggest you spend more time listening (or reading in this case).

@Yasha: Solo Queue is more stressful than hotjoin right now because there still is hotjoin. If it got removed and people had only Solo and Team Queue left, the population for arenas would become more casual and this would improve the matchmaking as well. The comparison would be for [hotjoin without spectate/team selection] vs [Solo Queue with increased population from hotjoin]

@DaShi: This last post of yours has been nothing but reciting a dictionary of fallacies without even checking the definitions. No points are backed by you, and you continue to set a double standard by expectinging me to elaborate my points further. You’ve ventured into the fallacy fallacy multiple times, so at this point I’m going to just dismiss it as trolling or oversensitivity.

If you look at the discussions themselves you’ll see that I’ve generally not been the instigator. For example I escalated after being threatened with a “punch in the face”.

I would actually love to see you dismiss my proposal with some reasons or backing (we can take this to PM if interested, because this multiplayer PvF is getting derailed by arguments about fallacies and fallacious use of fallacies). The reason it seems to be largely ignored now is because it addresses a more complex issue while people here seem to think the problem and solution are simple.

I’ll leave this thread with my last message here unless personally called out by a different person.

• ignore the deeper issues and people will continue to game the system
• change the wrong things and hotjoin will just die completely: the more casual players will leave PvP and the others will go to arenas
• (I actually wouldn’t mind the death of hotjoin at all, but I know not all here share my feelings)

DaveGan.8065:

The reason it seems to be largely ignored now is because it addresses a more complex issue while people here seem to think the problem and solution are simple.

The problem and solution may actually be simple. Try to better explain the issue, if you truly believe in it. If you make a strong enough argument for your solution, I’d be happy to support it myself.