Guild Wars 2

Hotjoin has been totally destroyed by allowing players to change teams at will. I always thought hotjoin was a good idea for some fun casual spvp or to test builds and such, but now it is just terrible.

People keep saying “it’s just hotjoin” as if that is a good reason to have a broken system. It seems almost crazy that this situation has been allowed to continue to worsen. Is the aim just to kill hotjoin?

it is not competitive so what you expect? This game mode is for killing some foes, do daily, play troll builds etc. For managing your rotation and team play you have tpvp

What’s really sad is that you can’t even test builds in hotjoin anymore due to the constantly unbalanced teams. It would be best replaced by a deathmatch free-for-all game mode with no teams. No one cooperates in hotjoin anyway.

It would be a whole lot more fun to play a free-for-all Quake-style match with fast randomized respawns and scattered power-ups (health packs, cooldown resets, stat modifiers). Score would be entirely based on kills – deaths. E.g., Kill = + 10 points, death = -5 points. A game mode like this would be a great way to enjoy pvping while learning the mechanics of your class (e.g., CC rotations, skill combos, dodging, etc).

Hotjoin is currently nothing more than 9 auto balances per match.

SoloQ still suffers 4 vs 5 and rage quitters.

Tpvp M.M.R has such a small base number of players that it can’t reliably form solid match ups outside of the top 10%. You’re either crushed, or crush them.

5 years of development went into it.

There is no doubt good reasons why the PvP community is near extinction. Instead of emailing accounts that went inactive for 10+ months as to way they have not logged back in, they developed N.P.E from a focus group 2 years after launch.

I genuinely believe a-net wants a great product, and wants to see everyone enjoy it. However when you look at the history, it is difficult to figure out the rationale. Create a MMO than is friendly to non MMO players and implement it 2 years after launch and not fully diagnose why players have left the product entirely 6 months after installing. The PvP I believe is a strong percentage why it has not kept a larger number of players attracted for longer durations.

a thread in the general discussion section just taught me how to fix hotjoin.
Boycott gem buying until they fix it.

thats right Anet, it’s come to a point were i’m not spending another penny until you fix the mess you’ve made, the one we’ve been telling you about for a year now, the one you’ve utterly ignored.
FIX/REMOVE TEAM SELECT AND SPECTATOR!

Liewec.2896:

until you fix the mess you’ve made

Oh yeah , they chosed the ‘’fixxed rewards’’ based on win-loss …. that opened the Pandora Box and created all these afk-ragequiters-ppl that want to increase their rewards …. mess …. (from the Januray of 2014 patch and forward – dont remember exactly)

…. and not WE – the community that wanted to increase the compative/coraperation side of the PvP (translations : Bunkers didnt get enought points vs the Roamers in soloque-tque) ….

(dont any1 tell me that hotjoins where zergy and that change benefit the game ….
Why do you think ppl moaned about Thiefs and Mesmers back then (while the monkeys on the forums tried to defend their class , like : ‘’ they dies from aoe and they are suitable for Live Tournaments’’ ?

Answer: 4 ppl went to middle , 2 close and 2 on the enemy base in a regular hotjoin game .
Rather than 8v8 ppl actually roamed and went for kills , while newer players hide and protected with the 4-5 other ppl in the mid .)

If free accounts arrive here …. it will be your last chance …. learn your kitten mistakes and say some ’’sorry’’ …..

hotjoin is broken because most players prefer to be on the team of 5 steam rolling the team of 4.

one of the way to fix 5 vs 4 hotjoin is to forcefully make the teams 4 vs 4.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Liewec.2896:

until you fix the mess you’ve made

Oh yeah

yeah.

hotjoin was fine before they added team select, they did make the mess.
the most fun time in hotjoin was in the first year, it was 8v8 with automated teams.
they removed 8v8 and allowed people to leave the losing team and join the winning one.
it’s been over a year since hotjoin was ruined and left to rot,
they could fix it easily at any point, stop trying to defend their utter neglect.

I have to agree. Hotjoin used to be O.K. for going in to just mess around or test a build, but almost 75% of the matches are completely worthless now. They were never about being competitive, but it used to be most of the matches started/finished with the same people (that didn’t intentionally stack), and you could just have some fights; I think that pendulum has swung the other way. I still get a nice server now and again where people are just randomly joining a side and going at it, but that’s a pretty rare occurrence.

Liewec.2896:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Liewec.2896:

until you fix the mess you’ve made

Oh yeah

yeah.

hotjoin was fine before they added team select, they did make the mess.

If you remember correctly in the past , ppl actually ’’choosed’’ to join the loosing side when was an open spot , because back then you didnt get rewards based on ‘’win-loss’’ matches , but rather you had to kill-capture bases and if was a nice practice trying to turn back the outcome of the match .
Now , why bother sticking to it when you have to win to get the most rewards .

Or even in soloque-teamque , even if your team where 250 points behind , one of your team8s didnt stand afk in the ressing point in your bases or yelling on your chat ‘’loose faster so can join an other match faster’‘’ , but rather went to get some extra rewards , while giving the pseudo-idea that : ’’i havent give up , we cn make it ! join me "

Dont you find it strange that in 2014 we had like 5000% increase in ragequiting-afk-badmouthing (ppl where occupied to collect the rewards-not wasting their time on the keyboard) compared to the whole 2013 ?

Yasha.5963:

Hotjoin has been totally destroyed by allowing players to change teams at will. I always thought hotjoin was a good idea for some fun casual spvp or to test builds and such, but now it is just terrible.

People keep saying “it’s just hotjoin” as if that is a good reason to have a broken system. It seems almost crazy that this situation has been allowed to continue to worsen. Is the aim just to kill hotjoin?

Yup I agree.
I remember I use to ENJOY doing hotjoins.
Use to do hotjoins on the daily, loved every minute of it, loved the 8v8, loved competiting to get better score than others.
Now its no fun, score doesn’t mean anything anymore, its just who wins and who loses, no fun involved.

They listened to the wrong people and hence hotjoins are terrible.

Yes it is terrible. Spectate mode needs to be removed and allow people to queue with 1 other person to compensate. Till that happens people will simply swap to the winning team and it will remain terrible. I refuse to play hotjoin even to test builds.

Hotjoin was not too bad when you could not pick a side and got lumped where the game put you. It was tolerable. It would not take much to simply return to this mechanic.

I agree ’It’s just hotjoin’ is not excuse for the mode to be terrible. This will be the mode any beginner first tries and if it is awful the mode can not grow. Eg. a friend of mine was doing Hotjoin and was about to quit the game. I got him to try soloq and now he is a regular player.

You know whats funny? – The lack of response from Anet.

You know whats funnier?? – People telling you to ignore this broken mechanic because its not competative.

My car is broken, but nah I won’t fix it. Its not a race car.

Its definitely in a pretty sorry state right now. Things like this really help to undermine a games health.

Imagine you went to a house party to play board games casually.

Imagine that people would start playing and then just quit in the middle of the game when they are losing or get frustrated.

Imagine how much fun that would be.

Imagine if NOTHING was done by the host of the party to cure the problem.

In fact, imagine that the host not only allowed people to rage quit, but actually rewarded them by allowing them to swap to the winning side.

What would you think of this party and host???

The popularity (or lack thereof) of GW2 is not an accident.

Anet is great at creating a combat engine and tools for a great game, but totally negligent in addressing things that corrupt all their hard work.

SPESHAL.9106:

Imagine you went to a house party to play board games casually.

Imagine that people would start playing and then just quit in the middle of the game when they are losing or get frustrated.

Imagine how much fun that would be.

Imagine if NOTHING was done by the host of the party to cure the problem.

In fact, imagine that the host not only allowed people to rage quit, but actually rewarded them by allowing them to swap to the winning side.

What would you think of this party and host???

The popularity (or lack thereof) of GW2 is not an accident.

Anet is great at creating a combat engine and tools for a great game, but totally negligent in addressing things that corrupt all their hard work.

If you force those people to play an unfun game, then it isn’t fun.

I had forgotten, but hotjoin was probably at it’s best before spectate for sure when the game would just randomize teams each match. Anet just needs to make some of their servers 5v5 without spectate mode like they used to be.

I really don’t get this thread. People seem to think that hotjoin should be like spvp. Well, that’s what spvp is for…hotjoin is for testing builds…wtf is the problem?

Just bring back 8v8 and Raid of the Capricorn, love that ship

Sube Dai.8496:

I really don’t get this thread. People seem to think that hotjoin should be like spvp. Well, that’s what spvp is for…hotjoin is for testing builds…wtf is the problem?

let me answer this for you with some facts derived from a-net sales.

In it’s opening year of 3 million sales only 15% were from traditional EU and NA territories. This means that at that time 85% of the player population were not on EU or NA time clocks. Since China, this number of non EU/ NA has doubled.

This means tpvp and more recently the introduction of soloQ creates up to 40 minute times for a single match. On average i will wait 18 minutes. However, I don’t wanna run dungeons, I’ve done them and fractals. I just want some pvp action. This makes hotjoin ideal. Now imagine 85% of players have the same issue..yet there is hotjoin in all of its instantly available readiness..yet it’s broken..absolutely puckered badly due to team swapping exploiting.

So I decide i will ‘test’ builds..so I go golem, Pvp sparring archetypes, svanir, chieftain, lord etc..you know, the mechanics designed for people to ‘test’ before live play. I then take into hotjoin to work on rotations etc, because the ‘testing’ has already been done. Yet every step of the way I’m faced with 2 or more players and my 4 vs 5 team becomes 3 vs 5 while someone forces an autobalance so they can now position themselves on the winning team. However this gets counter by another pro doing the same thing to try and swap back, but instead it selects me to swap..so now when ‘testing’ my build it is always me and another player vs 1 guy..

So even in this world of where you consider it a ‘test’ zone it is still entirely flawed.

This means i get no PvP..soloQ is dead..not many ppl to PuG tpvp..guild mostly doing other stuff and hotjoin just unbearable.

So what do I do?..I load up mass effect series..drop gw2, come to forums with cigarette and make sure there is no mistake as to why the community is forever getting smaller by the hour.

I hope this answers your question. I also hope it answers truthfully some questions a-net may be wondering.

Sube Dai.8496:

I really don’t get this thread. People seem to think that hotjoin should be like spvp. Well, that’s what spvp is for…hotjoin is for testing builds…wtf is the problem?

the problem is majority of pve players prefer to stack on the team of 5 bullying the other team of 4 in order to secure their win rewards.

To those who don’t understand why it’s a problem, hotjoin is the ambassador to pvp content. It’s a lot of people’s first exposure to non pve content and the fact that it’s so bad turns a lot of people off of pvp and gw2 in general.

You know whats 10x funnier??? – PvE’ers defending the current state hotjoin is in now…

You know whats infinitely funnier?!??!? – Anet will soon say hotjoin is fine in the current state. Because there is also a percentage of the community that likes it. Just like Skyhammer.

I challenge you to come up with something funnier than that.
I challenge the hotjoin defenders to play hotjoin without skipping teams, unless you are farming your glorious armor and R80 of course. Which is more important than this broken system you will abuse anyway.

Sube Dai.8496:

I really don’t get this thread. People seem to think that hotjoin should be like spvp. Well, that’s what spvp is for…hotjoin is for testing builds…wtf is the problem?

OK, I will try and help you understand.

I first played GW2 at launch and nearly every day for a year after, almost exclusively spvp. I got bored with the game mode and so took a break, but I always come back from time to time because the combat is still so amazing.

Hotjoin was completely different back then. Every game was full and often games went to the wire. It was fun to just rock into hotjoin and whittle the hours away, it was like the ultimate casual pvp game, an amazing take on battleground systems like in WoW and Rift with all the bad stuff (gear/level inequality etc.) taken out. It was 24/7 pvp fun times.

The main thing people asked for in terms of hotjoin structure was could we please have a 5v5 tab and an 8vs8 tab so we could easily choose which to play (for months I didn’t even know 5v5 hotjoin existed because the 5v5 servers were located at the bottom of the server list and even when I found them they were often poorly populated).

Anyway, ANET made some changes- some of which were really good, like giving pvpers some real rewards that they could take with them over to pve. In theory the spectate mode was also good. But it had the unexpected side-effect of totally destroying hotjoin.

These days it is hard to find a stable server with consistent players. Nearly every game has players quitting or forcing auto balance to join the winning side. Players wait to observe which team the better players are on and then join that one, effectively stacking stronger players against a team of weaker players. Games will often limp along at 2vs3, with a full 5vs5 game becoming increasingly rare.

In short hotjoin used to be a fun game, but now because of the unintended side effects of spectate and being able to force autobalance etc, it has become frustrating and often just not fun. It feels broken, whereas in the past it felt amazing. Maybe it was too much fun in the past and was actually detracting from solo and team queue?

At any rate that is why I am kittened off. A really fun part of the game has been destroyed. I also agree with others above who say that a broken hotjoin is a bad image for the game and is actually damaging for GW2 overall.

Congrats if you were able to read all that, personally I think my first post said it all in a tenth of the wording, but maybe some background helps.

^ Just thought I’d point out that I actually created a custom filter that will show me any servers that are 8v8. Unfortunately, most nights all such servers are completely empty.

Zaxares.5419:

^ Just thought I’d point out that I actually created a custom filter that will show me any servers that are 8v8. Unfortunately, most nights all such servers are completely empty.

That is how it used to be for 5vs5 games when 8v8 games were listed a the top of the list. I personally like 5vs5 better, but the main problem now is players being able to force autobalance and stack teams.

Some people have suggested that team swapping is motivated by rewards. Personally I only play because the game is fun (when it works), my bags are always full these days and I just delete new rewards so I can keep playing.

I think just preventing players from being able to spectate and then join the game again and auto assigning players randomly at the start of a game would go a long way to fixing the problem, but it would be good to see any efforts to fix this.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Liewec.2896:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Liewec.2896:

until you fix the mess you’ve made

Oh yeah

yeah.

hotjoin was fine before they added team select, they did make the mess.

If you remember correctly in the past , ppl actually ’’choosed’’ to join the loosing side when was an open spot , because back then you didnt get rewards based on ‘’win-loss’’ matches , but rather you had to kill-capture bases and if was a nice practice trying to turn back the outcome of the match .
Now , why bother sticking to it when you have to win to get the most rewards .

Or even in soloque-teamque , even if your team where 250 points behind , one of your team8s didnt stand afk in the ressing point in your bases or yelling on your chat ‘’loose faster so can join an other match faster’‘’ , but rather went to get some extra rewards , while giving the pseudo-idea that : ’’i havent give up , we cn make it ! join me "

Dont you find it strange that in 2014 we had like 5000% increase in ragequiting-afk-badmouthing (ppl where occupied to collect the rewards-not wasting their time on the keyboard) compared to the whole 2013 ?

i agree with everything you said, how can they be so good at making their game worse and worse,
the scoring is worse, (personal score rewarded your effort even if you lost)
the rewards are worse, (one skale worth of loot in 15 minutes? be serious!)
5v5 isn’t as fun, (8v8 was incredibly fun, we -play- played hotjoin for fun.)
the maps are worse (skyhammer in the rotation)
the exploits are worse. (this should have been fixed in the same week it was added.)

the meta could arguably be better than previous ones, but that is literally it, on every other aspect they’ve tried their absolute hardest to ruin pvp.

they think showering the top 100 players in cash tournaments is going to fix pvp?

if you dont like it why you dont u join solo arena?

jihm.2315:

if you dont like it why you dont u join solo arena?

I am guessing lots of people are like me and don’t want to take sub par or new builds they aren’t familiar with into solo que so they use hot join to practice… it is a little difficult at the moment when you get auto’d 4 times a match because people can’t take a loss.

jihm.2315:

if you dont like it why you dont u join solo arena?

Because there are also many 4v5 and people ragequitting after failing in solo queue. I’m seeing people afking or leaving the match when you’re 100 points behind, or when all party is dead sometimes…

Hotjoin and solo queue attitudes might be linked overall…

It was a big mistake to force hot join down to 5v5. It didn’t help solo Q nor tPvP… And the less folks on each team accentuates an imbalance (8v7 is far more competitive than 5v4).

I would go so far as to say solo que IS the new hotjoin.

More and more and more do you find 3v5s and 4v5s. Only difference is in Hotjoin they will auto balance. In solo queue you are just plain kittened, and most of the time just get facerolled.

Team Que is just as bad. A majority of the time it is 2 ppl joining and then 2 others and maybe a solo in team que. I see no difference in that and solo que. The only time solo queue really makes a difference is when its a pre-made.

IMO Team queues should only be allowed if you have a 5 man premade, otherwise its identical to solo.

jihm.2315:

if you dont like it why you dont u join solo arena?

pretty much what the guys above said, of the options, hotjoin is still the best option of the 3.

i usually only play one night a week so i don’t want to spend it waiting more than playing.
i loathe skyhammer so i don’t want to play the roulette of having it pop up in soloQ.
i also hate meta builds, i don’t play them and i prefer to play against more interesting builds.

if they reverted every change they’ve made to hotjoin it would be 1000x better than it is right now.

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

You know whats 10x funnier??? – PvE’ers defending the current state hotjoin is in now…

You know whats infinitely funnier?!??!? – Anet will soon say hotjoin is fine in the current state. Because there is also a percentage of the community that likes it. Just like Skyhammer.

I challenge you to come up with something funnier than that.
I challenge the hotjoin defenders to play hotjoin without skipping teams, unless you are farming your glorious armor and R80 of course. Which is more important than this broken system you will abuse anyway.

What’s funnier is how dumb you are.
First of all you contradicted yourself saying PvE’ers will defend current state, and how later the developers will say its fine, both instances are in agreement and there is no argument based on what your saying.

You are right in the way saying small percentage of people like it, in the current state I’m not part of that tiny percentage. When hotjoin was originally designed I was major part of that tiny percentage you speak of, I enjoyed hotjoining over tournaments.

You know why small percentage of people like Skyhammer? Because small percentage of people are actually good at PvP and a large of people die instantly because people are too good and they hate dying real fast to good players. Skyhammer is a high skill cap map which many people don’t like because they all newbs. Skyhammer SHOULD be in Team Arena. Skyhammer SHOULD be on the WTS, PAX, ESL, etc tournaments as the third map on the best of 3.

You claim hotjoin defenders liking hotjoins, so why would they skip a map? They PvE’ers, they don’t know they are being farmed. I’m a PvP’er guess what I don’t skip a game either, I join the team I know is going to win, because its so predictable.

I would never chose hotjoins over solo que or team que when it comes to grinding to R80 or glorious armor or whatever you mentioned. The new system ENCOURAGES people who are mainly PvE’ers who AP farm, to do solo que because the rewards are better even when you lose, and great when you win. Its a fair game too, most of the times. Why on Earth would someone go do a hotjoin?

That’s why its broken, there’s no reason at all to hotjoin.
Current grading system encourages winning, rather than having fun, so exclude having fun from hotjoins (my main reason why I LOVED hotjoins).
Current team limit is why when one team has 1 more than another team the effect is so dramatic. Back when game was released you would have games Team 1 with 7 and Team 2 with 8…. Autobalance wasn’t a huge deal back than, if anything it was so minor nobody cared about it. Being down 1 person in a 8 team isn’t that dramatic as to compared to 5 person team.

Anet listened to those popularity prep kids, that think they all knowing, that’s why the current state of hotjoins is bad. They continue to this very day, feed the developers bad ideas.

Look at facts, a year ago twitch stream, back when game was new and fresh everyone trying it out, high population, got 2-3k viewers at a tournament.
This year, hard pressed incentives to watch twitch like 7 llamas and precursors per stream (holy crap….. I never won one, must be giving to there friends (I know all about that circle of popularity preppy kids)) and after all that market hype, STILL 2-3k viewers.
If you ask me about the differences is that, 1st tournament was more fresh and had faith in esports, little to none market hype. This tournament a couple days ago, so much market hype all I see in the login screen is PvP related things, so many freebies (they go about them the wrong way), etc…. Only that the faith in esports is dwindled and pretty much certain there wont be esports.

But Anet you keep listening to those popularity preppy kids, its your grave and not mine. I’ll let facts be facts.

Anet makes serious effort to promote the game for new comers. It is strange that the excellent casual friendly hotjoin is driven on to its current sad state. Out of 20 matches you go into propably 1 or 2 are ending in range 500-300 and have 5 v 5 in the end. Out of those it is very unlikely that either would continue next round with better than 2 v 3.
When I started my casual pvp career I could stay like hours on same server and had close matches almost all the time. I dont know any legit reason for team swap during game or even selecting sides to exist.

IMO they should disable team switching in half the servers in hotjoin that are “official” servers.

Vieteriukko.6075:

Anet makes serious effort to promote the game for new comers. It is strange that the excellent casual friendly hotjoin is driven on to its current sad state. Out of 20 matches you go into propably 1 or 2 are ending in range 500-300 and have 5 v 5 in the end. Out of those it is very unlikely that either would continue next round with better than 2 v 3.
When I started my casual pvp career I could stay like hours on same server and had close matches almost all the time. I dont know any legit reason for team swap during game or even selecting sides to exist.

They wanted people to play with there friends, however there system is still broke because you still cant even play on same team with your friends, well in other words its not easy because you cant just outright pick the team you want, you have to pick based on teams being even which kinda defeats the purpose.

Yes, I know about that staying on same server for hours, I was in the same boat, hotjoin was so much fun back then I literally couldn’t stop playing it.

2 things that brought hotjoins to its current state
1. the pvp reward system, not reward tracks but how you earn pvp rank points. It used to be individual based, but now its strictly team based. This totally defeats having fun in hotjoins, your now forced to strictly play like it would be in a ranked match. All the popularity preppy kids, wanted it to be like tpvp, strict, no fun, play to win. You know what? Those dumb developers listen to the wrong people like I been telling them for years, they keep doing that. So henceforth those popularity preppy kids got there wish and not, so now hotjoin is played in that kind of manner, and if your playing to win, you don’t join a 4v5 game and make it even, especially when they down 50 or 100 points. Which therefore leads that entire game handicapped and domino effects when someone gets mad, which brings another issue called autobalance, a lot of whiners whining about this currently. Autobalance itself isn’t the issue, its hotjoins that is the issue.

2. second reason is that they made all servers 5v5, 8v8 was the original idea, 8v8 was great. Hotjoins were thriving, several servers maxed out. However, developers being ignorant of the community and listening to only popularity preppy kids, and that those kids wanted every single thing in PvP to be exactly like tpvp play, so they made the servers 5v5.

If I’d blame anyone, its those popularity preppy kids thinking they know all and there influence on the developers.

If you ask me about PvP developers though, I’d say “running around with heads chopped off”. Cause look, here are the facts, tournaments in GW2 was revamped so many times I don’t even remember how many. They introduced QP, and got rid of them and now something else and another. They had glory, vamped it like multiple times than finally got rid of it totally. PvP rank use to take a year and then some to get to rank 80, now its achievable in mere months, and this game has been out for years, so you do the math of how many people running around with max pvp rank. Also if you look at hotm it use to be full of life with PvP NPC’s, now its pretty much a PvE sell your gear and return to PvE zone and most of original PvP NPC’s gone. Glory is gone. Tournament tickets gone. PvP related items like the backpack gone. All I see is the original idea of PvP being tossed around like a rag doll. So much of it has been ruined in other words deleted. We are still in this circle of uncertainty as well. Like many things were promised years ago yet, to this day uncertain if they will make up there promise. Like PvP build templates, QP being obtainable and worth something, a nice end game chart showing you how everyone did and who contributed most to team and what not, there’s so much they promised, but I guess these developers go on breaks during tournament season and just do nothing till the tournament ends before deciding to go back to work and do stuff promised to us.

Only allow 2 players in at any one given time (one for each team). 5v4 teamstacking would be solved for the most part.

If this is too difficult for a-net then remove the rewards from hotjoin (leave them in solo and team). It’s a testing/fun/whatever area and doesn’t deserve even the small rewards that it gives now since apparently it’s enough for people to be willing to abuse it. This will remove the reason why people do this constant 5v4 rubbish.

Even teams should be the norm, not XvX-1 mash on the join the winning team’s join button as it is now.

I’m not sure that would be a wise move, Aberrant. Removing rewards from Hotjoin is more likely to result in the following:

1. All those autobalancers/team stackers currently in Hotjoin just move into Solo/Team Queue instead. If you think the two modes are bad now, imagine how much worse it would be with even more afkers, quitters or IPHIW types in there.

2. The Hotjoin players just leave PvP altogether. You might think that’s a victory, but it also deprives newbies to the PvP scene of a place to get their feet wet and learn without real consequences, while also still leaving players feeling like they’re being rewarded for their time. Events in GW2 over the last year have made it abundantly clear that players will only stay in a map or game mode if they feel it is profitable to be there.

I find soloq more terrible than hotjoin these days, tbh… I see way more skilled players in hotjoin than in soloq.

Quincy.2198:

I find soloq more terrible than hotjoin these days, tbh… I see way more skilled players in hotjoin than in soloq.

what you have seen in hot join is premades , premade does not mean pure skill.

I’d almost like to setup a 5v5 server with no spectate/hammer/SW, but I don’t want to spend the 200g just for that reason. Anet just needs to setup some of the default servers this way.

You have to realize, that there was a time/ original idea, was that there was 2 tournaments, and people would not even consider about doing those tournaments until they got somewhat good. Hotjoin community was thriving.

Now, the developers changed the original idea to making solo que the norm, and hotjoin just some random place to do stupid stuff.

Sometimes you wonder why people complain about people in solo que and team que not knowing what they are doing… Because the developers encouraged players to solo que and team que over hotjoins.

I remember playing over 500 games of hotjoin and having fun at the same time before even considering tournament play, now it’s go right into solo que and team que and get your feet wet and take the rage from some people of them getting mad you are terrible.

uberkingkong.8041:

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

You know whats 10x funnier??? – PvE’ers defending the current state hotjoin is in now…

You know whats infinitely funnier?!??!? – Anet will soon say hotjoin is fine in the current state. Because there is also a percentage of the community that likes it. Just like Skyhammer.

I challenge you to come up with something funnier than that.
I challenge the hotjoin defenders to play hotjoin without skipping teams, unless you are farming your glorious armor and R80 of course. Which is more important than this broken system you will abuse anyway.

What’s funnier is how dumb you are.
First of all you contradicted yourself saying PvE’ers will defend current state, and how later the developers will say its fine, both instances are in agreement and there is no argument based on what your saying.

You are right in the way saying small percentage of people like it, in the current state I’m not part of that tiny percentage. When hotjoin was originally designed I was major part of that tiny percentage you speak of, I enjoyed hotjoining over tournaments.

You know why small percentage of people like Skyhammer? Because small percentage of people are actually good at PvP and a large of people die instantly because people are too good and they hate dying real fast to good players. Skyhammer is a high skill cap map which many people don’t like because they all newbs. Skyhammer SHOULD be in Team Arena. Skyhammer SHOULD be on the WTS, PAX, ESL, etc tournaments as the third map on the best of 3.

You claim hotjoin defenders liking hotjoins, so why would they skip a map? They PvE’ers, they don’t know they are being farmed. I’m a PvP’er guess what I don’t skip a game either, I join the team I know is going to win, because its so predictable.

I would never chose hotjoins over solo que or team que when it comes to grinding to R80 or glorious armor or whatever you mentioned. The new system ENCOURAGES people who are mainly PvE’ers who AP farm, to do solo que because the rewards are better even when you lose, and great when you win. Its a fair game too, most of the times. Why on Earth would someone go do a hotjoin?

That’s why its broken, there’s no reason at all to hotjoin.
Current grading system encourages winning, rather than having fun, so exclude having fun from hotjoins (my main reason why I LOVED hotjoins).
Current team limit is why when one team has 1 more than another team the effect is so dramatic. Back when game was released you would have games Team 1 with 7 and Team 2 with 8…. Autobalance wasn’t a huge deal back than, if anything it was so minor nobody cared about it. Being down 1 person in a 8 team isn’t that dramatic as to compared to 5 person team.

Anet listened to those popularity prep kids, that think they all knowing, that’s why the current state of hotjoins is bad. They continue to this very day, feed the developers bad ideas.

Look at facts, a year ago twitch stream, back when game was new and fresh everyone trying it out, high population, got 2-3k viewers at a tournament.
This year, hard pressed incentives to watch twitch like 7 llamas and precursors per stream (holy crap….. I never won one, must be giving to there friends (I know all about that circle of popularity preppy kids)) and after all that market hype, STILL 2-3k viewers.
If you ask me about the differences is that, 1st tournament was more fresh and had faith in esports, little to none market hype. This tournament a couple days ago, so much market hype all I see in the login screen is PvP related things, so many freebies (they go about them the wrong way), etc…. Only that the faith in esports is dwindled and pretty much certain there wont be esports.

But Anet you keep listening to those popularity preppy kids, its your grave and not mine. I’ll let facts be facts.

I knew it! You bad boy.

I would gladly break down your wall of text and come up with a counter argument – but as my post was half trollish anyway – I will not waste your time doing it.

uberkingkong.8041:

You have to realize, that there was a time/ original idea, was that there was 2 tournaments, and people would not even consider about doing those tournaments until they got somewhat good. Hotjoin community was thriving.

Now, the developers changed the original idea to making solo que the norm, and hotjoin just some random place to do stupid stuff.

Sometimes you wonder why people complain about people in solo que and team que not knowing what they are doing… Because the developers encouraged players to solo que and team que over hotjoins.

I remember playing over 500 games of hotjoin and having fun at the same time before even considering tournament play, now it’s go right into solo que and team que and get your feet wet and take the rage from some people of them getting mad you are terrible.

Yes, this is a good point. Like you, I played many hotjoin before doing a tourney.

However, I don’t think the devs have tried to change the basic idea that hotjoin is for practice and tourney is for more serious competition. Indeed, the move toward 5v5 in hotjoin was to help people better understand how to play tourneys properly.

That said, it does kind of seems like ANET is trying to kill off hotjoin by leaving it in the current broken state, I am not sure if that is their actual intent?

To any devs- do you actually just want to get rid of hotjoin? Are you leaving it in this really bad state because you want it to self implode? Where do you see it in the scheme of spvp? Is it still designed (in your mind) as somewhere where players can have casual competitive games, or is it just someplace that doesn’t matter?

Yasha.5963:

Indeed, the move toward 5v5 in hotjoin was to help people better understand how to play tourneys properly.

I’ve heard this stated by many people before and after 8v8’s removal, but strongly doubt that this was ANet’s primary goal. I strongly believe that they removed 8v8:

• To increase the number of people in SoloQ and TeamQ. Everyone knew before the change that the queue times were very long; and depending on when you play they still are. By reducing the number of game modes from 2 to 1, ANet increased the player base of the remaining game mode (5v5) while losing players who only enjoyed 8v8. That condensing of the player base increases the number of players in the queues, thus reducing queue time. Combined with the rewards rework, the new PvP structure encourages players to participate in SoloQ over hotjoin for better rewards in a nearly identical game mode; which further increases the queue population.

As for when they did it:

• They removed 8v8 in the same update that they removed hotjoin because it was the only time they’d ever get a chance to do it. Removing 8v8 was unpopular and would assuredly reduce the player base, so this had to be done during an update that was large enough to hide the player exodus. The reason it was removed in the same update as the full rewards rework was because the rewards rework was guaranteed to bring in players who would want to check out the changes; and some of them stayed, although that number has been dwindling. The full rewards rework update was the only content update that could hide the removal of sPvP’s most played game mode. Had it been removed in a separate or standalone update, the exodus would have been obvious.

What I think they should’ve at least done if they were trying to increase the PvP player base:

• There should’ve been more changes and tools to teach new players the game mode. Overall, the game does a poor job of teaching the basics across all game modes. ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE in the game are you taught about boons, conditions, crowd control, stun breakers, the value of weapon swapping, your profession mechanic, runes, sigils, combo fields, combo finishers, and the list goes on. Players may unlock some things at later levels to reduce the learning curve, but even though players are given new tools to use, they are never taught how to use them. You could even argue that players don’t even need to learn about most of those things until they reach sPvP, WvW, or dungeons. I would think that if ANet really wanted to help players prepare for tournaments and PvP in general, they would’ve upgraded the Heart of the Mists with more tools to help new players (and veterans) learn game mechanics and test builds, similar to GW1’s Isle of the Nameless; or at least implemented an optional tutorial that taught game mechanics.
• Since they are encouraging/forcing players into SoloQ to get a decent playing experience, they should have updated the matchmaking algorithm at the same time so that new players can’t get stuck playing veterans after a lucky win. New players should start near the bottom with other new players so that they can learn the game while facing off against equally skilled peers. From there they can learn and gain experience with the game mode, moving up the ladder as they get better.

Finally:

• PvP is a lot more difficult than PvE, and it will take time for new players to adjust. However, there no longer is a training ground in sPvP for new players. 5v5 does not allow for small victories that encourage new players to keep trying. What it does do is it punishes the player (and their team) more for their failure, raising the stakes to levels new PvPers shouldn’t be forced to encounter.
• They would’ve addressed the spectator mode abuse by now, which has created a toxic environment for both new and veteran players. While other features such as build templates and PvP leagues would be nice things to have, those features should be much less of a priority than fixing game-breaking issues in hotjoin. Hotjoin is the new player experience for PvPers, akin to Queensdale in PvE (and its past champ train plight). When a player’s first few experiences in sPvP are toxic and often defined by uneven teams and one-sided beat-downs coupled with reduced rewards, no small victories, and no sense of personal improvement, you are inevitably going to drive away new and veteran players; and that is truly game breaking.

Thus, regardless of whether players like 8v8 or not, I find it disingenuous for ANet to say that they made this change to help new players when, in my opinion, it clearly was not.

Zaxares.5419:

I’m not sure that would be a wise move, Aberrant. Removing rewards from Hotjoin is more likely to result in the following:

1. All those autobalancers/team stackers currently in Hotjoin just move into Solo/Team Queue instead. If you think the two modes are bad now, imagine how much worse it would be with even more afkers, quitters or IPHIW types in there.

2. The Hotjoin players just leave PvP altogether. You might think that’s a victory, but it also deprives newbies to the PvP scene of a place to get their feet wet and learn without real consequences, while also still leaving players feeling like they’re being rewarded for their time. Events in GW2 over the last year have made it abundantly clear that players will only stay in a map or game mode if they feel it is profitable to be there.

1. Fine, let them get punished for their bad behavior with dishonored and be unable to play then.
2. They don’t care about pvp, they just want to abuse 5v4 to get PvE rewards. People seeing constant 5v4 etc. does more harm to people actually interested in pvp.

I have a question about hotjoin: Why is someone obligated to sit there, and lose so that you can have more fun testing builds?

Becka Williams.4978:

I have a question about hotjoin: Why is someone obligated to sit there, and lose so that you can have more fun testing builds?

If I’m understanding what you mean correctly… it’s not even that people leave games that become even and then imbalance the numbers, the vast majority of games are 3v2 4v3 5v4 etc. with multiple “spectators” who won’t join unless they can get a number advantage on the winning team (mash on the join button for the outnumbering/winning team if anyone happens to join the losing team). It’s unusual that games even out at any point for longer than a few seconds. This behavior either shouldn’t be allowed or shouldn’t be rewarded.

Aberrant.6749:

Becka Williams.4978:

I have a question about hotjoin: Why is someone obligated to sit there, and lose so that you can have more fun testing builds?

If I’m understanding what you mean correctly… it’s not even that people leave games that become even and then imbalance the numbers, the vast majority of games are 3v2 4v3 5v4 etc. with multiple “spectators” who won’t join unless they can get a number advantage (at which point they mash on the join button for the winning team).

Ah. But why would someone want to join a losing team? Maybe the difference between winning and losing should be less? Like, maybe 100 points instead of 300. I wouldn’t care then. And yes, I’d actually play, and not just afk, because I always try when I get autobalanced.