Guild Wars 2

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

but hotjoin
less experienced 4 vs 5 experienced

not fun
there are people here who still thinks its fun to be on the team with 5 experienced stomping the team of 4 who are less experienced.

looks at Yasha

I want randomized teams and a system that prevents players from using spectate to force auto balance so that the current exploiting by players bent on cheating to win like yourself can’t occur.

Solo queue team arena.

DaveGan.8065:

Yasha.5963:

DaveGan.8065:

Yasha.5963:

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.

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.

It amazes me how obsessed you are with rewards, you keep posting these calculations all focused on rewards and how to milk the system.

I don’t even think about rewards when I play, except when my inventory is full and I have to go to the bank and try to offload all the boxes. Sometimes I just send my rewards to random people so I am not encumbered (since there is no bank in the mists).

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.

mooty.4560:

Hot Join as it is, is a casual format designed to maximize use of a player’s time. That it has some exploitable features is unfortunate but since we shouldn’t put much weight in the value of winning hot join matches, I think people should think twice before suggesting something as drastic as removing (the very comprehensive and useful) spectator mode.

Not only can you observe a player from the first person, complete with targeting and skill usage, but you can look at equipment and trait choices. That’s an invaluable tool for learning new strategies or ideas about gear selection that maybe you wouldn’t have thought about on your own. So, because a very casual PvP format can be somewhat exploited… you want to completely erase this feature?

“Somewhat exploited” is a bit of an understatement, but yes throwing out a perfectly good tool that took a long time to develop would be bad. Just tweaking the system so that spectators cannot rejoin a game (for example) would pretty much stop the constant forced auto-balance in hotjoin.

I think pretty much only the OP wanted to completely remove spectate.

DaveGan.8065:

Yasha.5963:

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.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

PPl moaned 24/7 for 8v8 to be removed , BEFORE and AFTER the swap team was introduced . Never once we had these problems you are describing .
Lets say they introduce your plan then …. what next ?
Introduce a 30 min disshonor mechanic afterwards in order to prevent even more the 4v5 ?

Like those 2 are saying , we must create a ’’different’’ system whithin the game .
In this period you need viewers … you need happiness…. not a ‘’forcefully way’’ so ppl can learn ….

After these 3 tournaments you can do wathever you want (destroy Hj+ do implant whatever the competive players wants) , and in the last 4 months (once again …) focus on casuals players and bring them back for the other Tournament .

By having the old ggs and their marvelous ideas about rewarding every team by simply signing upo in the tournament or winning the match > automatically increased the Teams numbers from 40 (in last year) to 260 .
I simply casual ’’thing’’ increased the teams , rather than wasting trillions on money on implanting Competive features …

Otherwise there will a points and the history will repeat itself where like other games , where competive team existed + the game was marvelous , but you didnt have something that League of Legends helps them to dominate the twitch 1st spots . And with no Viewers > the next cash prize will be directed to the sequel , rather than any other Tournament

Stick to balance + what game mode you find fun to play on Tournaments + what other UI ytou want (like the quick commant of Smite) and leave the competiveness OFF the hotjoins …

I can hardly understand what you are saying, but nice paragraphing I guess.

DaveGan.8065:

Yasha.5963:

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.

No one was really crying on the forums about teams being unbalanced in hotjoin before spectate/team swap as introduced because when players couldn’t force auto balance or stack, games ended up being fairly even on the whole since teams were randomly assigned.

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.

runeblade.7514:

IsilZha.3608:

DaveGan.8065:

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

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

Sounds good in paper.

But if this was implemented. I would just change matches. It wouldn’t solve anything.

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.

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

It’s your own fault for playing solo Q! If everybody just listened to Vee Wee and boycotted solo Q, Anet would be forced to remove Skyhammer! My frands! We must unite under one banner! The Skyhammer Sucks Pee Pee banner! And we must all work together to achieve the one goal that we’ve been working so hard to achieve! Now is the time my frands! Now is the time! Rosa Parks Skyhammer! We want the good seats golly gee willikers!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Good idea Vee.

Progress is slow, but I am glad to here the devs say that a new game mode is being developed.

This process started way back when we had the joint community development brainstorming, and I think a lot of the rewards overhaul was based on community feedback from that time. Now because of those changes, I can go out into WvW and be somewhat competitive with a level 80 and decent gear, even though I have only done spvp since launch. Its good.

Having seen that I have faith that the new game mode (s?) will be delivered and probably be good- hopefully incorporating the feedback from the joint community development period.

Constantine.7812:

Wow came back after few days and is this really everything what this forum can give me?! 1 not even half reasonable answer?! really?! Looks to me this game is dead already. I guess chinese market must be very interresting. Ok then, lets move on.

The forum is way quieter than in the past for sure.

I guess you are talking about solo queue tourney?

Why is there so much confusion over this? It is very simple, please just add a bank to the mists.

Nanashi.5704:

Yasha.5963:

Yasha.5963:

What is the nerf?

Was d/p used much outside of hotjoin?.

Not really, but you cant balance 100% of the time around Arena matches. Imagine a new player coming into this game and going into pvp and just getting roflstomped by the blinds being re-applied. It would be a giant turn off, especially when mixed in with all the other broken hot join builds, and a lot of people would be turned off by the pvp experience.
Now before people go “Hurr duur who cares about hot joins” you gotta remember not everyone is going to jump right into Arenas. So if Anet doesnt start to fix broken builds then their pvp base wont grow because not enough people will get past the terrible hot join experience.

I agree hotjoin is important as well. However, players not understanding the mechanic is no reason to nerf something or call it broken. If blind was so powerful then that build would be used in tourney play, and I would easily beat everyone when I play d/p.

The change just seems to have come out of nowhere- why? What prompted this? Who decided that we better basically destroy the d/p thief build? And why would they do that when its not used that much in tourney and when there are numerous builds that counter it-even it hotjoin.

Yasha.5963:

What is the nerf?

Wow, I just read them, those are some pretty severe nerfs. Was d/p used much outside of hotjoin? Most people seemed to be running S/d or S/p.

Weird that there was no reduction of initiative on bp to go with halving its strength. What do you think triggered the nerf? Again I have only seen people crying about s/d thieves so it is a bit surprising to see the d/p set nerfed so hard.

What is the nerf?

All I can say is kitten I HATE skyhammer.

Please let me quit once I know it pops in soloqueue

DaveGan.8065:

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.

Now this I agree on. The community back in the day was crying for 5vs5 to become the norm, for various reasons. It seems most of that crowd has left now though because all I seem to hear these days is how 8vs8 was so good.

DaveGan.8065:

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.

It did take time for the idea to catch on after spectate mode was introduced, but we saw none of the forced-auto balance before spectate mode because it wasn’t easy/convenient to do like it is now.

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.

There were so many people on the forum of that game who, like you, were against the devs actually enforcing rules on the game. And it just turned it to kittene. I don’t want to see the same thing happen here.

DaveGan.8065:

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.”

Well I have always loved the spvp side of the game and still do. There was never a problem like this before spectate mode was added, so experience tells me that we can enjoy games that are not subject to cheating every match if we prevent players from using spectate to force autobalance. There is no need for anything fancy to solve that issue.

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.

DaveGan.8065:

Yasha.5963:

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).

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.

It has nothing really to do with rewards, its mainly about winning.

Not only am I correct from a logical standpoint, but I played spvp hotjoin before it became the Neverwinter Online version we have now and never saw this issue.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Yasha.5963:

DaveGan.8065:

Yasha.5963:

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.

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.

randomly assigning players to teams is not good enough, there is a chance that one team may be randomly assigned all experienced players while the other is not.

a simple shuffling system should exist, based on rank, so that each team has equal number of experienced and less experienced players.

also, spectator mode should never real the rank of the player.

and, finally, remove the public score board.

replace the public score board with a personal score board that shows your accomplishments in the match.

the players do not need to know the scores of other players anyway.

All I want is the current easily abused system to be tweaked so players can’t blatantly manipulate matches.

I don’t particularly care if hotjoin is not totally balanced in terms of player ranks and so forth. If the game randomly assigns players, as it did in the past, sometimes you will get a strong team sometimes you won’t.

Eurantien.4632:

I personally enjoy conquest. Adds another depth besides just killing the other person. Still, for some reason, people really want their death match. If that happens my perma stealth 5 man thief team will coordinate back stab someone and get the stomp and then hide for the rest of the game. That sounds fun. :/.

I like conquest too, but I would love to play other gamemodes. I am not that interested in just a kill arena, but there is a lot of scope for interesting pvp gamemodes besides just standing in circles or killing people.

DaveGan.8065:

Yasha.5963:

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.

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.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Hotjoin is going to be chaotic no matter what we do since people are free to leave at any time. For people who are wanting a more structured experience, why not play solo or team arena? I’m not asking this to sidestep your concerns, but rather to find out why there is a desire to force structure upon hotjoin when there is already a more structured game mode. This would help us determine if hotjoin actually needs some restructuring, or if there is a better place these types of players can go.

I like hotjoin just as it is minus the ability for players to manipulate spectator and team swap.

Eurantien.4632:

They did this. Ele became top dog. They nerfed ele, they undid the invuln loses cap, warrior became top dog. They unnerfed ele….

Why did they undo the invun loses cap?

DaveGan.8065:

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.

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.

Evan Lesh.3295:

This thread started with finding a way to NOT let people force auto-balance through spectator mode to get on the winning team. Now I’m hearing that this must be preserved with any hotjoin changes because it ‘balances’ the match. I would much prefer players sit an extra minute in a 4v5 to let someone new fill the spot then let players constantly jumble the teams.

Only one person is shouting that this current system of abusing spectator mode to modify the outcome of the game is a good.

I would be happy with any small tweaks to prevent this from happening, although my preferred method would be to take the choice, and thus ability to abuse the system, out of the hands of the players entirely, by letting the system randomly assign players to teams, not allowing players to team swap outside of autobalance, and preventing players that move to spectate mid-game from rejoining as a player.

The only downside to this idea is that you will no longer be able to play reliably on the same side as friends, although that can also be a positive as it prevents pug stomping.

The main downside to your idea as ens pointed out is that players would still be able to pick “winning” teams at the start of the match.

I do not agree that spectators should be allowed to rejoin only the same team they left because it is still match manipulation, forcing autobalance on a player whim. We just need to make sure that new players get funnelled quickly into existing or 4vs5/4vs3 etc matches to fill them up. I never had an issue with unbalanced number of players in hotjoin teams in the past; the current abuse of spectator mode is the real issue.

BTW thank you again for being active on this issue.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Apologies if I’ve missed it, but I have yet to see someone suggest team-switching to spectator working the same as switching between Red and Blue. Disallow it if it would unbalance the teams. The general case is still possible, but harder. One person could move to spectator in a 5v5, but autobalance wouldn’t happen unless another player from the same team left the arena completely. Even if this doesn’t fix the problem entirely, it still makes team switching more consistent and less able to be abused. This should probably be done regardless of any other steps we could take.

Awesome thanks for considering that Evan!

I just want to clarify what you are suggesting- if the team numbers were even (say 4vs4) you could not move to spectate because you cannot swap teams in that situation either?

Also if a game is 4vs5, a player from the group with 5 could spectate, because they would also be able to team swap, but a player from the team with 4 people could not move to spectate and force an autobalance.

Is that the gist of it?

If that is the kind of thing that is a relatively easy tweak for the developers then it seems like a good move.

What do other people think? Are there any negative repercussions?

OP I think there have been some great answers to your question. Personally, I love the way combat works in this game, and like Otaking think it is probably the best pvp among the numerous mmos that I have played (although I haven’t played GW1). For the first few months I thought it was the bomb too.

However, it’s the wasted potential and lack of development that is really frustrating.

As Lukin noted above, the core elements of the game are awesome- quite a skill-based combat system melded with a level playing field.
But:
1) there is still only one game mode-huge fail/waste of potential.
2) Asura- fail
3) Skyhammer- fail
4) Current hotjoin meta game of swap teams to win- fail
5) 4vs5 issue in tourney
6) Questionable leaderboard system (which took forever to implement)

There are some other issues like hambow warrior and some other builds left OP for too long (sorry but competent hambow will easily beat a blind spam thief- blind spam only counters very inexperienced warriors that haven’t learnt about f1 on the bow), extremely powerful and easy to land aoe, and lack of competitive infrastructure seen in other skill-based pvp games.

El Gaucho.5278:

Geiir.7603:

Remove all rewards in hot join. It is a place to test builds, duel and just don’t do anything serious. Add a solo queue without leaderboards that have decent rewards. And for the love of god, fix matchmaking and uneven match starts!

/rant

Hi Geeir – Thanks for your comments!

Can you explain how removing all rewards is better than penalising those using spectate to re-balance as I suggested? I don’t want to remove the incentives people have to play pvp, nor do I want to drive them to the solo queues where more experienced players already rant about inexperienced players joining. There should be a place for all types of players, and appropriate rewards for the time spent. My suggestion attempts to find a balance between those.

I’m curious to hear your rationale

We both (all?) agree there is a problem, and while your suggestions are not without merit they focus on rewards, and a lot of the problem is due to the desire to win, rather than just the desire to get rewards.

So even Geeir’s extreme “remove all rewards” idea is unlikely to make a large difference – except perhaps to totally kill hotjoin. El Gaucho I think your idea’s would discourage such behaviour, but wouldn’t really effect people that that change so they can win.

It should be reasonably simple to tweak the system so the players cannot manipulate it for their own gains/to win.

The randomness of hotjoin in the past was one of its strengths- you could be on a strong team or a weak team, but that was usually due to luck since it was previously more difficult to force autobalance and rejoin the team of your choice.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

well,

Yasha,

i would not call it abusing though but as a matter of fact, fully utilizing it as it is very obviously working as intended.

That is exactly the logic players used to justify similar easily abused systems in Neverwinter Online pvp.

What actually happens now is that you pretty much have to play the spectate and swap game in order to win a game in hotjoin. There is no reason to think this is “working as intended”, it is obviously an unintended by-product of the spectator mode/team swapping.

All that is needed is a few tweaks to the new system- such as not letting players swap teams and not allowing spectators to join a current game.

Actually, apart from just throwing the map in the trash, the best idea I have heard is to make the edges/holes drop you to a lower level that will require some time to get back up from.

I still think it would be cheesy and favour completely brainless builds and gameplay, but better than rewarding non-skilled play with instant kills.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

no no no you are doing it wrong.

at the early phase of each hotjoin match, you need to actively enter spectator mode to force auto balance yourself to make sure your team is not disadvantaged.

4 vs 5 ?
3 vs 4 ?

no problem.
force auto balance.
suddenly your team has more players.

spectator mode + auto balance is there so you can use it to force auto balance yourself for your team who is losing in points and also having less one player to get some help.

for example, outnumbered
1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, 4 vs 5

and they have more points than your team, leading by 50 – 100 points

force an auto balance, join back your team, now fight for your team.

be aware of the score board though.
some idiots from your team may actually transfer to the other team.

continue until the players stop moving around.

You are correct that abusing spectate mode and team swapping is now just as important in hotjoin as actually playing the game.

I have a better idea- take it out of solo queue.

Evan Lesh.3295:

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

Many people have answered and as you can tell (if you have not played and experienced it for yourself) there is quite a problem.

I don’t think features should be removed willy-nilly, but surely there is scope to adjust the current set up, for example by automatically assigning players to teams, not allowing players to swap teams (outside of autobalance), and preventing spectators from dropping in and out of a game (you either spectate or you play)- as others have also suggested.

Have you had time to investigate this and if so what are your thoughts?

Eurantien.4632:

Duran.3196:

reapex.8546:

Marcos.3690:

1) pvp is dead
2) hotjoin is bad

1) pvp is alive, stop spreading false rumors
2) hotjoin is good for trying out new builds, imo

One indicator how alive a competive game mode is can be the spectators of tournaments.
And that indicator is not good, if you take a look at the higly announced ToL.
Afaik Spectators ranged between 1500-4000.

How is it highly announced? I am in game all the time and never SEE ANYTHING about ToL. I don’t look at the announcements before logging in since I have “auto play” checked and I never get on the forums. I HAVE NO WAY of knowing about ToL and neither does the probable majority of players who are in the same boat as me.

But what I did know, even mid tourney match. Was when Scarlet’s Minions were Attacking for like 6 months.

Very good point, same here.

DaShi.1368:

DaveGan.8065:

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

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

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

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

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

I was about to say the same thing, haha.

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

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

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

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

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

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

DaveGan.8065:

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

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

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

DaShi.1368:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SPESHAL.9106:

Hotjoins are a total embarrassment to Anet.

All they do is teach bad habits and have nothing but lopsided ‘competition’.

The only thing it’s marginally good for is testing builds, but anyone relying on how they do with a build in hotjoin is in for a rude awakening.

Even WoW 2.0 (or whenever they first released non-competitive battlegrounds) had a better setup over 10 years ago.

I totally disagree.

Hotjoin is an amazing and fun avenue to get some of the best and most balanced “battleground” type pvp in any mmo to date. It kittens all over WoW, that’s for certain. The only thing other mmo spvp-type gameplay has over GW2 hotjoin or tourney is more gamemodes.

The spectator mode in addition to the pve rewards has corrupted the game to an extent, because now you get people playing hotjoin for the rewards and not just for the fun of it or to practise.

Because spectator mode essentially gives players a way to “cheat” and a reward for successfully doing so we are inevitably seeing that kind of behaviour.

I really think that the devs need to get on top of the spectator mode issue. Right now the culture in hotjoin/spvp is still largely positive for the game. However, there is a risk of a rot setting in, and in the end the overwhelming culture could become similar to the situation in Neverwinter online (for example), where it became the accepted norm to “surf” through games until a player found a winning team, and is almost completely wrecked by bots and afkers sitting in spawn to collect rewards.

At any rate it is just preposterous imo to claim that spvp in other mmos is better than what we have in GW2 (other than in terms of game modes).

Asomal.6453:

I barely play or post here now days, but I can see people saying the same bs over and over and over again, like a broken record. First:

• Zerk thief doesn’t allow any other zerk to play.
  —-
  What is this, September 2012? That statement hasn’t been true for a long time now. The only real full zerk classes that struggle against thieves are Ranger, Elementalist and Mesmer. Even so, It doesn’t mean they can’t win against it.

• S/D thief can just BURST you down
  —-
  I don’t think you know what this word means. 8k crit from Steal + 10k BS was burst. What S/F Eles do is burst. 10k Eviscerate is burst. S/D thief is NOT bursting you down (air + fire sigil isn’t exclusive to thieves). Stop misusing the word already.

• Thieves are the master of 1×1
  —-
  If you are a good player, winning 1×1 as a thief shouldn’t be hard but, have you seem what people play in today’s pvp? Tell me how can a S/D thief wins against a A/S celestial warrior? Celestial D/D ele? Zerk Guardian? Turret engi? And other builds? Sure thieves have potential in 1×1, but they are far from being masters

Exactly, nice post.

Liewec.2896:

Yasha.5963:

I am really happy they got rid of 8vs8.

there were both 8v8 and 5v5 servers, you could play 5v5 all you like…
and the 8v8 servers were all always full because alot of us preferred it to 5v3.

Yes it was terrible when there were also 8vs8 servers, especially when they were all at the top of the list.

Geiir.7603:

Liewec.2896:

i noticed a surprising amount of backstab thieves last night,
one hit me for 12k. (on my warrior)
and the cooldown of backstab is only aslong as “Revealed” then you can simply restealth and do it again!
or just spam 6k heartseekers to finikitten

his was in sPvP?! Numbers that high are rare in WvW with all buffs up, and should be impossible to reach in PvP under normal conditions…

From time to time people make up such stories. What happens in reality doesn’t live up to the legend unfortunately.

magicmanh.1597:

“Thief is not OP in the way that most people complain about it. It is good at doing a certain job, but I it takes more skill and is more fun to play than a lot of other classes imo”
I like that, I’m content.

and hello kinsz, thanks for kicking my butt with s/d, thats all thats getting me through spvp atm. Hope our new DB->SoS are behaving.

sunnylane, im calling you out right now. That was the most thick comment I’ve read on the forums in a while. You literally named all the thief skills, said one was OP, and then called the class was OP.

I’m done with the thread, thanks for everyone with useful comments for helping me, and showing me why thief is OP. The answer: because everyone says so. Not because we die in a few hits, but because we kitten players off to no end. I will play a thief forever just to make people rage. MAGICMANH OUT. FIND ME ONLINE TO FLAME ME!

Yeah its weird, I seem to be able to take people out faster and easier with dps guard, but I get a lot more hate tells when I play thief.

aliksyian.7642:

You shouldn’t be allowed to pick your team when you join. If you become a spectator you probably shouldn’t be allowed to rejoin as a player until the match is over.

I agree, good idea.

Also I am really happy they got rid of 8vs8.

Ralkuth.1456:

Hambows: poison and shortbow. Get off point if fire field; in out with SD. Dodge arcing arrow. Stand at ~600 range and wait for him to switch hammer and use intell + F1. Dodge that. Steal his stab. Reset when he pop zerk stance. Reset when he pop endure pain. Use stun break for Staggering blow. Bait out all his CD and if no inc help for him, DP blind tank his hammer. Backstab when he LB F1 or arcing arrow.

Turret: LoS poison and shortbow his turrets. Blind or evade rifle. Wait for overcharge or pushback; stun break and burst after. Dodge magnet.

AH Guard: just poison and make him use some CDs, soften him up for Necro/Engi/team to bring down. If he goes down, cleave like you lost your wallet.

Necro: any Necro with full LF will shiet on you if you make one mistake. Catch one without death shroud. Stun then blind then fear then interrupt until dead. If you eat Doom, stun break and reset immediately.

PU Mesmer: hang around and poison him. Dodge around, blind some stuff, decap and leave.

I think this is great advice, but it will still be really hard to win 1vs1. Its funny to read the above because it shows how much skill and thought you need to play thief effectively, contrary to what many people say.

In contrast on my dps guard, which I just play for lols, the strategy is ring of warding-teleport, f1, change to sword symbol, whirl, auto-attack, blind, change to hammer and keep smashing until dead. I don’t have to think or change my attack pattern and it basically works well against every class/build.

Thief is not OP in the way that most people complain about it. It is good at doing a certain job, but I it takes more skill and is more fun to play than a lot of other classes imo.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Yasha.5963:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Yasha.5963:

Lordrosicky.5813:

But things won’t change. Anet only balance one way, and that is buffing everything I think.

I just ran off a list of major nerfs to the ranger- how can you persist in saying that? What of your favorite class, the necro, that you have been complaining about recently due to a nerf?

Thieves have also been consistently nerfed since the game began. Ele got huge nerfs at one point.

I don’t know where this image of ANET does not nerf comes from when they unequivocally do nerf, and often hard.

Everything should be nerfed, necro included. Are you saying that that hasn’t been massive power creep?

I am saying exactly what I said- How can you people claim that “Anet only balance one way, and that is buffing everything” when there have been so many major nerfs?

I pointed to necro only to illustrate that even a class you are very familiar with has had a heavy nerf.

It was a generalisation. If you nerf thief in 1 way and they buff initative regain by 33% then that is a net buff. If you nerf necro in one way but then make death shroud super tanky then that is a net buff.

So are you saying that anet doesn’t just balance by buffing everything? i.e. are you saying that there hasn’t been massive power creep in the game?

They nerf and buff, they don’t just buff everything as a way of balancing. You said: “Anet only balance one way, and that is buffing everything”. There is no hint of generalization, it is just a flat out incorrect and misleading statement.

And no I don’t think there has been a “massive” power creep in the game. Some builds are much stronger than they used to be, others much weaker.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Yasha.5963:

Lordrosicky.5813:

But things won’t change. Anet only balance one way, and that is buffing everything I think.

I just ran off a list of major nerfs to the ranger- how can you persist in saying that? What of your favorite class, the necro, that you have been complaining about recently due to a nerf?

Thieves have also been consistently nerfed since the game began. Ele got huge nerfs at one point.

I don’t know where this image of ANET does not nerf comes from when they unequivocally do nerf, and often hard.

Everything should be nerfed, necro included. Are you saying that that hasn’t been massive power creep?

I am saying exactly what I said- How can you people claim that “Anet only balance one way, and that is buffing everything” when there have been so many major nerfs?

I pointed to necro only to illustrate that even a class you are very familiar with has had a heavy nerf.

Lordrosicky.5813:

But things won’t change. Anet only balance one way, and that is buffing everything I think.

I just ran off a list of major nerfs to the ranger- how can you persist in saying that? What of your favorite class, the necro, that you have been complaining about recently due to a nerf?

Thieves have also been consistently nerfed since the game began. Ele got huge nerfs at one point.

I don’t know where this image of ANET does not nerf comes from when they unequivocally do nerf, and often hard.

Darkk.3018:

Skyhammer is another massive problem in spvp like spectator mode. I haven’t read all the past 19 pages but I’m sure what I would have said has already been said. That said, I’m disappointed that there hasn’t been a single dev response in this long thread about this long standing problem. I don’t think removing it now like raid on the capricorn will fix the damage it has done i.e giving some people higher ranks than they deserve.

This issue has been going on for ages, and in fact the devs and a community manager have talked about it, but with the thread mergers and deletions/locks it has probably been lost.

Basically they said that its a great map, lots of people like it, but a few people don’t like it. We have had numerous community polls that showed about 80% of spvpers wanted it out of solo queue- some polls had over 300 responses.

Skyhammer is like some kind of festering wound that has been left untreated for so long despite the dying/crying patient.

Sometimes I take a break from gw2 for a few months to go play other games, and everytime I come back “please remove skyhammer” is on the front page of the forums (the asura issue is also often there).