Curse

Numa Pompilius · Jul 20, 2006, 12:11 PM // 12:11

Or at least moderate it.
Since the title of Gladiator was created I'm seeing tons of sync-entered guild teams, before that mainly the Koreans did this. Basically sync-entering means that they get an organized team into random arena to fight random teams - meaning they get ten easy wins.

My suggestion: remove the countdown, making it harder to sync. That should at least make sync-entering harder.

However the underlying problem with RA remains that four players are too few to average the teams, meaning the matches are 100% determined by if you luck out and get a functional team build or not. RA should be 8v8.

Rusty Deth · Jul 20, 2006, 12:18 PM // 12:18

I'm all for 8x8 in RA...

The 4x4 is ussually a crap shoot. Maybe thats why I do Fort Aspenwood alot.

Evilsod · Jul 20, 2006, 02:02 PM // 14:02

RA should not be 8v8. Its 4v4 to make it functional as random. If you get a monk. A monk can survive on his own against 4 people, against 8 people? Your kidding.

Not to mention we'd see people trying to sync things like FoC spike, if that pulled off they'd be in there forever. As you'd never come across TA people who are still at 4v4.

yamero · Jul 20, 2006, 02:08 PM // 14:08

i lost at 8 wins by a synch teaming warmachine guild...
needless to say i lost all respect i had for those damn glad farmers..

even so they took 40 mins to beat a random european team at sudden death in death count..in any other map they wouldnt stand a chance..

i have a nicescreenie of it...
just to expose warmachine of what they really are...
a bunch of farmers

Rathcail · Jul 20, 2006, 03:22 PM // 15:22

Yeah, I too am very familiar with the four [WM]'s in Random Arenas.

SpeedyKQ · Jul 20, 2006, 03:23 PM // 15:23

Yup, this is a problem.

Maybe when you enter, the entrance should be delayed by a random number of seconds between 0 and 20.

Nightwish · Jul 20, 2006, 03:23 PM // 15:23

We should know by now that many good players tend to be less honest because they usually do whatever it takes to win, including using not-so-fair tactics or exploiting bugs.

unholy guardian · Jul 20, 2006, 03:49 PM // 15:49

yeah when your that high of a guild... you kinda get high off trying to win. People in real life do whatever it takes to win things too...

draugr · Apr 18, 2008, 07:42 PM // 19:42

As another arena bonus weekend starts, I look forward to some RA play. One of the broken aspects of RA that has never been fixed is the possibility to cheat by synching into the arena.

This could be fixed by having a preliminary "vestibule" where all districts feed into the same "hat" for arena team selection, but would not include any graphical change to the player . The vestibule would be allowed to fill for a few seconds, and then the regular random selection process could occur.

Shayne Hawke · Apr 18, 2008, 08:05 PM // 20:05

So, instead of entering people in the order that they ask to join battle, they get randomly picked out of all the people ready to play?

That's the way it should have worked from the get-go. The only improvement to be made to that is that players that previously weren't picked will be guaranteed to be picked next game for as many of those players as possible. That will prevent having people enter and not getting in for many minutes while other people are able to get in on their first go.

draugr · Apr 18, 2008, 08:20 PM // 20:20

The time it takes to get into a match wouldn't change from status quo. By placing people from all districts in the same pool immediately upon hitting enter for a 5-10 second period, it would make synching very difficult to do. I don't suspect this would take many resources to fix, but have also suspected for some time that arenanet actually "likes" synching for some unknown reason, and has looke the other way. One of few explanations for why othewise blatant cheating would be allowed to exist so long without a simple fix.

BTW, synching is pretty pervasive in RA. Alliances and friends lists allow people to synch without having the same guild tags. People have always thought that synchers only cheated from within their guild and this has never been the case.

MithranArkanere · Apr 18, 2008, 08:37 PM // 20:37

To grant randomness, increase the number of items to 'shuffle'.

So, the system should wait for enough players to make at least 4 random teams (including the teams playing). And then shuffle the players after getting them, instead of getting them in chronological order.

Div · Apr 19, 2008, 02:16 AM // 02:16

Who really cares?

RedStar · Apr 19, 2008, 02:29 AM // 02:29

Peoples will always find a way, always.

Fallen Hunter · Apr 19, 2008, 02:44 AM // 02:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by RedStar

Peoples will always find a way, always.

Actually, this sounds like a pretty good solution. I have also thought about this problem. It would be perfectly possible to do this without any noticeable time difference for the player. This is a problem, and it does need to be fixed. Synchronised entry causes two problems - first, when the synchronised entry is successfull, the team with these players has an unfair advantage. The point of RA is that no team has an inherent advantage over any other team, and thus the individual performance of each player matters more, as one great player can make a team. By synching, a truly random team has a much lower chance of defeating a team made up of players who planned their entire team, and created their builds to work with each other. This also negates the other purpose of RA - as a testing ground. A lot of people use RA as a ground to test new builds. As I already said, the individual player's ability matters a lot in RA, and it can be a great indication of the success of a build. If it is full of synched teams, it becomes harder to guage the success of your build, as you may be facing an enemy you are at a disadvantage to (a synched one) and not know.

The other problem is when synched entry is not successful. In this case, the people who were attempting it often leave the team they find themselves in. This has been reduced by the introduction of the dishonour system, but it can still occur. Basically, this fix will make RA a much better environment for the testing of builds, and for those only starting out in PvP.

And please, don't say that RA is unimportant. It is the only PvP type available to newbies, and making it a hostile environment to these players by allowing synchronised entry is only going to make it harder for them to unlock other forms of PvP.

RavagerOfDreams · Apr 19, 2008, 02:53 AM // 02:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

Who really cares?

divine won the thread

/givecookie

Solange · Apr 19, 2008, 03:19 AM // 03:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

Who really cares?

OH you know...THE PEOPLE WHO LIKE FAIR PLAY!!!!!!!!!

Giga_Gaia · Apr 19, 2008, 03:33 AM // 03:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

Who really cares?

Perhaps to keep the RANDOM in RANDOM Arena?

RedStar · Apr 19, 2008, 03:50 AM // 03:50

Well, you can't really be random in random arena because people will always say 2 things :
- you got your build on wiki
- you build sucks /report....

Of course having a wa/rit with channeling on your team is annoying, but hey, they have to learn somewhere.

Tark Alkerk · Apr 19, 2008, 04:25 AM // 04:25

quite frankly, I don't see sync as a problem, because of these things, 1, it doesn't work all the time, 2, I don't actually see this suggestion fixing it, 3, since was luck competitive? , the random nature of nature of RA exists so people may get matches, its not to be a serious game mechanic, other wise RA could just as well be an arena where a computer generates 8 players who have a random selection of skills and use said random skills at random times, that would be random arenas. But then again, the whole idea of RA is detestable, its been a breading ground for poor quality builds for a long time, with people insisting on bring earth tanks with stone daggers.

There are 2 ways to play RA, either you can play a build that will be useful as long as you get some sort of healer and hope for a random match with a monk for example, or you can play something which tries to survive as well as doing damage, so that when you enter you may stand a chance of living a while without of monk.

But since when has the game being about surviving, you don't win matches by boring the enemy to death.

And finally, per Holy, who actually seriously cares, if you take RA as a serious form of PVP, you may as well give up the PvP game and play AB, because that is the quality of PVP at the lower end of the scale, in a word terrible.