spoiler alert: this is a half-rant, with a proposal at the end. You can skip the rant and go straight at the proposal. Or read the rant the same, just to have a good laugh at me.
Start of rant
T’was a beautiful day in the Heart of the Mist for me today.
Not a single time I had to play on Failhammer.
Oh, the joy.
I was so happy about that, that I didn’t care too much when I lost a match.
I was so happy about that, that I didn’t care when I died three times due to 2-years-old-now immobilize bug.
I was so happy about that, that I didn’t care when I got stuck twice, during two different matches, in the wall between the stairs and the graveyard in Foefire, forcing me to logout and login during the match.
I was so happy, like a kid that, for the first time, it’s tall enough to look at all those ice cream in the trays behind the counter without the help of anyone else.
But all good things come to an end. And in the utmost and unbearable form of the LEAVER.
The first time, I just shrugged – “it happens”, I said to myself. Not knowing what would happen next match.
Another leaver. “Oh, well, bad luck I suppose”, I said to myself. Always the nice guy, I was.
And then, again for the 3rd time in a row. “Mhmhmh, well, 3 times in a row it’s really annoying, maybe the streak of bad luck will stop here”. So naive.
Because the unspoken horror never warns you before revealing itself in front of your eyes. But when it does, oh, the HORROR. Gazing at Azathot and Nyarlatothep having wild sex, surrounded by the chaos flautists playing and dancing their obscene tunes, would have been better for my mental sanity.
4th match, leaver.
5th match, 2 leavers.
6th match, leaver.
7th match, leaver.
In a row. My mouse hit the wall, the keyboard was swung like a Guardian swings his greatsword during a Whirling Wrath. All of which, I did in mystic silence.
Leavers, I hope you implode in a cloud of confetti.
End of rant
And now, the proposal:
Anet, do you know of the existance of a very simple idea called “team balancing”? It’s used even in small games (community wise) like Natural Selection 2. It’s so simple it’s mindblowing: when a team has 1 less player than the opposite team, when one player of the opposite team gets killed, he doesn’t respawn, he stays frozen in a limbo, waiting for another player of his/her team to get killed so he can respawn (thus, creating a simple respawn queue).
Why, in a game mode which is supposed to be played by single players (so with no control at all, even future retaliation, against leavers), isn’t this active yet?
Team comp doesn’t matter, it’s already random at the start. So if you keep a single player waiting for the respawn, you don’t unbalance anything in the game, indeed you give the team that had the leaver the possibility to try and win the game.
Really, is that hard? For a game that wants to be an “e-sport”?
Or maybe we just misunderstood what you meant as e-sport: except-sport.
(edited by Galandil.9641)