Curse

lacasner · Sep 27, 2007, 08:53 PM // 20:53

To elaborate in this sense, getting 5 wins is much easier than 10, and can be done relatively easily without the presence of a healer in a team. Thus, it's not really a fair conversion of x6 per point, it should be higher.

However, I am really interested to know what the mindset was to not give RA its own individual title.

Aera Lure · Sep 27, 2007, 08:55 PM // 20:55

Sounds like another thing to think about is what happens if in AB or RA someone leaves or leeches, but you are the only one to report said legitimate report. You'd then get dishonor as well, simply because you did the right thing but your teammates didnt bother to report.

Ec]-[oMaN · Sep 27, 2007, 08:57 PM // 20:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aera

"Also, it validates the title for the hardcore players while maintaining overall accessibility to our most popular PvP mode."

Not true! 5 wins is TOO EASY to get, now everyone will just farm RA.
...just got my Subjugating Gladiator aka Subjugating RA farmer.

Weeeeeeeee no I'm obviously fiercely against the title change because the title isn't broken. The dishonorpoint system should suffice to fix it all.

Most of the hardcore people that played RA/TA were r6+ months ago when you could farm the Zashien for points, title hasn't meant anything in my eyes since then.

Shadowfox1125 · Sep 27, 2007, 08:57 PM // 20:57

So what if someone in AB or CM just moves his/her character back and forth in one place? He's moving, which signifies that he's not afk. People can /report him, but he has a case that he's there.

Or what if people on a team just hate another player on the same team and decide to /report him?

DutchSmurf · Sep 27, 2007, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadis

Dishonor for leaving a PvP Match early? Say you join RA, two people on my team leave, will I get dishonor for leaving as well since there's hardly a chance at victory?

Can't see a reason why you won't get dishonor points, just like the other 2 people who left earlier. Just charge in and don't try too hard, you will be dead soon enough.

And I think the anti-leaving system works. If you leave for whatever normal reason you only get 5 points, so no problem playing if you come back within an hour. The anti-leeching system sounds good for a perfect world. Sadly, this world is far from perfect.
The new gladiator title makes sense to me. Can imagine most people who currently have a high rank don't really like it, but most others will be happy.

Lorekeeper · Sep 27, 2007, 09:10 PM // 21:10

Dishonour point system

oh i think the dishonour points are similiar to the suggestion i made for punishing leavers! =) i called it the unsportsmanlike title!

So basically when you get 10 dishonour points you cannot enter pvp for 10 minutes? And after those 10minutes you need to go 60 minutes without gaining further dishonour points to clear the previous 10 dishonour points from your account.

I think that solved the problem of RA leavers. But the concern i have is the possibility that instead of just leaving and reentering like they did before, Glad point farmers in RA will just deliberately throw the match if they believe that their team is not able to go on to win 5 matches. They might run around without using skills... frenzy spam... not use res sig when a party member dies... etc etc. If they cant leave the match they might aswell just make their team lose as fast as possible so they can legitimately get sent back to the lobby where they can hit enter again. I think if this happens it will be difficult to prove that a player deliberately threw the game. You see all sorts of weird and wonderful behaviour in RA, and if you see a W/Ele using meteor shower while migrained its not quite so easy to accuse that warrior of deliberately throwing the match. Maybe the warrior truly believes that his actions are effective? Maybe someone didnt bring a rez sig, maybe someone didnt realise that frenzy causes you to take double damage. It only takes 1 person out of the 4 to not believe that they can carry through to 5 wins and to try to throw the match. Unfortunately not everyone shares the same opinion on what can win 5 matches in a row and what cant. I would even go so far as to say that it is practically impossible to judge whether ANY combination of 4 players will or will not be able to get 5 wins. Its only when you need to think about winning 10 times in a row when things are more demanding and requirements for an effective team are high.

Im not saying that people WILL throw matches now that they cannot leave RA matches, but i am concerned that they MIGHT.

On the other hand, it now only takes 5 wins to gain a glad point. Now the big question is, is it truly more demanding to win 10 times in a row than it is to win 5 games in a row. Its a tough question. I think it is possible for a team to win 5 games in a row but not 10. Its a matter of opinion and experience.

If i was in a team with no monk, i would quite confidently expect us to not win 10 games in a row. But if i knew the 3 other players in my team were good, i would be quite confident that we would have a chance of pulling off 5 games in a row.

But the problem in RA is... you are never quite so sure about the quality of your teammates. So it really is quite difficult to predict whether a 4 man team with no monk will survive to get 5 wins.

Perhaps the overall attitude that RA players have towards their demands or expectations on the ''ideal'' RA team will relax a little. That would be a great thing, maybe we will see players with much more of an open mind. After all, your team with no monk could very well survive to get those 5 wins. I think it will take a long time for everyone to adjust, but i think it will happen. I think people will become less demanding of their RA teams. So props to Anet for introducing two separate but indirectly linked methods of preventing leavers in RA.

1. By punishing the leavers
2. By removing the conditions that caused the leavers in the first place.

Reporting system for griefers

i am pretty suspicious about this reporting system. What are the requirements for reporting someone? I think in order to prevent abuse of this system you would need to make the following requirement which will help legitimise reports.

1. Players must provide proof that they were part of the match in which the reported player is being accussed of griefing.

Without this proof, i could ask 3 of my friends to send in a report about joe wammo for griefing. Just imagine the repercussions this would have for competitive tournaments if players are being prevented from entering PvP because they were falsely given Dishonour status by people abusing the reporting system.

I truly hope that this sytem is not vulnerable to abuse.

Isileth · Sep 27, 2007, 09:13 PM // 21:13

I can see this being used to report players who are running bad builds or not playing well. While the requirement for multiple people to vote you can often have a group who moan at people all through games for running bad builds.

Also can you leave at the end of the match without getting any points? Since no one is effected that should be fine.
You said you would check on if someone leaves first so no need to ask that again.
What about when you hit teams of full deffense, can we leave after a certain ammount of time without getting punished? You are also more likely to face teams like that, as currently when 3-4 monk/rts get grouped together they will generally leave. Now that they wont want to get points you will face more teams like that.

Andrew Patrick · Sep 27, 2007, 09:20 PM // 21:20

Thanks for bringing up your concerns.

We will definitely be monitoring the anti-griefer system to find any flaws in it. If people are getting marked when they do not deserve to be, or if people are getting past the system, we can go back and make tweaks to improve it.

As for the Gladiator title, I think it is important to see it in practice. The mentality is that the hard-core players will still have more prestige over the casual gladiator players, but the emphasis will be placed on what rank you have, rather than having a rank at all. As the dev update said, we will be monitoring both of these issues and will make additional updates as needed.

Isileth · Sep 27, 2007, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

As for the Gladiator title, I think it is important to see it in practice. The mentality is that the hard-core players will still have more prestige over the casual gladiator players, but the emphasis will be placed on what rank you have, rather than having a rank at all.

The problem here comes from with 10 wins you have to have some level of skill to get there most of the time.
With 5 you can be carried as long as you dont run into another good team. (Which you are less likely to do when you face less teams)

This means that a better player who plays for less time would have the higher title using the 10 win system,

In the new system someone who isnt as good but has more time to play can get the title quicker.

It brings it back to the whole skill>time issue.

moko · Sep 27, 2007, 09:35 PM // 21:35

limiting gladpoints to 50 gained from RA > changing the whole system.

anti leaving & leeching system looks good to me, flaws have been pointed out, i'm sure these can be fixed also.

the title track is currently very fine, changing it to the 5 one wouldn't be so bad (im a TA player myself; i really like this change, it gives TA player an advantage), but simply giving a limit on gladpoints gained on RA is better, and afterall, promoting TA for a more "social" game wouldn't be so bad, would it?

still, this is better than the last piece of trash we were presented.

thanks Andrew! i really appreciate your work here.

Quote:

Most of the hardcore people that played RA/TA were r6+ months ago when you could farm the Zashien for points, title hasn't meant anything in my eyes since then.

this is where TA player base knowledge comes in. I and many others know for the most part who to respect and who not, cause some are known to be zaishen farmers and some only came after that, with some i've been playing all the way up, watching them progress in titles and such.

Andrew Patrick · Sep 27, 2007, 09:41 PM // 21:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Isileth

The problem here comes from with 10 wins you have to have some level of skill to get there most of the time.
With 5 you can be carried as long as you dont run into another good team. (Which you are less likely to do when you face less teams)

This means that a better player who plays for less time would have the higher title using the 10 win system,

In the new system someone who isnt as good but has more time to play can get the title quicker.

It brings it back to the whole skill>time issue.

Well I think that will be counter-acted by the growing reward for additional consec. wins. A team can win 5, then lose, then win 5 again, and get two points. A better team, playing for the same amount of time can win 10 in a row, earning 3 points vs those 2 points. If they are really good, they will continue to win, eventually earning 4 points for every 5 wins. So, while a less skilled team is earing 1, 1, 1, 1, 1.... the pros are earning 1, 2, 3, 4, 4.... spending the same amount of time and eventually earning 4X the number of points per 5 consec wins. Not to mention that the more casual players won't even be hitting that 5 wins point nearly as much as the hardcore players.

Casual players will be earning more points. That is correct, and I would not argue that. But at the same time, better players are earning more points than the casual players for the same amount of time spent. In that regard, skill>time spent is very much still the case.

African War Lord · Sep 27, 2007, 09:41 PM // 21:41

so often when I monk, I'm stuck in a stand-still game that goes nowhere. we should be able to leave after a certain amount of time, and if someone else leaves first, we shouldn't get punished for leaving after them.

Other than that, atleast they care. It's not perfect but it's impossible to please everyone so this is a good start.

I'm not sure about the new glad system. I think 7 wins is a better compromise.

erk · Sep 27, 2007, 09:45 PM // 21:45

I think the points shouldn't be as high as 4 points per win on a long streak, 2 per win would have been enough. Everything looks ok apart from that.

I am two points of the next title level, guess the new formula makes me 12 points off.

Div · Sep 27, 2007, 09:50 PM // 21:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by African War Lord

so often when I monk, I'm stuck in a stand-still game that goes nowhere. we should be able to leave after a certain amount of time, and if someone else leaves first, we shouldn't get punished for leaving after them.

True. If the only reason why your team is alive is because you're single handedly keeping them up and they can't kill a team without monks, then there's a problem. Also, is the dishonor system for stuff like HA and GvG as well? I know I leave HA games midmatch sometimes if I have a GvG coming up, and how does this distinguish between an error-out and a leave?

Lorekeeper · Sep 27, 2007, 09:53 PM // 21:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Isileth

This means that a better player who plays for less time would have the higher title using the 10 win system,

This is not true. And i think it needs to be addressed before more people come here and make the same accusation of the new system.

The changes made to the glad title are twofold.

1. 1 Glad point now awarded for every 5 wins with extra bonus point system.
2. Glad point requirement for each rank increased.

It now takes 100 glad points to gain the first rank of the glad title. That means 100x5win streaks excluding bonus points. In the old system you needed 25x10win streaks. Yes getting a 5win streak is much easier than getting a 10win streak but you need 4 times as many of these 5win streaks to obtain the same rank. Thats how they have balanced the new system out. Look closer at the point requirements for each of the ranks, they get significantly higher the higher up you go. To get from rank 4 gladiator to rank 5 you need an additional 448 glad points. Thats 448x5win streaks excluding bonus points.

Thats quite alot of time spent in RA. 1 match might take 5minutes (speculation, it could even take longer or less, and i am ignoring waiting times before and after each match).
5 matches=25minutes.
100 points=2500minutes.
448 points = 11200minutes (just to go from rank 4-5).

I exclude possible bonus points because we are working on the assumption that it is too easy to get 5 win streaks which means we cannot consider getting anymore than 5wins at a time. If you want to include bonus points the argument about the ease of 5win streaks does not apply anymore since in order to get bonus points you are required to get 10+ consecutive wins.

i think 2500minutes to get rank 1 gladiator is quite alot. 5000minutes for rank 2!!!

thats 40+ hours for the first rank alone. If you play 2 hours a day it will take you 20 days. And another 20 days playing RA 2 hours a day for rank 2.

i hope if i spent 2500minutes in the old system i would have gained rank 1 gladiator too. If not, i probably dont deserve it.

Please stop saying how easy it will be to get glad ranks. Its not. Its easier to get glad points but thats all.

Andrew also made a good point above...

a good player has the edge over the bad player because the good player has the chance of accumulating bonus points for winning strings of 5wins. Your poor to average player will have to be content with being able to farm 1 glad point at a time. Which is great for them. At least they are getting some kind of reward. But the better players will not only have access to the easier 5win glad points as other players but they will also be more able to get the bonus points, which truly add up once you start to hit 3-4 points per 5win streak.

first 5win streak = 1 glad point
second = 2 glad points subtotal = 3
third = 3 glad points subtotal = 6
fourth = 4 glad points subtotal = 10
fifth = 4 glad points subtotal = 14

so a good player can win 14 points with 25 wins in row. Where as a poor to average player with 5 lots of 5win streaks will only have 5 points.

if every match takes 5 minutes, thats almost 2 hours to gain 14 points for the good player and 2 hours to gain only 5 points for the poor to average players.

In order to match the productivity of the good player the poor to average player needs to play around 3 times as long.

if they can play for 6 hours in order to match the productivity of the good player... well all credit to them!

Andrew Patrick · Sep 27, 2007, 09:54 PM // 21:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by African War Lord

so often when I monk, I'm stuck in a stand-still game that goes nowhere. we should be able to leave after a certain amount of time, and if someone else leaves first, we shouldn't get punished for leaving after them.

This has been taken into account, and there will be a time limit added to Arenas to deal with the issue of stalemates or runners. There will be detailed info about that in the Update Notes for the next live build.

Vazze · Sep 27, 2007, 09:59 PM // 21:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

Dishonour point system

.... the concern i have is the possibility that instead of just leaving and reentering like they did before, Glad point farmers in RA will just deliberately throw the match if they believe that their team is not able to go on to win 5 matches. They might run around without using skills... frenzy spam... not use res sig when a party member dies... etc etc. If they cant leave the match they might aswell just make their team lose as fast as possible so they can legitimately get sent back to the lobby where they can hit enter again. I think if this happens it will be difficult to prove that a player deliberately threw the game. You see all sorts of weird and wonderful behaviour in RA, and if you see a W/Ele using meteor shower while migrained its not quite so easy to accuse that warrior of deliberately throwing the match. Maybe the warrior truly believes that his actions are effective? Maybe someone didnt bring a rez sig, maybe someone didnt realise that frenzy causes you to take double damage. It only takes 1 person out of the 4 to not believe that they can carry through to 5 wins and to try to throw the match. Unfortunately not everyone shares the same opinion on what can win 5 matches in a row and what cant. I would even go so far as to say that it is practically impossible to judge whether ANY combination of 4 players will or will not be able to get 5 wins. Its only when you need to think about winning 10 times in a row when things are more demanding and requirements for an effective team are high.

Im not saying that people WILL throw matches now that they cannot leave RA matches, but i am concerned that they MIGHT.

I said it before, and I am still saying it: it WILL happen.

But maybe a bit less than I expected, RA does not offer much for people who are really into glad points. In order to proceed from glad 7 to glad 8 you will need 2000 points, which is
-2000 5wins in RA
OR
- 200 20wins in TA
obviously, in the state of the current TA the latter is going to be much easier for an experienced player, so I expect some of the people (extreme leavers are usually high ranked) will migrate from RA to TA, which may reduce the kind of behavior (pretending to fight, but not doing sht) we were talking about. But it is hard to predict, exp players who choose RA over TA did not choose it because it was easier (TA was always easier for exp players), they play there because of the format. I guess we will see, how it goes.

In the past few weeks I saw a few better suggestions than this, but I saw even more really bad versions. This one is certainly not bad, and if is not bad then it is good enough for me.

Isileth · Sep 27, 2007, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

Yes getting a 5win streak is much easier than getting a 10win streak but you need 4 times as many of these 5win streaks to obtain the same rank.

And thats my point right there.

Someone who isnt that good a player is less likely to get to 5 than a better player, thats fairly obvious.
However if that bad player keeps trying he will eventually land a good team or face a run of bad players.
Now if both players can play the same ammount. The better player will come out on top.
Should the lesser player be able to play for a lot longer than the better player he will have a higher title simply by eventually landing on a good team.

With 10 its less likely for a player to be carried or face bad teams. While it can still happen it is less likely.

bamm bamm bamm · Sep 27, 2007, 10:08 PM // 22:08

Judging from how difficult it can be to get people to /resign, I think people might be reluctant to make the first /report in case no-one else does so too. It might be doomed to the same level of use as the party search window. Although seeing how much leechers are maligned in outposts, that might not be a problem at all. Good to see it making progress.

kvndoom · Sep 27, 2007, 10:10 PM // 22:10

I like this decision better than the previous ones of a month or so ago. It's not perfect, but no system will be. I can't wait till it's implemented, I'll try RA again and stop this mindless PVE farming.