Guild Wars 2

from time to time i have seen some selfish people ask for the removal of hotjoin servers. it shocks me that even some anet pvp team members have considered that.
fortunately, one of them said hotjoin servers will not be removed for the time being.

but, he only mentioned “for the time being” and not “forever” so they might consider the removal again in the future, if the selfish vocal minority complained enough.

in the original guild wars 1, random arena matches pit 4 players against 4 players, and if one player disconnects, rage quits, leaves for whatsoever reasons, the remaining 4 vs 3 becomes quickly unplayable as the teams will be uneven.

the same applies for the 4 vs 5 situations here in solo arena, guild wars 2.

in 8 vs 8 hotjoin games this will not be too much of a problem since players will be coming and going, 8 vs 8 becoming 8 vs 7 will not affect the ongoing game too much as the last slot will quickly be filled up by players wanting to join a full game.

8 vs 8 hotjoin servers will always be the casual PvP playground for casual sPvP players who have no intention to participate in solo arena or team arena.

selfish people who blame 8 vs 8 hotjoin servers for various reasons:
- unskilled players in solo arena
- 4 vs 5 situation in solo arena
- low sPvP population count overall
- etc

where in fact, those above mentioned problems are caused by other issues, not 8 vs 8 hotjoin servers.

“unskilled players in solo arena”
- lack of better in game tutorials to guide new players to 5 vs 5 arena game mode

“4 vs 5 situation in solo arena”
- long queue time causing away from keyboard players to not join in the game

“low sPvP population count overall”
- lack of PvE rewards for PvE players
- few stats distribution methods for WvW players

anet’s public 8 vs 8 hotjoin servers is the best thing to happen to guild wars 2.

now they just need to introduce better PvE rewards to attract the PvE crowd, better stats distribution to attract the WvW crowd and the low population of sPvP may see an increase.

Skyhammer is the god’s grace of this game and will boost the population, put it in teamQ or I quit.

Oraith.1732:

Skyhammer is the god’s grace of this game and will boost the population, put it in teamQ or I quit.

but i heard a lot of people do not even want that map in solo arena.

some are even boycotting skyhammer in solo arena by away from keyboard during the match or even quitting the match.

i am fine playing skyhammer in 8 vs 8 hotjoin arena though.

I agree. Hotjoin is awesome. Give people the choice between 5v5 and 8v8 while preferring 5v5 for automatic placements and everything is fine.

Ignore those calling for hotjoin to end. They don’t like others enjoying themselves. They would rather place some ideal of “teamwork” and “how it’s meant to be played” etc etc above what people actually like to do.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Oraith.1732:

Skyhammer is the god’s grace of this game and will boost the population, put it in teamQ or I quit.

but i heard a lot of people do not even want that map in solo arena.

some are even boycotting skyhammer in solo arena by away from keyboard during the match or even quitting the match.

i am fine playing skyhammer in 8 vs 8 hotjoin arena though.

We need 18 vs 18 for skill based combat, and enlarge skyhammer.

Oraith.1732:

We need 18 vs 18 for skill based combat, and enlarge skyhammer.

We need a map-wide skyhammer damage.. With friendly fire.

Oraith.1732:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Oraith.1732:

Skyhammer is the god’s grace of this game and will boost the population, put it in teamQ or I quit.

but i heard a lot of people do not even want that map in solo arena.

some are even boycotting skyhammer in solo arena by away from keyboard during the match or even quitting the match.

i am fine playing skyhammer in 8 vs 8 hotjoin arena though.

We need 18 vs 18 for skill based combat, and enlarge skyhammer.

Im pretty sure we all agree that skyhammer should be a one hit kill and give stealth and stability and a hammer to all nearby allies.

Nice post OP, yeah i fully agree make skyhammer a 20 v 20 map and the only map available on team queue. This map is a god given gift to guild wars 2, one improvement could be to add more of the glass tiles to the arenas surface.

the current sPvP game servers only seems to support 10 vs 10, even for custom servers.

the current existing choice of maps also does not seem to support more than 20 players.

until we see bigger maps for sPvP, the hard limit of 20 players i.e. 10 vs 10 will remain.

The other day I had 100 cannon hits and 440 glory on Skyhammer in 8v8. I could almost see the Esports in front of me.

The problem is in rewards. You could get more glory and faster in hot join than in turnament for most of the time.
Now they equalized it kind of.
When turnaments will yield better rewards than hot joins thing will sort out for themselves.

Hotjoin is a great innovation, but the choice to make 8vs8 the default option for hotjoin and pretty much hide 5vs5 hotjoin was a very bad decision.

Yasha.5963:

Hotjoin is a great innovation, but the choice to make 8vs8 the default option for hotjoin and pretty much hide 5vs5 hotjoin was a very bad decision.

ya. they should have labeled it better.

i.e.

8 vs 8 (casual format)
5 vs 5 (competitive format)

but the hotjoin system itself (any players can join in and drop out anytime) is awesome though.

I agree with most of what you say…especially the part about lack if incentive for pve/wvw players. A lot of people i know from wvw dont do spvp solely because the stats are so different…im not asking for ascended gear in pvp ofc but i think the amulet should be spread out so we have rings etc. like in pve/wvw. Right now there is a huge brick wall between spvp and the rest of the game and it needs to change

I only thing they should get 3 big disclaimers before joining hotjoin:

1. PLAY FOR FUN!

2. TOURNAMENT IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THING

3. CHILL! DON’T TAKE HOTJOIN SERIOUSLY

I get that sometimes players pick up bad habits in hotjoin matches, but the positive aspects about hotjoin is often forgotten. The most important one being, that some of us think hotjoin is FUN!

• If the teams are uneven, players a swapped.

• If you don’t like the map you are about to be ported into, you can just spectate (maybe even learn something), go for a cup of coffee in the meantime or simply find another match.

• If you want to play with a friend, try out a new build or a new class: Hotjoin makes that possible, without ruining the experience for the players that are in the mood for tournament play that day.

We always hear the bad things about hotjoin. I definitely think hotjoin has its qualities as well and I would like to keep it in the game.

Besides, if hotjoin was removed, I can’t even imagine the: Omg. OMG, OMG…..RAWR!!!!!, when more players (that no longer have hotjoin) decides to enter tournaments instead, to try out their new build or to familiarize themselves with a none familiar profession.

I think hotjoin has a purpose in the game and to be honest, I find it fun at times.
I am guessing other people do as well, as there are always plenty of matches going on.
Going by that measurement: The hotjoin concept is quite a success.

I believe having fun while playing a game means just about everything.

I’m actually happy all the guys with high rank join on one side. So I can join the other and fight worthwhile opponents!

+1 hotjoins

im casuall pvp only player. my entire r24 is through hotjoins

I have suggested the removal of hotjoin before more than once, or at the least it’s moving away from being offered as the ‘default’ mode for sPvP. Not becuase I want to ruin peoples fun, but because I feel it can help achive the devs stated aims, and a large number of the sPvP populations desire, to see a healthy and thriving competative scene. I have suggested before that all hot join could perhaps be being renamed as custom servers, some of which may be provided by the devs rarther than players, but the focus moved onto unranked que as the ‘go to’ sPvP, with customs being mostly for practice. Leavers can be a problem, but MOBAs seem to manage, and with much longer game lengths too. Hot join being seen as the ‘main’ spvp mode since realease is in my opinion one of the worst things that could have heppened to spvps chances of successfully building a competative scene.

Don’t forget WvW is there too if you want to charge around with a big group of players without too much stratagy and just have fun (it’s certainly not the only way to play that either, but it’s definatly an option there), and that should be even easyer with the Edge of the Mists map, which to my mind suits the purpose better (with the exception of being tied into pve gear and level, so experimenting with builds is harder there)

Edit: – I’m am almost certain that the popular moba games would not attract millions of players and hundereds of thousands of viewers had drop in drop out 8v8 been their default mode on their 5v5 maps at release.

Huh? Team population imbalance is much worse in hot join than it is in solo q.

Yea, it sucks losing someone in a solo q, but in hot join you pretty much always start off with one team being at least 1 person short.

The imbalance of score in hot joins is so bad that it’s really almost pointless to keep track of it anyways. I mean, the game starts off with one team outnumbering the other, then anyone else that joins either tries to fills slots in the winning team or just jumps into another game until they end up on a winning team.

There are 2 reasons I still do hot joins despite these problems:
1) It’s something to do when I just want to quickly test a build or kill some time when I don’t have enough time to run a full match.
2) When I want to PvP with someone else, but don’t have a full party of 5 people (which is still pretty miserable due to autobalance throwing my friends on the opposite team).

Only improvement I would like to see is that players couldn’t choose sides besides autobalance. Player would jump in and make the best of the team he/she is appointed into. This would be much better than all high rank concentrated in one team and the other being short of everything. If you want to que with a friend you have solo/team queues for that.

I enjoy playing against other players but I am in no way competitive minded. I am slow fingered and perform poorly in duels but improving own game play is rewarding.

Speaking of rewards I would really hope that PvP achievement titles would be changed to measure against rank points instead of personal points. Rewarding double capping and other questionable behaviour because personal points >> rank points is strange.