Curse

Arkantos · Oct 13, 2008, 06:29 AM // 06:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

Summary of the logic in this thread:

I use it, it's not against any rules.
I like that it gives me the possibility of having good teammates in a shit arena, and I could care less if it was changed because the gladiator title is as useless as every other title.
Everyone who doesn't like it should realize that RA is the lowest form of PvP, and ANet don't give a flying shit about it.

Did I miss anything?

No, not at all.

bungusmaximus · Oct 13, 2008, 08:07 AM // 08:07

ROFl synchers are bad, keep 'em coming, I eat their hairy butt for lunch. If they were actually any good they wouldn't sync at all

.

Yang Whirlwind · Oct 13, 2008, 12:46 PM // 12:46

As usual it seems people are focused on the problem and not on a solution. The reason why Arena Net says the problem/exploit does not exist is quite simple when you think about it: they cannot fix this!
How could they? Prevent people from ending up on the same team: who have messaged each other? Who have used the general chat to count down? Who uses TS/Vent? Who are in the same guild? None of these solutions would solve anything even if they could be implemented (which they probably can't).

I do feel it is an exploit, as it circumvents the intention behind the Random Arena, by making it less than random, but it is not as far as I can tell something they can ban people for doing.

In the end it is morally questionable and in poor keeping with the spirit of the game,- but not illegal or cheating as such.

cebalrai · Oct 13, 2008, 01:18 PM // 13:18

It's an exploit. But Anet can't think of an answer.

minor · Oct 13, 2008, 01:23 PM // 13:23

Is someone pretended to be a retard to win the gold at the special olympics would all you guys defend em? Caz thats what synchers are. You really suck so badly that you have to try to beat random teams with your premade team on vent; all so you can get a glad title that really doesn't mean anything. As much as I hate losing to you I still feel sorry for anyone that bad at the game.
And that fact that anet won't fix it/call it an exploit just proves once again how much they FAIL.

Hyper.nl · Oct 13, 2008, 01:38 PM // 13:38

I would say no; not against the rules. You are allowed to click join at any time. If ANet wants to stop syncing altogether they can better add a randomizer to the grouping code, to make it highly unlikely that people who join at the same time actually enter the same team. Enforcing gameplay with the software is always better than to enforce it with rules.

Shasgaliel · Oct 13, 2008, 01:51 PM // 13:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyper.nl

I would say no; not against the rules. You are allowed to click join at any time.

In law there is a notion of a bad faith. There are some actions which are perfectly legal unless your intentions are proven wrong (registering domain names for example - you can do it as much as you want but if you do it in a "bad faith" and someone proves it you will have your domains revoked). So the "just clicking button" argument goes down if someone manages to prove that you do it to gain advantage over the others and not to play the way it was intended. I guess the issue that prevents Anet from doing something here is that it is very hard to prove that someone actually sync even if for most of the players it is plain obvious.

Raul the Rampant · Oct 13, 2008, 07:17 PM // 19:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yang Whirlwind

The reason why Arena Net says the problem/exploit does not exist is quite simple when you think about it: they cannot fix this!
How could they? Prevent people from ending up on the same team: who have messaged each other? Who have used the general chat to count down? Who uses TS/Vent? Who are in the same guild? None of these solutions would solve anything even if they could be implemented (which they probably can't).

This is absolutely correct. There is no possible way these sorts of things can realistically be implemented. Ensuring that nobody is able to get on a team with another player with which they are even vaguely associated with is impractical. Cross-referencing guild and alliance rosters would slow the matchmaking process down a ton (some of those alliances are massive), so instead of 30 seconds between matches the countdowns would be resetting constantly because not enough people are separated by enough degrees to allow them to be on the same team.

Then you'd have to cross reference friends lists, too, because not everyone who syncs is allied. Throw that in there and the delays and resets are even longer. Perhaps I'm mistaken (I'm not much of a programmer), but isn't this stored client-side? If so that'd get even messier. Also, checking to see if the person is on vent/ts is ridiculous, as it would require GW to monitor other programs that you're running... and even if it did you'll just have people using vent on their laptop right next to their pc to get around this one.

Filtering teams by chat logs in real time... yeah, the fail in that should be more than obvious.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cebalrai

But Anet can't think of an answer.

Neither can anyone else. When anybody here comes up with one that is both not-asinine and implementable then this thread will actually have a point.

The Meth · Oct 13, 2008, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyper.nl

I would say no; not against the rules. You are allowed to click join at any time. If ANet wants to stop syncing altogether they can better add a randomizer to the grouping code, to make it highly unlikely that people who join at the same time actually enter the same team. Enforcing gameplay with the software is always better than to enforce it with rules.

You can manually disconnect at any time and use the reconnect feature to reestablish your connection. This used to be used to dupe items, but clearly because dupers were just using perfectly normal methods of playing the game they shouldn't be at fault by your logic, correct?

The problem is they can't enforce it with software. What can they do, delay all RA matches until there are 100 people to be randomized (and thereby lowering the chance of syncs working)? Have fun with 10 minute waits to enter the match. Are they going to prevent people from the same guild/alliance from getting on the same team? People will just change guilds.

If anything is going to change syncing, it should be to remove the gladiator title from RA. Won't fix syncing obviously, but it takes away the reward for winning.

Martin Alvito · Oct 13, 2008, 07:50 PM // 19:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Why do people get all pissed off when they get robbed? I mean, if you can't deal with getting your stuff taken all the time, why don't you just get a gang together and rob some people yourself? Pansies.

The answer is obvious: because there is some chance greater than zero that you will be caught and punished if you go rob the guy to take your stuff back or compensate yourself by stealing from someone else. Ask O.J. Simpson.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Worst. Argument. Ever.

No, see, your argument is the worst argument ever. You have attempted to argue by analogy, but your analogy fails because the conditions are radically different. Also, you have chosen to focus only on the segment of my argument that you found objectionable. I lay out two options:

1) if you can't beat 'em, join 'em
2) quit whining and instead do something constructive to convince ANet that the player base actually favors your position

because your preferred option #3:

3) start QQ thread #15 about syncing

is unlikely to produce better results than QQ threads #1-14.

Taki, I'm glad you brought your A game this time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taki

You did argue that and I agree. People should take action instead of expending as much effort bitching as you did in making your post. But that's only as long as that something is important enough to take action about - which RA really is not. You also took the position that if they 'can't beat 'em, join 'em', which is sound advice for anyone involved in a sandbox fight. For anyone older than that, not so much.

I advocated two possible solutions that are both more constructive than the present one we're observing. As for the second post: sophistry makes me mad. It required deconstruction.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taki

Now, I "argued" that you should stop being a hypocrite, complaining about complaining, and stop voluntarily putting yourself in a position where there's complaining going on. Or take your own advice and grab the mods by the bells so they can't ignore you and force them to listen to your idea about banning any complaining or criticism on the forum.

You're still missing my original point. My argument against complaining is one of practicality here. It's wasted effort. Complaining on this topic has already been done to death, and the grounds the argument rests on aren't going to persuade a business owner.

There's nothing wrong with complaining in and of itself, but complaining for the sake of complaining is unhealthy. Requesting a change without a persuasive argument (in ANet's terms) to back it up is pointless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taki

You're telling people to stop doing that, attempting to maliciously intervene in the people's right to bitch. Do you know what you are, Martin?

You're a blocker. That's what you are.

Taki, there's some interesting sociology research that's been published in the last couple of years that suggests that bitching actually makes people feel worse, rather than better. It does so because once people hear other people respond, they harden tentative positions about issues (in response to other people's sympathy) and then become upset and frustrated when the world doesn't change to suit their new positions. Further, people that bitch often don't go do something to solve the problem that makes them upset. Instead, they get validation from their social support structure by continuing to bitch about the problem.

There have been a LOT of threads complaining about syncing prior to this one. You have an early enough join date to know that this is FAR from the first thread about syncing. People have been complaining about other players syncing every randomly assigned PvP format in the game for YEARS.

Do you seriously think ANet is unaware that syncing exists and that people don't like it? Further complaints on an old topic add nothing. If you're a player facing this situation, you need to either escalate or back down. Posting the same old complaint of "This is WRONG and it needs to be fixed!" isn't going to accomplish anything.

Further, that argument is wrongheaded because morality isn't the language of business. Oil companies don't conduct research into alternative energy sources out of charity. They do so because they expect the research to be profitable at the end of the day.

If you want to get ANet to change something, making a moral argument won't get you anywhere. Arguing that more players want to see the change than not may do so. But I haven't seen any evidence of that in this thread. It doesn't lack for defenders of syncing, and a lot of the mods seem to be defending it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taki

You have nothing to substantiate this with but it doesn't matter. The behavioral consequences that syncing does create is negative enough.

What are these awful consequences? The existence of one sync team tends to lead to the existence of more sync teams. That's the only behavioral consequence of the existence of a sync team. I could substantiate this with a mathematical model, but it's more bother than it's worth.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taki

There is no such thing as an economy in GW PvP to even be undermined in the first place. It's team build and player skill against team build and player skill. Not phat l00tz vs phater l00tz. You don't seem to be on Earth with me on this one but don't worry, I'll reel you back in right quick.

You're just strengthening my point, which was: the sky is not going to fall because of syncing. The hyperbole just makes you look foolish.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taki

The only catastrophic externalities I remember is Prot Bond allegedly causing the servers to crash and Sig of Might killing Guild Lords and anything else after 10secs instead of just allied spirits. I'm pretty sure there's been more than just two balance updates to fix those two things though. So maybe ANET has more than just catastrophic externalities as their usual underlying reason behind balance updates. Maybe.

You want a comprehensive list of conditions that lead to balance updates? OK:

1) BAD THINGS externalities. Eg: the day that monsters dropped stuff whether you killed them or other monsters killed them. Consequence if not corrected: hyperinflation of gold = bad.

2) Game balance distortion. Overpowered skill(s) drive variety out of the game. PvP example: Original Searing Flames. PvE example: Ursan.

3) Bugs. Game doesn't work as intended. Eg: 1/2 second Decapitate when devs meant to update Agonizing Chop. Arcane Mimicry works on base defenders. (Most fun skill bugs, ever, btw.)

4) Player preference changes. Your sync fix falls here. You could make an argument for #3 if it hadn't persisted for long enough to imply that syncing is a "feature" rather than a "bug", if you know what I mean.

#1 and #2 are types of game balance change. #3 and #4 are not. They're design changes. There's a difference.

The problem is that ANet has a limited amount of staff working on this game. As a result they rarely get down to #4. It took them 3 frigging years to fix Leah Stone! The community has complained the whole time!

So the thrust of the second half of my argument is: if you want ANet to do something about the problem, you'd better get your issue to the top of the #4 queue. QQ thread #15 won't do that.

Phaern Majes · Oct 13, 2008, 08:07 PM // 20:07

As I said in the gvg syncing thread, just remove the countdown timer. They can still click at the same time but thats as far as they'll get. None of the wait until 3 seconds and re-enter or whatever.

Can't see the timer then you can't know when you're going to enter.

Martin Alvito · Oct 13, 2008, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phaern Majes

As I said in the gvg syncing thread, just remove the countdown timer. They can still click at the same time but thats as far as they'll get. None of the wait until 3 seconds and re-enter or whatever.

Can't see the timer then you can't know when you're going to enter.

Easily foiled. Enter in 3, 2, 1. Cancel in 2, 1.

Repeat.

You'll inconvenience them, but that's all.

Phaern Majes · Oct 13, 2008, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Easily foiled. Enter in 3, 2, 1. Cancel in 2, 1.

Repeat.

You'll inconvenience them, but that's all.

Better then nothing. Besides clicking enter at the same time doesn't always put you on the same timer.

Not to mention they usually cancel and re-enter right before the counter finishes if they don't know when it finishes they don't know when to cancel.

shoogi · Oct 13, 2008, 08:30 PM // 20:30

Syncing is not cheating as it doesn't violate the EULA.

Syncing is not such a big problem, you make it look like 50% of the teams are sync.

When will people stop QQing about syncing?

Never apparentely.

w00t! · Oct 13, 2008, 09:10 PM // 21:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raul the Rampant

This is absolutely correct. There is no possible way these sorts of things can realistically be implemented.
(snip)
Cross-referencing guild and alliance rosters would slow the matchmaking process down a ton
(snip)

Yeah, and if Kevin Bacon were trying to do RA, we'd all be screwed!

Reverend Dr · Oct 13, 2008, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yang Whirlwind

As usual it seems people are focused on the problem and not on a solution.

Remove Glad points from RA!

Before Glad points were introduced there were almost no complaints about leechers, or leavers, or syncers, or griefers. Now that there is a reward in RA, instead of having laid back people goofing all, we also have self-important title farmers that get bitchy when they don't get the points and treatment they deserve.

Foe · Oct 13, 2008, 10:59 PM // 22:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Remove Glad points from RA!

Before Glad points were introduced there were almost no complaints about leechers, or leavers, or syncers, or griefers. Now that there is a reward in RA, instead of having laid back people goofing all, we also have self-important title farmers that get bitchy when they don't get the points and treatment they deserve.

thats it in a nutshell.

Also, there is a huge number of "pro" ra players. They don't move on to ha/ta/gvg and they've been grinding ra for what is years now. It should be a place for new players to learn and veterans to tinker or just run silly stuff for fun. Remove glad points and this is what you will have.

Ive always felt it would be a better system if like classes repelled while players were waiting in que before the matches. Call it balanced arenas, whatever. If its an environment where ppl run the strongest meta bars and sync with their friends it makes the groups with out a monk purely a waste of time 95%. Charging to your death over and over just isn't fun hamstorm or not :P

Sure, its only ra and who cares but there are a hell of alot of people that play there for a variety of reasons. To say it doesn't deserve any attention because its not a premier pvp format is out of touch and basically anets fail approach. They chased alot of players there by destroying every dynamic that originally made gw so pimp. Its the last place you can sit down and be creative with your skills and the game mechanics. For those who weren't around that was guildwars, not titles or everlasting elves.

If they[anet] were only like 10% competent at skill balance and did so frequently ra and gw for that matter would be eternally fun.

Raul the Rampant · Oct 14, 2008, 01:18 AM // 01:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by w00t!

Yeah, and if Kevin Bacon were trying to do RA, we'd all be screwed!

I pm'd him in-game, but he's more of a pve-er these days.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Remove Glad points from RA!

Before Glad points were introduced there were almost no complaints about leechers, or leavers, or syncers, or griefers. Now that there is a reward in RA, instead of having laid back people goofing all, we also have self-important title farmers that get bitchy when they don't get the points and treatment they deserve.

There is truth in this, but...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Foe

Also, there is a huge number of "pro" ra players. They don't move on to ha/ta/gvg and they've been grinding ra for what is years now. It should be a place for new players to learn and veterans to tinker or just run silly stuff for fun. Remove glad points and this is what you will have.

...the problem lies in the existence of these "pro" (although permanent may be a better word) RA players, which I'd venture to say are the solid majority of the population there. In the beginning, before glad points, ra was a training arena where people practiced there fully intending to move on to higher levels. This did seem to work. But now, at this point, people aren't working towards that ultimate end anymore, and instead are there solely for progressing the title. Removing glad points from RA will cause these perma-RAers to move on to TA where they can get them, leaving RA fairly barren. Sure, you'll get a few people there occasionally test something, but people aren't going to spend much time doing something that provides no intrinsic reward (just look at the multitude of threads demanding larger rewards for increasingly-easy accomplishments). Matches will be few and far between... if you take away glad points you might as well just eliminate the whole arena.

noneedforclevernames · Oct 14, 2008, 02:36 AM // 02:36

syncing only works like two times, then regardless of the countdown you and your friend won't be on the same map. thats why you don't get the same party members over and over.. so it's not really a big deal.

Lalamika · Oct 14, 2008, 03:23 AM // 03:23

Wow...

So this is the latest thing people are QQ'ing about now. I knew it was too quiet.

All sarcasm aside, how in the world is sync'ing an exploit? I sync with my alliancemates and guildmates in ab all the time, which actually isn't a disadvantage to the other team. As I've read, I understand that you guys are referring to RA only, which I'll admit that sync'ing in ra is kinda like cheating on a math test in college. (Great comparison huh.) There are people out there that know how to do ra that should be doing ha. But seriously, if you think about it, sync'ing isn't a exploit at all. I mean there's many different examples of exploits, like the Mallyx one. Seriously people what's next?

There are more things to worry about, this isn't one of them.