Curse

Xanthar · Feb 07, 2006, 12:17 PM // 12:17

Inspired by the discussion on a random arena for 8 vs. 8, and acknowledgning that the team matching would be very, very difficult to do, I hatched the following idea:

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Proposal: Random arena with increasing group size

Introduction

We all know and love the immediate gratification of the random arena, and its 4 vs. 4 goodness. However, many have pointed out that there is scant likeness between combat in the arenas (even in the team arena) and the 8 vs. 8 combat, as it is seen in the Hall of Heroes tournament and Guild battles. This suggestion is meant to somehow bridge that gap - the players participating willing, of course - by a modification to the random arena.

Implementation

A new arena for random battles needs to be made (or the old one scrapped, but that would liely be impopular), the rules from the old random arena kept by-and-large, however after five consecutive wins, a team will get another random team member. The now five man strong team will continue battling against other five man teams. After another five consecutives, the team will become a 6-man team, and so on until the team reaches the maximum of 8 players.

If a team of more than four players were to loose, they remain in the arena, but loose the latest added member (in fact, being "demoted" to a level lower of play). This is because the number of teams with many members are likely to be small, and would be unsustainable of the defeated team was kicked out entirely. If a team of four looses, the team it kicked out of the arena as per usual.

Discussion

As an added bonus, one might think that a successful 8-man team could be injected into the Hall of Heroes tournament after a set number of wins. This might be a first introduction to that part of the PvP environment, and will make sure that the team is working well. This might also be seen as a kind of interesting way to pick up a team for the tournament, instead of screaming "Exeprience pro trapper looking f grp. No NOOBS!!11!!one1!!"

The "kick latest player" function might seem harsh, but it is in fact a critical part of the implementation - It allows a team to get a "bad seed" and still survive inside the arena. Kind of an autokick of bad or mistmatched players, allowing the team another shot at glory.

A real question is if there are enough players in the random arenas to support this kind of playstyle? There might be, or there might not be. Only Arena Net can answer that one, but I suspect that, all regions combined, it might just work.

Xanthar · Feb 08, 2006, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Gonna give it a little bump - It wasn't that bad an idea, eh?

007Bistromath · Feb 09, 2006, 08:14 AM // 08:14

Um...

>_>

Yes. Sorry.

IMO, the jump from 4v4 to 8v8 needs to be all-or-nothing. There are some builds/skills which would be confusing to use with weird numbers of teammates. Also, I think it'd be hard to tell when to add another monk. Too early, and you get slow matches. Too late, and the monk that's already there is overtaxed. It's not something you want to leave to dice.

Besides that, I think random 8v8 is pretty bad anyway. It could be fun, yes, and often probably preferable to wasting 15+ minutes on scrabbling together a PUG that just gets pasted in the first match, but if there's not at least a little organization in 8v8, even if only in choosing what builds to incorporate, it's just a godforsaken mess.

PS: On further consideration, your "kick latest" feature mitigates these problems somewhat. I'm not sure what I think of the idea now, though my gut reaction is to say that maybe it would be better to keep 8v8 mostly as it is, and offer the option of slots which are open to random players in case you've got five people waiting around with no ideas or preference regarding who should be the last three.

Mentalmdc · Feb 09, 2006, 08:26 AM // 08:26

I Like It!!

-THE M-

Charqus · Feb 09, 2006, 04:19 PM // 16:19

I like this idea but its been mentioned alot before its i think..

Roupe · Feb 09, 2006, 07:05 PM // 19:05

Another option is that once a party group has cleared the 4vs4 random battle arena, they are transported to the 6vs6 waiting to join random battle arena,

there they can reconfigure skills if they like. If they disband there, individual members will then be randomly added to any groups waiting to enter.
clearing 6v6 is transported to pick up/waiting point for 8vs8
where they can once more reconfigure skills if they like. If they disband there, individual members will then be randomly added to any groups waiting to enter.

and so on, until they reach random hall of heroes area.

Deathqueen · Feb 10, 2006, 12:38 AM // 00:38

It doesn't need to be balanced, that's the fun of RANDOM in the first place, you play with what you get. So, just make a flippin 8x8 random HOH type arena and let us go at with randomness. Less coding, less headaches than all this adding and taking away and jumping to and blah blah blah. I think they are scared to make one because it would become more popular than the regular HOH and GVG. Cause lets face it random 4x4 is the only place you can PVP and play your character the way YOU want to play it without being told to change it to this or change it to that or having to wait long extreme amounts of time to get in a group.

Diablo™ · Feb 10, 2006, 12:56 AM // 00:56

while we're on kuh-razy ideas, how about a random 16 player deathmatch arena? last man standing wins!!1 I bet there'll be nothing but paladins in it...

ok seriously, I don't think its a completely bad idea, it's just that success at that point is no longer based on skills but more on luck at every succession of added team members, by the time there's 8 it'll be chaotic. There will be many failures and loses, but in every battle, there's always a winner. I suppose it can be done.. just alot of chaos..

Shantel Span · Feb 10, 2006, 01:31 AM // 01:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diablo™

while we're on kuh-razy ideas, how about a random 16 player deathmatch arena? last man standing wins!!1 I bet there'll be nothing but paladins in it...

Or people like me laughing at the paladins as I gain energy with my 55 build...

Tuoba Hturt Eht · Feb 10, 2006, 02:17 AM // 02:17

Necromancers with Vampiric Gaze / Touch will laugh at your 55 build then.

Back to topic:
I think it will be too much hassle.
I prefer a random 8 vs 8, point scoring system, like The Crag.
But as a team mate leaves, a new one is instantly transported in.

Orbberius · Feb 10, 2006, 03:23 AM // 03:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shantel Span

Or people like me laughing at the paladins as I gain energy with my 55 build...

Oh god.... Don't tell me you take a 55 monk into PvP........ Because that is just worse than any paladin....

Anyway, this idea has some merit. I don't know if it's really necessary though or whether it would really be any fun, with random people doing random things in a large scale. 4v4 arena works reasonably well for its purpose because individuals can do whatever the hell they want by themselves. Very rarely do you get a random team that works together. Once you get 8 people in there though, it'll be a lot more chaotic.

Xanthar · Feb 11, 2006, 08:48 AM // 08:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by 007Bistromath

PS: On further consideration, your "kick latest" feature mitigates these problems somewhat. I'm not sure what I think of the idea now, though my gut reaction is to say that maybe it would be better to keep 8v8 mostly as it is, and offer the option of slots which are open to random players in case you've got five people waiting around with no ideas or preference regarding who should be the last three.

I must make clear that I do not propose changing the way the current playforms of 8v8 works! Far from it! To help with setup of organized play, I would much more like to see something like this, rather than randomly assigned slots. But that is a little bit offtopic, so I'll leave it at that

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diablo™

ok seriously, I don't think its a completely bad idea, it's just that success at that point is no longer based on skills but more on luck at every succession of added team members, by the time there's 8 it'll be chaotic. There will be many failures and loses, but in every battle, there's always a winner. I suppose it can be done.. just alot of chaos..

Yes, well. It is random after all: Chaos is to be expected! But sure, you are right. In order to get together a good team in this way, it will likely take may tries, but in each step, less and less luck is required (percentually). A good seven man group might be able to absorb a mismatched character and still win. Remember that both teams have been build by the random process, meaning that it's just as likely that the opponents have one or several "bad players"...

There might be some kind of AI tweak required to produce viable teams, though - In order to balance the teams, the likelyhood of being assigned a class that is not already present should be larger than adding duplicates beyond two. This would produce teams whith a probable two monk backline. Of course, at some point, not having enough healing and protection will kick the team down one rung, meaning a new shot at those monks

Anyway, I think it would be a fun playform - And the added bonus of being injected into the Heroes Ascent at the "end" intstead of the Team Arena would also be real fun (though probably mostly, eh, short

)