Curse

Tenova · Sep 18, 2007, 06:44 AM // 06:44

I am growing tired of people constantly leaving Random Arena games within the first 5 seconds, effectively sentencing their respective teams to death (in most cases). I am almost certain that it is useless to suggest this, but there is the tiny hope that it might make a difference. Do you suppose it would be possible for the dropped players, if they drop before certain conditions are met (taking damage, attacking, time elapsed, etc), to be replaced by a random computer controlled henchman that would obey the player with the highest priority on the team?

With the release of GW:EN, players are now able to battle in a 1 on 1 arena setting against computer controlled opponents through a variety of Norn quests. These NPC's could be used as the replacements mentioned above, randomly of course. And certainly more team-based NPC's could be added. People would delight in getting monks, despite their generally poor AI and lack of wise energy usage.

Feasibly, this could be unfair, for a player with an affinity for martyrdom might see that his team is unbalanced and then leave so that the team might get the edge with an NPC.

But I am also growing tired of people leaving the team high and dry in PVE settings. The leader of the party should be allowed to substitute the lost member for one of his or her heroes, or transfer that authority onto another player, if he or she has no heroes. Henchmen would be another possibility, but this would probably be more complicated as henchmen vary from town to town, not from explorable area to explorable area (especially in Factions). The notable exception to this is GW:EN, of course. The release of the PVE only skills shows that Arena Net doesn't seem to mind drastically altering the PVE setting, so I don't think that swapping a dropped player for a hero mid-mission would be too game-breaking, especially when you take such skills as Critical Agility and Pain Inverter into account. But I digress.

This is more than a bit of a pipe dream, but I think it would improve the game. I know that it would take a lot of time and work to implement, but I do recall reading in an interview somewhere that Anet didn't intend to leave PVP completely neglected with GW:EN. Thank you for your time and any help you can provide, even though I expect I will probably just be told to quit playing in Random Arena.