Curse

LaserLight · Apr 01, 2006, 01:01 AM // 01:01

I devised this system to differentiate spy-type players from normal players and to punish perpetual ragequitters without overly harming genuine Err7-ed players. Note: it does NOT bar either type from playing 12v12 fights - a system that would catch ragequitters and spies but allow Err7-prone players through is impossible. That said...

Honor: Accrued one point at a time. You gain a point of Honor for playing a 12v12 match through from start to finish. In order to discourage AFK, your character needs to be active for 80% of the match time , whether that activity is moving, using skills, or awaiting res. Honor does not rise above +10. This is to prevent Honor farming and groups demanding honor scores in the thousands and making 12v12 as bad as HA, as well as to make the second half of the system work.

Infamy: The meat of this system is Infamy. Infamy first negates Honor, dropping your Honor score by one point for each point of Infamy you have, until you hit 0 Honor. After this, Infamy will take over directly. Infamy is accrued in two ways - you gain a point of Infamy for leaving a battle before it's done. This is for any reason - Err7 as well as mapping or pulling the plug or whatever. Thus, perpetual ragequitters will be shown for what they are. As for spies, a player who suicides will accrue a full ten points of Infamy, instantly wiping out any Honor they have left, and repeated suicides will quickly jack Infamy up into massive levels. For the sake of fariness, Infamy caps at 100, since anything much past this would be impossible to work off.

Here's the kicker. Your Honor/Infamy is displayed next to your character name (just like your Guild tag), and does not differentiate between Luxon or Kurzick. Thus, Luxon spies and Kurzick spies accrue the exact same Infamy and are equally mistrusted by everyone. Only the spy's Guild would know him for what he was and would most likely be the only ones to allow him to group with them to work it off, as it should be. Especially since it'd take one hundred and ten straight completed 12v12 fights to get back to that +10 Honor, while it'd take just a single match as a suicide spy to get right down to 100 Infamy.

This system would provide ample warning to prospective teammates of just what kind of player they're dealing with. And best of all, people who suffer a natural NetErr7 only have to work off that one single Infamy point in order to get back to a perfect Honor score. They can do that with a single Enter Mission. But someone who tries their hand at spying, even once, will be a long, long time recovering. If they ever do.

So, give me your thoughts on how to improve this system, and we'll see if Anet picks it up, eh?

Phoenix Avenger · Apr 01, 2006, 01:20 AM // 01:20

I really like this idea. Although you may only want to have 1 counter, that being Honor, and you can loose and gain honor. That way you dont have to show 2 numbers besides the person's name. Although this doesnt stop people with hugely negative honor from going in alone or in a group with 3 other people with -100 honor. But its definetly a good start.

EDIT**

I was just thinking, maybe your group cant enter a 12v12 without having your groups combined honor being greater than or equal to zero?

Lord Snow · Apr 01, 2006, 01:21 AM // 01:21

That's not a bad system at all I think.

There's no serious penalties so those prone to lag would be okay too.

Ken Dei · Apr 01, 2006, 01:35 AM // 01:35

"Signet of Approval"

Even as a dial-up user I don't mind the system, except for two things:

How would you differentiate between someone who suicides, and someone who got really unlucky, lagged, and died without firing back.

I did this almost once every time the enemy team arrived on the screen. I wasn't saccing myself, I just lagged because it was 12v12, after that I was fine, barely any lag at all. But my point is, I'd always lose at least 10 honor every match because of lag.

Also, and enemy spy can move around and attack enemy players every little while, to pretend to be helping, all the while saccing themselves.

My point being, leave Honor based on leaving/staying. There's just no way to detect human intentions with thier actions, because a program can always be tricked.

Phoenix Avenger · Apr 01, 2006, 01:36 AM // 01:36

ANet would have to devise some way of determining if you killed youself (such as with a spell or by having no armor on) or if you just died from someone killing you.

ducktape · Apr 01, 2006, 01:39 AM // 01:39

Cool idea! I like it!

I have a question though: If someone is a spy and suicides themselves (like running into big groups of enemies and frenzying themselves to death), how will it know they suicided themselves and not that they just suck really bad so that it can give them infamy points?

And what if a spy is just an AFK'er, how will it know they deserve to get infamy instead of just not gaining honor? Maybe if any AFK'er gets 5 infamy points for not participating? I dunno, just an idea...AFK'ers really suck. And there's no reason for AFK'ing other than to leech, unlike legitimate reasons for being disconnected, so maybe AFK should earn you 5 infamy points instead of 1 for disconnects?

get cha · Apr 01, 2006, 01:45 AM // 01:45

I dont like this proposed system. What about sac necros? It'd take forever to get back into the positives. And how do you propose the game decides on who's saccing themselves to be a spy and who gets backfired, tries a spell and kills themself? I dont see it possible to do from a logistical standpoint unless you're gonna have referees (real admin-type people) watch each match, and judge from there.

lyra_song · Apr 01, 2006, 02:43 AM // 02:43

saccing in FvF will give points to the opposing side, making minion factory builds undesirable, as well as Nova, EoE bomb, etc.

i like this idea. ^^

Esprit · Apr 01, 2006, 04:24 AM // 04:24

Basically it's reputation.

Would we see trends for groups of '10 Honor only'? To answer my own question, probably, but Alliance battles are so numerous and there are so many people, rank doesn't really matter. And most people would have 10 Honor anyways.

Sac necros don't really need to kill themselves, and it's only for gimmick builds such as the pre-start Minion Factory.

I played the Alliance battles most of the weekend and did not see any Luxxon sac'ers on the Kurzick side, as it's a waste of time and boring. I would take 'suiciding' off of the criteria for getting Infamy.

Ken Dei · Apr 01, 2006, 04:45 AM // 04:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esprit

Basically it's reputation.

Would we see trends for groups of '10 Honor only'? To answer my own question, probably, but Alliance battles are so numerous and there are so many people, rank doesn't really matter. And most people would have 10 Honor anyways.

Sac necros don't really need to kill themselves, and it's only for gimmick builds such as the pre-start Minion Factory.

I played the Alliance battles most of the weekend and did not see any Luxxon sac'ers on the Kurzick side, as it's a waste of time and boring. I would take 'suiciding' off of the criteria for getting Infamy.

You saw no Luxon Saccers? I knew Luxon players had integrity in battle....I'm so proud to be Luxon now.

Side note:

In my definition: Saccers = Suiciders, not necros that use sacrifice spells.

Winterclaw · Apr 01, 2006, 05:06 AM // 05:06

I say keep honor and infamy on the same scale. If you can get to 100 infamy, you can get to 100 honor. BTW, it should also be in effect for all PvP matches if such a thing is done.

Mercury Angel · Apr 01, 2006, 05:06 AM // 05:06

I've seen necromancers cast Blood Renewal low on health, just to be smacked right before it finishes casting, so that they sac themselves to death on accident. It happens sometimes, unfortunately, and if you use many sacrafice skills, it's probably going to happen occasionally. Particularly a heavy sac build (Dark Aura).

If a sacraficial punishment were to be implemented, I'd have to say-
* No penalty if the player has taken damage from an opponent
* No penalty if the player has dealt damage to an opponent

Really, skillbar-wise, there's no way to stop griefing. In the end, anyone can grab an e/mo, take Iron Mist, Heal Area, and Kirei's Healing Circle, and make their enemies (secret allies) difficult to kill, or a necromancer and summon a bunch of minions from corpses only to turn them on their allies again and again, or a Ranger and bring nothing but nature rituals, and set up the ones that would hurt your team most. Mesmer with Illusion of Pain at max illusion and Shatter Delusions at 0 domination (~170 healing or so). Whatever devious sabotage they can think of.
But I suppose that it might be better to try to halt griefing as best as possible rather than giving up because you can't succeed at everything at once.

LaserLight · Apr 01, 2006, 11:06 PM // 23:06

Well, as far as suicide-spying goes, the game will work on a percentage basis. If, say, 85% of the damage that killed you was self-inflicted, you get the Infamy. If you've got no armor, Infamy for deaths until ye get dressed. And if people are so beyond stupid as to accrue suicide points through sheer idiocy...well then, I feel that players need warning of this too. That and such people would probably end up quickly educated as to what they're doing wrong and snap out of it.

As far as AFK< if you've been inactive (not moving, attacking, skillcasting, or awaiting resurrection) for 50% of the total match time, Infamy of 5 points.

As for 10 Honor/100 Infamy and dual numbers, two things. First off, Honor should be kept low-ish so that new people can easily earn the maximum Honor score that will be required for most groups, while making Infamy a pain to crawl back from makes people want to avoid accruing it. Also, only one number is displayed - either your Honor score if it's above zero, or your Infamy score.

Also, I agree with Phoenix Avenger, something I hadn't thought of. Groups can only enter a 12v12 match if their total Honor is greater than zero. This stops people from forming spy groups and blowing the system off entirely.

No one system can stop people from being stupid, or keep the truly determined from circumventing things, but I figure this is a better and more forgiving system than most.

bilateralrope · Apr 01, 2006, 11:41 PM // 23:41

Currently the main problem with the alliance battles is that you have random groups and you could only pick 4 of the 12 people (or for the missions, you just get yourself). The honor system will be no good if it just gives you a random person to team with.

Also, EoE bombing is a valid strat so punishing people for killing themselves would be a bad idea. Punishing them for not wearing armor though would be a good idea

Desbreko · Apr 02, 2006, 04:04 AM // 04:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaserLight

Also, I agree with Phoenix Avenger, something I hadn't thought of. Groups can only enter a 12v12 match if their total Honor is greater than zero. This stops people from forming spy groups and blowing the system off entirely.

Wouldn't that completely shut out anyone with an infamy level of 31 or higher from playing alliance battles? If 10 honor is the max that means you could have, at most, 30 honor in a group to offset the fourth player's infamy. But 30 - 31 = -1, so they wouldn't be able to enter.

To make a system like that fair the max honor level would have to match the max infamy level. Or at least make the max honor/infamy levels close enough that people can't get shut out of matches entirely.

Other than that concern, I wouldn't mind seeing something like this implemented. Though I think infamy should only be gotten from leaving and going AFK, since it would be hard for the game to tell suiciding from normal deaths.

LaserLight · Apr 02, 2006, 06:59 AM // 06:59

Yeah, there is that...hadn't thought of that. Meh, ramifications are harder to figure out than I thought.

From what I hear, the big problem isn't leaving, but spying and AFK sabotage/leeching. Leaving sucks, but there can be honest reasons for it even beyond Err7. AFK and spying need to be controlled somehow, period. Otherwise it could ruin an otherwise nearly flawless format. I'm open to any and all suggestions, guys.

Guardian of the Light · Apr 02, 2006, 07:08 AM // 07:08

I like this idea. However I do say Infamy caps at 10 and that we incude the must be score minuim of 0 to enter alliance battles.

Sunai · Apr 02, 2006, 07:34 AM // 07:34

I agree with the group Honor level needing to be 0 or greater (NOT above 0 only, else how will you ever start), and the infamy cap being 10 also (in order to be able to balance the group). However, I agree that's a little easy to work off, so maybe when you hover over the infamy it says "You have fought 4 out of the 5 alliance battles needed to reduce your infamy to 8." or something. But I do like the idea, I just don't like a lot of things cluttering the character stats window.. fame, honor, infamy, rank, etc..

Praetor · Apr 02, 2006, 07:54 AM // 07:54

What if the saboteur enters the battle, but does nothing in the battle? Like an afk, not helping the side they're standing in.

bilateralrope · Apr 02, 2006, 08:11 AM // 08:11

As I see it the problems with the alliance battles are:

- People leaving during the battle (griefers, quitters and a few err7's)
- People joining the battle just to make that side lose while staying in the match (griefers)
- getting noob teamates

These are the same problems as in random arena, but are greatly reduced in team arena unless you decide to take a random person to fill a slot. So I suggest that the alliance battles be changed so that you can chose your entire team beforehand, or just enter with who you have and take a random person. Maybe separate the completly random groups from facing the formed teams, but after the match spit the random teams back out as a formed group so they can chose to go in as a group or split up and put it to chance.

I'm not sure how to deal with people rejecting lower ranked people, other than preventing the use of rank emotes in there. But I plan to going in with guild groups if thats the setup used, and they wouldn't care about my rank as they know my actualy skill already.