Your point is fair, however my friends just joined the match like anyone else because we really didn’t care. If anything we just wanted to have fun playing against each other. The match was a 3v3 and then this group of 3 comes in and keeps twisting the match to force autobalance to make sure each of them wins. After we all complained about exploiting the match, they admitting they were exploiting and continued to force the match just to annoy us. Eventually, we got fed up about 3/4ths of the match and reported them for verbal abuse (why no report for exploiting) and left for a new server. We didn’t stay in the match when it was clear on what it was, no one did lol. There was nothing we could do to stop the autobalance, so we just reported and left.
Sounds like a bunch of trolls.
If they were farming with 3 of them they could have found any empty server and autobalance farmed with zero opposition considerably faster than what they were getting in your game.
~snip~
My comment about hypocrisy stands.
I (correctly?) assumed your friends were stacking on the same team with you, not against. If so you guys have a large share of responsibility for the imbalance it created in your matches, regardless of your motives (“having fun”, “farming scrubs”, etc).
The other part of my post was a bit of a skeptical question asking how many of the autobalances were actually one guy switching to the other team. Most autobalances in matches like yours are just people leaving because there is way too much imbalance and not enough incentives make/turn matches competitive.
I don’t want hotjoins to lose the ability for people to play with their friends, but the current system only punishes people if they try to play against a group of friends or higher ranks who want to band together. Why participate in a high risk/low reward game? Or stay in the match when it becomes clear that’s what it is?
I hope people get banned for this. The spectator exploit happened to me all afternoon while I was testing builds. It was literally the worse experience ive had in hotjoin for a very long time. One match I believe I had 9 autobalances and my friends starting calling it human pinball lol.
With all the autobalances, how many times was it:
1) someone joining the other side?
2) someone joining the same side (trying to fill in the otherwise-unfillable slot in 4v5)?
3) someone fed up with the imbalance and leaving the server entirely?
Also
I had 9 autobalances and my friends starting calling it human pinball lol.
I’m going to go way out on a limb and say you and your friends were probably stacking one side and imbalancing the server. Why would anyone want to stay versus that unless they had friends as well? Why should anyone stay?
Seems like autobalance was doing its job and balancing the match. Seems a bit hypocritical if it really is the case and you’re still asking for bans.
By the way OP, Spectate Mode abuse is impossible when a match is 5v5.
the match is never 5v5 until a good 80-90% of the way through it, once the spectator exploiters have solidified their cheap win.
This is the real problem, not this spectate/autobalance stuff. The matches were never legitimate in the first place because everyone is stacking 5v4 farming mostly rank 5-15 players. If matches filled up in a balanced fashion to 5v5 spectate would not even be an issue.
Nobody feels sympathy when someone in that 5 gets autobalanced over, because that someone likely contributed to the massive imbalance.
Nobody feels guilt for manipulating themselves onto the winning side because of the constant massive skill and numbers imbalance throughout the match.
Many times the only way to even achieve a 5v5 from 4v5 is to spectate, balance someone over, and rejoin your team. The 5th spot on the other (winning) side will quickly be filled by someone looking for a victory.
Stop thinking about how to force people to remain stuck in and play your crappy 5v4 500-125 matches. How do you encourage strong players to play against each other? How do you not make the rank 5 player look like he has the Ebola virus? How can you encourage matches to fill quickly? How will you encourage players to fill that last slot?
You can hardly call a 4v3 a match though…
Pretty much this. By the way OP, Spectate Mode abuse is impossible when a match is 5v5.
Nobody gives a crap when a game is “exploited” with one side stacked so hard with a numbers advantage because the match was never legitimate to begin with. The exploitation began long before spectator mode happened.
Reactively limiting manipulating is always a losing battle because they will always be a step ahead of you. Limit this, and the next check-and-balance is simply joining the stacked side to AFK or do something detrimental (AFK with the orb, suicide in skyhammer). How long before we start banning the people stacking these matches to oblivion to begin with as well?
Stop your kneejerk outrage and come up with ways to discourage stacking, while encouraging matches to (fully) fill up with relative balance on both sides.
(edited by Dave.2536)
Try using your brain, if the teams are randomised and you can’t force autobalance to team swap you cannot choose to be on the “winning” side. The system as it is now lets me or anyone else manipulate the game to be on the winning or superior side, which is why it needs to be changed.
Spectate/autobalance is created when games are 5v4 or 4v3. Games are 5v4 or 4v3 because of people leaving. Guess where that bigger problem of imbalance comes from? You clearly have a brain, as you would be a massive hypocrite not to after the insult to Deimos.
Unless you come up with a proposal to prevent people from leaving hotjoin (crappier Solo Queue anyone?), or some way to keep the score balanced so someone will come in and stay as the last spot in the 5v4, once a match becomes 5v4 people will keep leaving at an equal or faster rate than people entering.
Sorry but your ideas are too shallow and restrictive. Until you accept that 5v4 is a problem, spectate/autobalance doesn’t create those 5v4s, and spectate/autobalance doesn’t happen until 5v4, any proposal submitted by you will just further imbalance matches.
How can you make staying in the match with a rank 9 player more favorable than trying to find another match?
It amazes me how obsessed you are with rewards, you keep posting these calculations all focused on rewards and how to milk the system.
You call me out on a selfish agenda and when I show how wrong you are your comeback is the equivalent of LOL Y SO SRS. I should have quoted my other suggestion a few posts up here as well so others can see how blinded you are by your false justice.
my earlier postMaybe if you really want to keep hotjoin fun and casual, something drastic has to be done: perhaps 200 rank point participation reward with a 300 point bonus for winning obtainable only 5 times a day (enough for most casual players). As that win bonus is capped there will no longer be the rush to abuse matches to get it as it will just quickly cap itself naturally.
I’d love to hear about how a win bonus cap would further my agenda of maximizing rewards!
We had like a year and a half with no rewards and yet people still played all the time. These goodies are a nice bonus, but non-pve folk are likely more interested in winning or showing their kitten than in the shinies.
Loot rewards were introduced because PvP was dying/dead. They were not introduced for the people already in PvP, but for everyone else. Yet another “good old days” misrecollection.
Reward imbalance is why we have situations like:
my earlier postOver half of my games today had a rank 12 or lower, and in every single case they were on the team with 3-4 players vs a full 5 on the other side. How do you think these players feel when they see people leaving constantly knowing they’re being avoided by everyone? What can be done to reduce or eliminate these situations where these new players are seen as HIV carriers dripping blood all over the place?
This is far worse an issue than your supposed outrage when someone deems a consistent 4v5 situation a farce and acts on it. Spectate/autobalance didn’t break the spirit of the game; it was broken long before it got to that point.
You and Demio are trying to tell us that this is a great new feature. I personally preferred the largely even and comparatively balanced games before players were allowed to use this new feature to force autobalance and stack games to their advantage.
Please, stop putting words in our mouths. I have implied multiple times that spectate/autobalance this is the lesser of two evils, and also the effect of the greater injustice. I won’t speak for him, but I would bet that Deimos would probably agree. Please see things on a spectrum, not your ideal fantasy black and white.
.
Your posts make it seem that you really want to maintain the “feature” that lets you cheat in games because you are totally focused on rewards and enjoy having an easy way to maximize them.
Your “solution” doesn’t address the issue at all and would only make matters worse by creating more problems, but it does fit with your obvious focus on maximizing rewards.
First off, I play arenas when I care about getting rank points fast. When I play hotjoin I typically try to even up teams and/or sabotage a group of people stacking.
You’re so convinced I have a self-serving agenda that you’ve chosen to disregard fairly simple logic. In the current system I can ensure 500 points in most of my matches, a net of +300 from a loss. If we narrowed the gap to 400/300 I could only ensure 400 points in my matches, and only net +100. Please tell me how this “maximizes” my rewards. If anything I want them to be more balanced so I don’t see 9 out of 10 hotjoin matches with a 4v5 when it is clear the team of 4 has people leaving because of the rank 12 ranger or rank 9 signet warrior.
Perhaps I need to be more blunt. Any restrictions put up will have to be universal restrictions. They will either be overbearing and turn people off from PvP/hotjoin or they will be too lax or misguided and be easy to exploit. There are not enough ways to force people to play with the handicap known as inexperienced teammates (we will just find another game), so why not make it more rewarding to try to do so?
Over half of my games today had a rank 12 or lower, and in every single case they were on the team with 3-4 players vs a full 5 on the other side. How do you think these players feel when they see people leaving constantly knowing they’re being avoided by everyone? What can be done to reduce or eliminate these situations where these new players are seen as HIV carriers dripping blood all over the place?
(edited by Dave.2536)
You and Demio are trying to tell us that this is a great new feature. I personally preferred the largely even and comparatively balanced games before players were allowed to use this new feature to force autobalance and stack games to their advantage.
Please, stop putting words in our mouths. I have implied multiple times that spectate/autobalance this is the lesser of two evils, and also the effect of the greater injustice. I won’t speak for him, but I would bet that Deimos would probably agree. Please see things on a spectrum, not your ideal fantasy black and white.
Your “good old days” were back when rewards were based on personal score. Team placement (and thus match balance) was not an issue because win/loss was not tied to rewards. Many people cried about that. Quite a few quit PvP or the game entirely (I was one of them, for well over a year) because of all the bad play it encouraged and cultivated. Spectate/autobalance was introduced to hotjoin after the rewards were changed to win/loss, and this is by far the biggest obstacle.
People seek to win now for the same reasons they used to 5-cap home and kill the NPC on forest with 5 people: rewards. Even if you disable team selection people can (do and will continue to) simply try their luck crashing another random server. Hardly any time lost if you discover imbalance early (a rank 10 full signet rifle warrior on your team who fights off point). Why settle for 200 points and 10 minutes wasted when you can continue to try roll for 500?
As an analogy of what it feels like you’re doing, it’s like someone calling the ele FGS#4 skill broken, and proposing a fix by swapping it with the FGS#5 skill so hitting 4 is no longer an “I win” button.
There was no real issue before spectate to force auto balance became the hotjoin meta, which suggests that not only does it sound good on paper but it actually works.
Some people will still float around either because they want to find a easy fight or leave matches that they are having a bad time in, but this wasn’t an issue in the past so is unlikely to become one now.
Is it people getting wins they “don’t deserve” that upsets you more or people getting out of losses? When the “meta” changes everything around it changes. You won’t go back to the “good old days” simply by restricting one thing or two.
What about the an extreme opposite viewpoint, which looks at spectate/autobalance as a (arguably sub-standard) solution to a problem (extreme imbalance and uneven games in hotjoin)? Much like the matter of AFK in Skyhammer, the issue for people is whether or not the ends justify the means.
While you look at the meta as “I now have a cheap way to generate wins!”, others look at it as “I can finally do something about these imbalanced matches!” Of course a solution from the former perspective will look at restricting the cheat, and a solution from the latter will try to address what is believed to be the underlying root of the issue.
In other words, what is the bigger problem in casual PvP: match manipulation or imbalanced matches? I think people in this thread are divided on this question, and that is where a lot of the disagreement is coming from.
To me, respecting players is much more important than winning/losing the game. YMMV.
This can be countered from multiple directions. First, this standard should apply to ANet as well, and there is a pretty large and legitimate argument that they are not respecting players by not even addressing the issue of this map.
Next, this may seem heartless, but showing respect is all about motive, not perception. By protesting the map, players are not intending to show disrespect to their teammates; if disrespect is felt or perceived, it is simply a byproduct, or collateral damage. This difference may not mean much to you, but it means the world to many. The main conflict here is this: you feel the ends don’t justify the means, but others do.
Finally, the bolded parts of your quote above clearly represent your opinion and your acknowledgement that it is your opinion. People should be free to hold their own feelings so long as they follow the (well-defined and enforceable) rules of the game.
Here’s the stark reality to the situation: effort cannot be well-defined or enforced, only performance. That’s not to say I or against enforcing certain performance benchmarks like APM (actions per minute). We just realize there will be a different uproar if something like that happened.
Until then, ANet really has three choices.
So you deliberately turned the game into a 4v5, just because you don’t like the map and don’t give a kitten about fellow players trying their best out of respect for other participants?
I don’t like Khylo. Hey, you’ve just opened my eyes, next time I’ll just go and throw myself out of the clocktower for the whole game?
Had I played in your team, I would have reported you as “botting” – the same as AFKers.
People have many ways of giving up on a match. The most common two are sitting around spawn point near the end and looking for 1v1s off points. Would you punish these people too because they stopped trying, or are you only after OP here because he looked like he stopped trying?
You can try to stop him from making a statement, but if he’s willing to accept the guaranteed loss on his record there is nothing you or ANet can do to make him put in enough effort to make it a win. Censorship is bad, mkay?
I challenge you to actually follow through on jumping off the clock tower in Kyhlo. Most likely you won’t because the consequence (guaranteed loss) is still more negative for you than trying to play on it. Skyhammer has reached and exceeded that point for many here. Some AFK, some even promote their AFK (names like “Afk Cuz Skyhammer”, “Afk Skyhammer Afk”), and many others will play it but will not hold it against a teammate for protesting via AFK.
As funny as this is, it also falls under match manipulation, and can get you banned :P
You gotta remember that they have to suffer through Skyhammer too! and you just amplified it for the other 4 on your team….but cudos
At least by jumping he makes the game end quicker so everyone can get Skyhammer again move on to the next round.
The alternative is not him trying and giving 100%; it’s him giving 1% with bad dodges, laggy internet, and randomly generated traits and gear.
ANet actually threatening to try to enforce something like this would turn the map and Solo Queue into an even bigger joke.
I think 10 might be at least a bit on the steep end (~1/3 of the cost instead of ~1/30 with current prices), although it is equivalent to the 1000 runestones I posed in the title.
Would there really be fewer of them, or would the costs from precursor/t5/t6/lodestones adjust themselves to keep the price more or less the same?
I’m not going to talk about precursors or inflation directly here, but something that strikes me as peculiar is that one of the few fixed costs of a legendary are the Icy Runestones. It was a 100 gold sink back when Dusk/Dawn were 100-150 gold, and it’s a 100 gold sink now when they are 1000-1500 gold.
Would more Icy Runestones be enough of a gold sink to keep prices more steady? Would it raise or lower the overall cost of a legendary weapon? What items would get affected the most by such a change? Would this sink take too much gold from the hands of more casual players not aiming for a legendary weapon (moving part of the sink from those players to the NPC)?
Yay! it only took 4 months ;D
I hate it when people say this. The devs literally cannot win with this perspective in mind.
I hate it when people say this. The devs literally cannot lose with this perspective in mind.
Satire changes nothing. Your statement is not true.
It changes more than white knighting (especially in the PvP forum).
As my statement was directed at white knights, it is about as true as your statement directed at pessimists. The person each of us replied to is proof of the existence of both groups, and the existence of both groups makes each of our statements not applicable to the community as a whole.
Yay! it only took 4 months ;D
I hate it when people say this. The devs literally cannot win with this perspective in mind.
I hate it when people say this. The devs literally cannot lose with this perspective in mind.
They could at least merge these topics like they do the Skyhammer joke thread. It might bring more attention to it at least from the players in the forum.
Perhaps there is a problem with the game format if it is considered more beneficial for most of the player base for information to be given to the enemy leadership.
Honestly, though, there’s nothing you can do to stop this until it becomes more favorable to be secretive. Case-by-case subjectivity will spark wide outrage, and people will just silently/secretly command with the other commander in party. (“My friend has another friend in the other side” incriminates nobody, and you can claim you got the information involuntarily).
This, and fixing the massive population disparity between Green-Blue-Red every week would be a good first step. Maybe they can fix this after they address GvG, Coverage Wars II/Oceanic PPT, WvW map completion/server color variety, Skyhammer/Spirit Watch in PvP, and leaderboard/matchmaking/5v4 in PvP.
OP, we know you’re frustrated and your motives are good, but what kind of rule or enforcement would you make, and how would it improve the game (keyword “would”, not “could”/“should”)?
Ban AFKers and those people start putting in 1% effort to get around it. Ban 1% and people will now give 2%, along with the subjectivity of whether they were slacking, lagging, new, or bad. Along with the possibility of a false report.
Do you propose some minimum standard of performance or minimum Actions Per Minute or something? Have fun dealing with the casual camp if you do that.
They’re invulns, and the main reason why warrior is so braindead AND effective.
Warriors are making the game extremely boring, along with thieves.
Berserker’s stance is a gamble because you need to use it before conditions get applied to you in order for it to be effective. It doesn’t remove conditions, just prevents new ones from being applied in the next eight seconds. After that there is a 60s cooldown during which that skill is just dead weight.
Endure pain? I don’t know any experienced sPvP player that is willing to waste a slot for a 4s invulnerability followed by a 60s cooldown. I personally main a warrior and can’t remember the last time I used it.
This is Rom’s hambow build directly from his twitch…just saying, but he’s probably not experienced enough i guess…thanks god we have those pro nonames like you coming out from nowhere showing us the way to go….just curiosity…what do you suggest in order to replace endure pain? Frenzy? xD
Signet of Stamina can very easily go into that slot. It’s a matter of personal comfort and personal preference.
I don’t particularly care what measures are taken to prevent this “meta game”of forcing auto balance, but I do know that your idea of bumping up rewards for the losing team will increase afkers/bots and will not stop people’s desire to win and stomp others. I have also seen the exact same thing tried in Neverwinter online and it did nothing to solve the problems there.
I’m going to call you out here for having your vision clouded by your experience in another game. Raising rank points for the loser would be done concurrently with reducing the winning reward. AFKers farming rank points are not a problem with hotjoin (Currently if you want to AFK you would do it in Solo Queue or Team Queue. In fact pushing the AFK farming to hotjoin would clean up the rated arenas, which would be a net positive). On the other hand, custom servers make it so bot farming (can also be done manually of course) depends only on winning rewards (keep autobalancing members of one team to another and volunteering until everyone has win credit).
I’ve also become made aware of the difference in our priorities now. While you value clean matches with no tolerance for manipulation, I value balanced matches, tolerating manipulation so long as it is done to correct the imbalance. Perhaps Evan should comment on whether he prioritizes clean matches or balanced matches, since it seems clear to me that we will not be getting both.
But then why do people still try to win in tPvP ? There’s no server-pride there.
Why do people make an effort for their group in a dungeon run? There’s no server-pride there.
Could the reasons people still make an effort in those scenarios, be translated into the ‘meaningless’ framework of WvW?
Rewards are the biggest factor in both, and it is also why people make an effort not to fight each other in EotM.
They are also small enough that you know your personal contribution will be enough to decide the outcome of the run.
In addition tPvP guarantees balance from a numbers standpoint.
WvW and EotM lack the above, although WvW has server pride to play for and EotM has decent rewards if you avoid fighting.
For those who want the old 8v8’s back: the imbalance will be even worse now that people are more used to 5v5 and playing conquest.
Bunkers and AoE setups (staff ele, hambow) will reign supreme, and it will be much more difficult to find points with nobody on them. Good luck taking a point if there is a bunker too. By the time you kill him he will have 1-2 more reinforcements than you are used to in 5v5 and they will be able to keep the point contested long enough for that bunker to get back.
That said, 8v8 might work if they change the point capping/decapping system to simply take the difference between the players on each side fighting near the point a-la GW1 Alliance Battles.
What you described above is a system that makes it much more difficult to cheat by stacking high rank players at the start of a game. That’s good, it should be difficult to cheat, now it is virtually a feature of the game. You have said yourself that you do it because everyone else does.
Also you ignore that autobalance cannot be forced easily after the game starts if players are prevented from going freely from playing-spectate/team-swap-playing. I am sure some scrubs will try to do what you suggested above, but its a lot of effort to go through just to win a hotjoin.
I can tell from your posts that you won’t be one of those scrubs.
This match fixing looks new to you because it took time to discover it and have the idea get spread. I don’t know exactly when it took off, but it almost certainly started because of the disparity between the winners’ and losers’ rewards. I still don’t feel hotjoin is competitive enough to justify a gap similar to what is found in arenas.
The above is done even now quite often when there is a lopsided match or outlier rank (extremely low or extremely high on a relative scale) in the game. Some of them don’t realize they can spectate-autobalance and others feel it is too toxic. It feels like there should be a significant difference between those who leave a game because it is way imbalanced and those who leave a game to try to farm a way elsewhere. In reality it’s nearly impossible to distinguish that motive.
I often end up being a player people stack on (I usually try to pick a side early to break the ice and get things started), and I do tPvP when friends are online. As a result of this I am personally not worried about hotjoin rank rewards and usually manipulate matches not to get wins but to make sure others blatantly stacking don’t get their wins very easily. Just as you are troubled by people abusing the system for wins, I am troubled that one of the few ways for me to help even the odds is to AFK (with the orb on Spirit Watch for even more effect) or spam suicide (Skyhammer).
To me, the autobalance system is evidence that there is a social contract here: ANet keep the matches balanced so the players play fairly in the spirit of the game. The severe imbalance in hotjoin indicates ANet is not effectively fulfilling their end of the contract, and the match abuse is the players’ response.
Maybe if you really want to keep hotjoin fun and casual, something drastic has to be done: perhaps 200 rank point participation reward with a 300 point bonus for winning obtainable only 5 times a day (enough for most casual players). As that win bonus is capped there will no longer be the rush to abuse matches to get it as it will just quickly cap itself naturally.
I played spvp hotjoin before it became the Neverwinter Online version we have now and never saw this issue.
Please don’t use your supposed account age to try to strengthen your argument or weaken those of others, as it’s having the opposite effect. My account was created in beta and the early PvP reward system (based on individual score) was one of the primary reasons (along with magic find gear) I deemed GW2 a joke and quit the game for over a year.
It has nothing really to do with rewards, its mainly about winning.
I think you’d be a minority opinion who believes that. Some here believe win-loss rewards won’t become balanced because it would drive some of the hotjoin custom server farmers to AFK Team Queue matches.
Your line of reasoning 1-7 is what happens now. If teams are randomly assigned and players cannot choose teams/swap then the whole process from point 1 to 7 is eliminated, problem solved.
Let me rewrite the scenario for you with randomly assigned teams
1. Rank 25 player is assigned to red, Rank 50 player is assigned to blue
2. Rank 70 player is assigned to red, Rank 45 player is assigned to blue
3. Rank 60 player is assigned to red, Rank 40 player is assigned to blue
4. Rank 10 player is assigned to red, Rank 30 player is assigned to blue
5. Rank 60 player sees who just joined red and leaves to try to become the imbalance in Server 2.
6. The game tries to fill in the missing spot with a Rank 55 player. The Rank 70 player leaves for Server 3.
7. The game tries to fill in the missing spot with a Rank 80 player. It turns out he’s just testing a build and doesn’t care about win/loss. As a result the Rank 25 player leaves for Server 4.
8. In Server 2, the Rank 60 player became the 9th player to join and turned a 4v4 match into 5v4. Quickly helping to establish a lead, people kept leaving the other side and the match never became 5v4 for long.
9. In Server 3, the Rank 70 player found himself assigned as the 10th player in a 50-150 game, as it had remained 5v4 like Server 1. He quickly leaves Server 3 for Server 5.
10. Did Server 4 turn out like Server 2 or Server 3? Who knows? But we’re pretty sure it was lopsided either way.
Let me spell it out for you. There are more ways to manipulate matches than there are ways to stop them by force. Until you understand this you’re going to continue to be disappointed by people who “blatantly manipulate matches.”
There is no team stacking without abuse of spectate mode and the ability to team swap.
The issue of uneven team numbers is exacerbated by the current set up.
By randomly assigning players to teams, stopping them from swapping teams and going to spectate/ rejoining, there is no more team stacking and players can’t manipulate uneven team numbers to gain a win.
You say this as if spectate/autobalance was the cause and 4v5/stacking was the effect, rather than the other way around. Here is the issue, taken from a previous post of mine.
1. Rank 50 player joins red
2. Rank 35 player joins blue
3. Rank 70 player joins red because 50 > 35
4. Blue is now taboo because everyone who is watching wants to join red
5. Blue gets a few 20, 25, and 15 players that don’t know better. Meanwhile red gets 15, 40, and 60 players that are watching.
6. Server is now 4v5 with red up 150-50.
7. The original rank 35 player rightfully deems the match illegitimate and decides if people are going to farm, he will too. He goes to spectate to force autobalance.See the problem? It started from (3) to (5) when score doesn’t indicate a winning/losing team. You’re suggesting we fix the problem at (7).
Until win-loss rewards are addressed I could simply manipulate the system by switching servers until I find one (what to look for: servers with 2, 4, 6, or 8 players where I will become the imbalance) where I’m put on the side with more points and/or greater numbers. Remember 1 win = 2.5 losses at the moment so it’s almost always advantageous to leave a match with high probability of losing.
Without some kind of compensation or incentive I have no reason to stay and try to help that rank 5 PvE player trying to get his daily AP, and even less reason to join his team if it’s 4v5. Throw all the restrictions at me that you want, but they’ll apply to everyone and just turn hotjoin into Solo Queue with crappier rewards.
I like hotjoin just as it is minus the ability for players to manipulate spectator and team swap.
No issues with 4v5 or team stacking then?
Just want to clarify this explicitly.
While we’re at it, can we make any skills that block or evade uncontest points as well? Shelter, mace skills, shield skills, ranger sword/dagger skills, etc etc. And then let’s do the same for people with stability or projectile deflection/reflection. Yes it’s pretty ridiculous but so is the idea that Berserker Stance should uncontest a point.
I would honestly prefer going back to GW1’s system of considering how many players are around the point so that killing an enemy player meant a bit more and sitting on points meant even less.
1) This problem came about after spectator mode+team swap was implemented. I have played since launch and never saw this issue of players manipulating games to win (to this insane extent) until I came back to the game recently.
2) Indeed you are unlikely to change people’s mindsets, that is exactly why a game should have solid rules that are not easy to exploit. There may have been faults with hotjoin in the past, but this one is the biggest and needs to go.
3) The devs need to take a stance. If the current abuse of the system is what they want out of the game then keep it. If they think it sucks then move rapidly to change it.
I am glad a dev is at least thinking about this issue. Hotjoin is a shambles atm because of it.
1. A tactic needs to be discovered in order to become widespread. As others have said, it is more likely that it arose after rewards became win/loss, and took time to develop into what we currently have.
2+3. Change is what we all want. However some people want to see change simply for the sake of change and others want to make sure the change is effective. Yes it’s good that Evan has taken a look at this thread. I just want to remind him and others that hotjoin needs much more than a simple bandaid.
Make it less desirable or meaningful to manipulate the match (during both team formation and mid-game), rather than more restrictive
People are simply under the delusion that if you make one single “simple” change people’s mindsets will completely change and these issues will be fixed.
For any “simple” (knee-jerk) proposal implemented it would take just minutes to show how it would be exploited just as badly as right now, or how would drive everyone from hotjoin.
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Remember guys, you’re a filthy casual unless you sub. Who plays more than 3 pvp matches a day anyways? It’s like you enjoy Skyhammer or something
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no because sometimes people are so bad you don’t even want to play with them.
That can be done by AFKing or playing with 1% effort. Given those alternatives Alt+F4 may as well be treated as a DC.
@Archaon/Geiir/Sampo: PvP is trying to grow its population, not filter and alienate it further. Greatly cutting down or eliminating progression in hotjoins will have the opposite effect. Let’s figure out how to turn hotjoins into a fun and casual PvP environment, but one where learning can happen.
@Sampo: farming custom arenas will be nerfed by reducing the winner-loser gap so the winner gets 400 instead of 300. All the players who originally got the 500 will now get 400.
@Deimos: I think those bonuses may be too much, and would possibly encourage “farming” them. I envisioned that the bonuses would serve to mostly (but not completely) close the gap to the underdog team to reduce the risk. The reward should not exceed 400 unless 1.) a 200 point gap was greatly reduced, or 2.) the underdog team actually won the match.
Here is how I envisioned the comeback bonuses. (I agree these should not be in custom arenas, but only hotjoin)
Example: Red vs Blue, match starts at 3v4/4v5 for most of the round, Red is losing 150-250. Player R5 joins red as the last member to even the match up.
Scenario 1: Red fails to reduce the deficit to 50 and loses, 350-500. All red players get 300 points. Blue players get 400.
Scenario 2: Red reduces the deficit to 0 points at 375-375, but they lose the match 450-500. Red players get 375 points. Blue players get 400.
Scenario 3: Red reduces the deficit to 0 at 375-375, and wins the match 500-460. Red players get 500 points (400 for winning +100). Blue players get 300.
The other thing I think needs to be addressed more is the 3v4/4v5 situation.
On one hand I feel there needs to be a 50 point reward for someone who evens a match from 3v4 or 4v5 while that side is tied or losing. On the other hand, I don’t want players to not join the game to try to get those 50 points. Here is what I have in mind now.
This would be another indirect nerf to custom arena farming, as well as add incentives to join the game early, and help even out the teams. In particular, players who stack would see their reward reduced by 50 points (in addition to the 100 from reducing the win-loss gap), which may push some of them into Solo and Team Queue.
(edited by Dave.2536)
There is no way how to split zergers if they dont want to. Its in human nature move in crowd if you are weak alone. For that you will need some crazy complicated system what will somehow dynamicly affect players if they fight 1vX.
It’s already been done, and done quite well. Removing individual score from mattering did plenty to split the zerg. As the focus went to winning the match people no longer double-/triplecapped the same point. They knew to go to the teamfight at middle or keep far contested.
Hotjoin will lose all its legitimacy (not that it has much left) if it goes back to that. Back then it was just two zergs tagging and farming stragglers while the newcomers wondered why their rank was going up so slowly.
Its hot join its not competetive lets reward ppl for they actual successes.
- remove points entirely just keep 15 minutes/match
- keep teams but let game autobalance without manual switchning
- only one score on the end for all players together. Rewards will still depends on same rules like before like capturing points but rewarded will be actual players not teams.
- smaller scale format will also be great like 3v3.
I’m reading this as rewarding players based on individual score. Please tell me this is not the case. We don’t need to have 5 people capping home/killing NPC, and the death of defender/bunker classes (this is how hotjoin used to be).
On a side note, I have no issue introducing a 2v2/3v3 deathmatch map, but I think that might be a separate issue altogether.
So if people could no longer see other players’ ranks when spectating, would this fix this problem?
I don’t think so. Simply replace [some higher ranked player in example earlier] with [player who did well in last match] (EDIT: or any player with a tiger finisher or better from last match).
There is a bit of value in the slight loss of information, but I don’t think it would be nearly enough. The better thing is to make wins not so valuable and give good players a reason to play against (instead of with) each other.
(edited by Dave.2536)
Dragonite is hardly cluttering for anyone who doesn’t spend all day autoattacking loot pinatas. Please don’t get rid of it.
Nah better punish those filthy sideswitchers. No win rewards, max half of reward points and no count to daily/monthly progress.
So people just wait and stack to a team then? Sideswitching is done to counter a bigger cancer to the game (stacking).
Your kneejerk bandaid would just make stacking worse and even more permanent.
No it just unlearn bad switching habits and learn them to lose battle sometime. But sideswitchers can be eliminate much easier simply don allow them to chose side few sec longer than autobalance ends so they cant spam join wining team right after.
How will you do that (end the “bad habits”)? Win = (250% more) rank points = rank up and track rewards.
Here is the issue:
1. Rank 50 player joins red
2. Rank 35 player joins blue
3. Rank 70 player joins red because 50 > 35
4. Blue is now taboo because everyone who is watching wants to join red
5. Blue gets a few 20, 25, and 15 players that don’t know better. Meanwhile red gets 15, 40, and 60 players that are watching.
6. Server is now 4v5 with red up 150-50.
7. The original rank 35 player [/b]rightfully deems the match illegitimate[/b] and decides if people are going to farm, he will too. He goes to spectate to force autobalance.
See the problem? It started from (3) to (5) when score doesn’t indicate a winning/losing team. You’re suggesting we fix the problem at (7).
Also ist hot join. Personaly I going there because I want kill ppl I dont care about points
All the more reason why you get rid of reasons to stack in the first place. Starting with the ridiculous (for hotjoin) 500-200 reward gap.
(edited by Dave.2536)
Nah better punish those filthy sideswitchers. No win rewards, max half of reward points and no count to daily/monthly progress.
So people just wait and stack to a team then? Sideswitching is done to counter a bigger cancer to the game (stacking).
Your kneejerk bandaid would just make stacking worse and even more permanent.
Just forcing players into the team with fewer people or into the loosing team if they are equal instead of allowing them to choose a team would be a good start.
What will prevent them from joining a different game instead? Or stay in the game if they do get put on the losing side? Most hotjoins are decided at 0-0 during team formation, so anything that adjusts for winning/losing team will not hit the root of the issue.
(edited by Dave.2536)
Is a match legitimately close simply because the score is close or because there is an equal distribution of skill between both teams? Can a match even be considered “close” if players are constantly shuffled so that team affiliation no longer means much?
Is a 500 to 200 reward gap justified when things like team affiliation forcefully shift their meaning?
Why not just remove the incentives for stacking in the first place?
Reduce the disparity between losing and winning, to, say, 400 to 300. Currently anyone abusing stacking can just about guarantee themselves the 500 so it becomes competitive with Solo Queue considering the loss probability and queue times. This would push some of those farmers back to arenas. Additionally, at 500-200 you need about 3 minutes in the match on the winning team to get the 200 you would’ve got for losing. At 400-300 you would need 6 minutes on the winning side to get that 300. This would greatly reduce the benefit for waiting/stalling to try and stack one team.
Change the monthly achievements by either raising rank points to 15000, changing 20 wins to 20 matches played, or reduce wins to 10. 20 PvP wins is a huge bottleneck considering the other one is just 6000 rank points. Farming wins via stacking or spectate/autobalance helps to reduce that bottleneck quite a bit. 20-0 (20 win/0 loss) is 12000 rank points, 20-10 is 14000, and 20-20 is 16000. Meanwhile 10-5 is 6000 and 10-10 is 7000.
Reduce the risk for playing a close match or joining a losing team. Add a “comeback bonus” for reducing a big deficit (bonus reward if the lead is completely overcome). Alternatively, offer the losing team more points if they lose a close game. Often if I am autobalanced (I usually volunteer) I try to help my new team, but if it becomes uneven again I simply go look for 1v1s and stop trying to cap, as my win and reward have been guaranteed. Offer us something for successfully beating the odds, and that last slot in the 4v5 might fill up as well.
Offer a team with a significant deficit (or outmanned) buffs similar to ones on Temple. Example: Ferocity (15 points on kills and/or 0 points to other team for deaths) if undermanned, Stillness (double progression) if behind by 100 and Tranquility (neutralize or flip all enemy points) if Stillness not enough.
Hotjoin needs incentives. Challenge the stronger players to play on a weaker team and reward them when they succeed. I think it’s fine for a few friends to be on the same team and coordinating to be greater than the individual parts. What this game needs is an incentive to challenge other strong players to play against these friends, whether in the form of handicaps, bonuses, and reduced risk.
(edited by Dave.2536)
@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.
+1
69 cents here
EDIT: gg merged already
(edited by Dave.2536)
@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.
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.
(edited by Dave.2536)
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.
(edited by Dave.2536)
(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”?
(edited by Dave.2536)
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.
(edited by Dave.2536)
This “6v7/7v8 is not as imbalanced” argument does not actually apply as much here, as spectate-autobalance was not nearly as common back then.
With more players in matches things will just get worse. The undermanned team will be more likely to have a rallybot, and also more likely to have more rallybots. In addition the addition of people will just turn the matches into AI/AoE spamfests.
I’m beginning to see why you are being kicked from teams so often.
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