Curse

Lord Natural · Aug 13, 2007, 10:27 PM // 22:27

Not really a fan of any of these ideas, but I'd lean towards #3 if a change is required.

This all seems like a lot of work just to compensate for an ignored area (TA). If the goal here is promoting team play, why not just make TA vastly superior? Triple the points in TA and introduce actual rewards, other than the usual locked balth cap which pretty much every pvper must have by now. Granted, introducing bonus points for extended streaks does make TA a more obvious choice for those interested in that particular title, but it's still an empty change in comparison to HA, GVG, and even woeful HvH's. At least in those forms you have a shot at in-game items, AT prizes, (lol) recognition, etc. At the end of the day, HA has HoH and emotes, HvH/GvG have ladders and AT's, AB's have useable faction, and TA/RA still have nothing.

Relambrien · Aug 13, 2007, 10:29 PM // 22:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

No offense taken, that's why we are asking.

I do have one question for the people saying "no one cares about RA." I may be mistaken, but through casual observation there seems to be a whole lot more players in RA than TA most of the time. Am I mistaken? I am not making a statement about which is more important, or which is "better" or anything like that...I am just saying there is quite a large number of players who enjoy RA, and play it daily. I just think dismissing RA players by saying "no one cares about RA" when there are, in fact, more players in RA than TA is an odd statement. Could you clarify what you mean please?

The majority of RA players are those who are coming from PvE or who for whatever reason cannot play in other forms of PvP. As such, players in RA just aren't really what most would call "PvPers." A more correct statement would be "No PvPer cares about RA," simply because the level of actual competition there is extremely low.

Example: I play Warrior for my guild, but whenever I'm bored to death I'll go into RA as a Burning Arrow Ranger. More than once I've been able to beat teams of four with just myself and someone else, often with that someone else being mainly just another target for the enemy so it's not all focused on me. That level of competition is a joke. That's why anyone considered a "PvPer" by the community just doesn't care about it.

If you want to appease the "PvP" community, then taking Gladiator points out of RA would be a good solution. However, it would also vastly decrease the incentive to play in RA for more experienced players. The only reason you see experienced players there now is because of Gladiator points, and even a lot of "almost-PvPers" (those who just do RA or have little PvP experience) are there just to attempt to get them. Take Gladiator points away and RA becomes a place just to get small amounts of faction in disorganized teams of unexperienced players. Of course, whether this is a good or bad thing is for the community and Anet to decide.

EDIT for further explanation:

To elaborate, the reason RA is so much more popular than TA is because of the ratio of PvErs to PvPers. Most PvErs and RA players aren't willing to try and gather a group up for TA, make sure everyone's builds complement each other's, modify their own builds as necessary, then go in and lose a match when they could be having just as much fun by doing some PvE with Heroes or something. The majority of TA players are probably bored PvPers or "semi-PvPers," people who don't really want to go through the whole HA or GvG process but who still enjoy competitive PvP. Of course, you have your die-hard TAers too, but there aren't that many of them. My point is that because PvPers are such a minority, and the majority of TA players are at least "semi-PvPers," you're going to see a lot less people in TA than RA.

Giving special consideration to RA simply because TA is less popular is like giving special consideration to PvE simply because PvP is less popular. RA is the more popular one, yes, but TA is the more "advanced" and competitive one.

Aera · Aug 13, 2007, 10:47 PM // 22:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

The intention of this change is not to make the Gladiator Title easier to achieve

That's REALLY ironic. The systems that have been proposed do make achieving the title easier; the title becomes grindable, as mentioned by others.

And making titles grindable will totally devalue the title as well, thus make people lose interest. Surely, I play Team Arenas hardcore for fun, but having the feeling you've actually achieved something that not many people can, keeps me playing even more.

Also, IF there is going to be a change like the proposed systems, it obviously won't be retro-active. In other words, the countless hours we've spent in RA and TA playing a few rounds, and especially losing on 9 wins, will not be rewarded.

My proposals on fixing this situation:

- Punish RA leavers:
~ 10 minute timepenalty before rejoining: this won't hurt if you if you actually had to go and a person leaving once every 100 matches won't kill.
~ Faction penalty: a big one, because faction can easily be regained, this should be combined with another penalty.
~ Lose a Gladiatorpoint - this may seem harsh, but considering the reason WHY people leave, this would be perfect. They want to farm RA with a good team, leaving would only do the opposite - thus they won't leave untill they've lost. It might hurt if you actually had to go for a reason, but it must've been more important than that Gladiatorpoint, so it won't be that bad.

- Set a maximum amount of achievable Gladiatorpoints through RA
~ Kind of obvious; people will move to Team Arenas and make it more competive, it will revigorate Team Arenas even though it's not dead. The leavers won't have a reason to leave anymore.

- Remove Gladiatorpoints from RA completely:
~ RA will still be a good place to kill time, gain faction and learn the basics of PvP. The same rules like limiting the amount of Gladiatorpoints that can be achieved through RA count here as well.

I think most of us will agree on the fact that with the systems that have been proposed, the TA players will infuriate, so please don't change the title-system, change the RA-system

Dzan · Aug 13, 2007, 10:51 PM // 22:51

Want to stop leavers? Keep the system the same, but make this one important change...

Once you hit enter battle you can't press m to map out and you cant press G to bring up the guild screen to map out. If you want to leave, you can close guildwars, but that is time consuming enough to be not worth it.

If you can disable armor swapping in PVP you can disable map and guild hall travel in RA.

Orange Milk · Aug 13, 2007, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Option 1 is like saying "hey Kid, you didnt do well this school year, BUT you showed up EVERYDAY, so here ya go, A's all around, GL at Harvard."

Option 2 is like saying "Hey kid you tried you got Alot of B's there, so we are just going to go ahead and make them all A's, GL at Harvard"

Option 3 is like the same as above but now hes got a full ride scholarship.

You wanna fix this, here my idea. Leave the title track as is, EXCEPT for one small change, CAP the number of Glad points you can earn in TA at 25. You want the next lvl of the title? Go to TA. You wonder why RA is full and TA empty, that should help balance that out some.

RA is VERY "new to PvP" and earning a Glad point there is a big deal to people, like that first rank of Hero, yes your still noob, but its something to look at. I mean how many people got their first glad in RA compared to how many got their first in TA?(NO the old bugged other arenas dont count here for that example) ITs a step, it should stay there, UP TO enough to get Glad one. Then anytime you see a person with a higher ranked Gald title you KNOW the earned that in TA. (well sort of from here on out anywayish)

The Glad title gets more respect, TA gets more people, and new PvP types get rewarded for learning, not rewarded for just showing up.

Now I'm exhausted, I need to go get a beer, I say good day.

BlackEagle · Aug 13, 2007, 11:08 PM // 23:08

The suggestion to make you lose faction/glad points is not really going to happen. I can't think of any title where you lose something without an opposite gain, ie. kurz/luxon (except survivor, but that's kinda the whole point - and it's pve) The only thing that might happen in that way is if you can't rejoin for X amount of time. The problem with this is that how'd you stop people wasting time when Joe Wammo decides to run around to 6 hours. If you set it that you can leave after a certain amount of time, it'll be hard to set a good time. If it's too short, people will just wait and leave once it reaches that time. If it's too long, it'll just be frustrating. Should I really have to wait around to watch us lose after we've used all our sigs and the other team is killing off the rest of the team.

Of the options, I think option 1 is best. The other 2 are going to lead to the same scenario as currently but it will just change how strong your team needs to be as it has to win 5 in a row, instead of 10. The problem with the first one is though, firstly it allows a certain amount of grind. The other thing with this option is that it will lead to people staying around to see what the other team is, and then leaving if they don't have a strong chance of beating it. It will just delay the leaving a bit, and mean people can pick up cheap glad points.

To be honest, I don't think any of those solutions are ideal, but the other alternatives in the thread have issues as well.

czart · Aug 13, 2007, 11:09 PM // 23:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

On the topic of why RA has more people:
1. Easier to get Glad points in RA than TA.
2. Practicing builds or testing them while waiting on other guildies/freinds to log on.
3. Easier to get Glad points in RA than TA.
4. People new to PvP are there. (ie trying to get those 5 consec wins despite all the leavers)
5. Syncing with guildies and friends because its easier to get Glads in RA than

You forgot about the main reason. The main advantage RA over TA is that I do not have to make a team, which sometimes takes a lot of time and usually is not worth this time, as you loose very quickly, people leave, and so on (like in every PUG, similar to situation in HA). That's why I'm playing RA more often than TA. (to precede comments like "find a guild" - I'm considering myself as pvp player - I have very good pvp guild, as well as friends in GW, I played many RA battles, as well as many TA battles, many GvG and maybe not so many HA battles)

Back to the topic of proposed changes. I don't like them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

The intention of this change is not to make the Gladiator Title easier to achieve

Maybe intention isn't, but the effect is exactly making title easier to achieve.

Proposal 1 - giving points for each win is degrading gladiator title, giving everyone possibility to grind it in an easy way. 10 wins in a row is a kind of challenge, probably many RA/TA players know how often it occurs for example lost at 9th. Proposal 2/3 - lowering to 5 wins is also from topic "let's make the title easier to obtain".

Acceptable change is increasing points given in TA, as indeed it's harder to win 10 matches in TA than in RA. For example you got 1 point for winning 10 in a row in RA, but 2 for winning 10 in a row in TA. This may move many people farming gladiator points to TA, at the same time not taking reward for a challenge of 10 wins in RA. It also could stop a bit disbanding teams while entering from RA to TA after 10 wins. And this would make TA more attractive.

Certainly RA needs an anti-leaver rules ASAP, but changing gladiator title track is not a way to stop leavers. Longer timer for entering a battle, and maybe some other disadvantages (less points in next battle or something like this) should be considered as an option.

During writing this post I have one more idea as anti-leaver option, I don't know if possible in realisation. If one leave a team, in next battle he is matched in a team with other people who leaved their teams. And those who stayed, when they lost battle, in next are matched with those who stayed too.

Another idea: if you leave a team at start, you must win 1 more game to have your title. So, not 10 consecutive wins, but 11 consecutive wins. You left again, now you need 12 consecutive wins. You fighted with your team untill the end, in next try (with new team) you are back by 1 to normal 10 wins. This make much harder farming gladiator points by leaving.

TA in my opinion needs ladder system, also tournaments are not bad idea. These two should increase attractivity of TA.

Limiting time of the battle is also good idea (for example 20 minutes). RA/TA is a kind of fast fight (that's why res signets and not hard res are preferred). If none team can win in a few minutes minutes that's changing in situation, who have more patience, will win. Maybe there should be something like VoD in GvG, after 20 minutes health bar is lowered and dmg done by players increased.

And I support a big group of people who have nothing to do with factions. Please make some use for them when someone has got full unlock.

Enas · Aug 13, 2007, 11:12 PM // 23:12

I actually like option 1. It would remove the importance of consecutive wins most efficiently thus greatly reducing the incentive to leave teams. And i think the majority of players will enjoy the slightly easier reachability of a higher gladiator rank... plus all the veterans effectively get a 50% bonus to their existing rank which should leave their achievement great enough :-)

RobotMULE · Aug 13, 2007, 11:16 PM // 23:16

Please dont implement proposal 1.

This would almost certainly cause a problem with afk bots. Right now there are not so many bots in ra because all they have to gain is a small amount of faction and XP, they cant expect their team to carry them through 10 wins and get a gladiator point. Proposal 1 would tempt more people to use a bot to enter battle afk and hope their 3 teammates get a single win before leaving. Like in Fort Aspenwood you will have to be lucky not to have a bot on your team. You should not be able to (even slowly) get a title by entering a pvp battle and being afk.

As far as all the suggestions that RA should not give gladiator points - I think that is a very bad idea. RA is one of the most popular parts of guild wars, as anyone can do some pvp without the hassle of forming a group, any time of the day or night, with any build they choose to use, with little waiting. Besides, its easier to get multiple gladiator points in TA than RA. You're lucky to have your whole group stay after 10 wins from RA, where as in a good TA group you can get multiple points in one run.

Overall I like the 2nd and 3rd proposals. Although some people would still leave if they dont have a monk on their team, more people would be willing to at least hope for 5 wins before losing. At the same time, it wouldnt reduce the title to something that any terrible player or bot can get easily by just getting 1 win every two rounds and grinding at it. Also, the 3rd proposal might satisfy those who think that TA should give better rewards than RA. In RA you could get a maximum of 3 gladiator points for 10 wins (1 at 5, 2 at 10). In TA, a group that gets 20 wins would earn 10 Gladiator points (1+2+3+4), which is more than triple the reward for just twice the number of wins. However I do agree that there should be a maximum of maybe 3-5 gladiator points per 5 wins, otherwise a decent (but not incredible) TA group could get an insane amount of points just by playing during a slow time when all they have to fight are teams coming from RA. So I basically see proposal 2 and 3 the same, except that the 3rd rewards TA a bit more over RA.

However none of these proposals will stop people from leaving when they fail to sync up with a friend. I'm not sure how to address this, other than somehow making it harder to sync. Maybe if the timer was 1 minute rather than 30 seconds then syncing would be less reliable and people wouldnt have the patience to do it.. But if they dont, that means they'll be leaving more games in the process of trying.

Thanks for taking the time to read my input!

Also I very much agree with the people requesting more things to do with Balthazar faction.

Please give people with everything unlocked something else to do with Balthazar faction other than buying tournament tokens. Or, better yet add a collector that you can trade tournament tokens to for different PVP weapons, PVP armor, PVP dyes, sigils, alcohol, sweets, etc.

Captain Gerome · Aug 13, 2007, 11:16 PM // 23:16

I support option 2.

Perhaps there should be a time limit on matchs aswell, to stop people Running for half an hour. Maybe a 15min time limit on matches? I also support penalties against leavers and leechers.

RobotMULE · Aug 13, 2007, 11:23 PM // 23:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Gerome

I support option 2.

Perhaps there should be a time limit on matchs aswell, to stop people Running for half an hour. Maybe a 15min time limit on matches? I also support penalties against leavers and leechers.

Yes, I agree a time limit would be good.. maybe after 10-15 minutes everyone randomly loses life, or starts to degen from some global effect, or even just make it a draw and both teams either get a win or lose.

Actually it would be funny if after every 5 minutes, one player from each team that is alive gets a random bad effect like those in DoA, The Deep etc (like 50% less healing, take dmg while moving, etc)

BlackSephir · Aug 13, 2007, 11:26 PM // 23:26

Well hallo thar.
4) Other- leave glad rank as it is, punish those pathetic leavers in any way possible (yes, even kill their family members) BUT- improve TA so it'll be more fun and rewarding...
2 glad points instead of 1 for 10 wins in TA? Tournaments and unlocking pve skins for pvp characters? Woot?

Xapti · Aug 13, 2007, 11:49 PM // 23:49

It's not on much of a related note, I've mentioned this before, but it seemed to go unnoticed:
Why don't leavers count as a kill in all arenas? it only makes damn sense that people should get faction (and points in certain cases) when enemy players leave.

minor · Aug 13, 2007, 11:52 PM // 23:52

I would say 3 is the lesser evil, since as mentioned it will reward TA more

Andrew Patrick · Aug 14, 2007, 12:04 AM // 00:04

I believe there would be some sort of time limit feature added to ensure no one would be stuck on a team with a ranger running in circles for 2 hours.

I can appreciate that there is a bit of an RA vs TA debate, but right now what we are trying to find is a system that works well with both. If you have any suggestions on how to achieve that, please share them. And by all means, if you do not like any of these suggestions tell us that, but if you could also offer alternatives, that would be great.

Aera · Aug 14, 2007, 12:56 AM // 00:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

I can appreciate that there is a bit of an RA vs TA debate, but right now what we are trying to find is a system that works well with both.

You won't find a system that works well on both, because they're not the same!
The problem lies within RA, not TA. Therefore, the TA players will be screwed over because some people like to leave every RA match.

As said before: any of the given systems will devalue the entire title, giving me over 10k gladpoints wont make me happy because anyone can get the same amount, as long as they play a lot, no skill needed.

I think it's unfair to smack the TA players in the face because people in another arena decided to annoy people. It's like changing GvG while people in HA are abusing something!

It's obvious that there aren't any hardcore TA players in ArenaNet's office, because changing the title would've been scrapped from the idea-list right away.

Change RA, not the title.

Oink The Pig · Aug 14, 2007, 01:48 AM // 01:48

Reasons not to punish leavers, as annoying as they are:
1) Leeches - Who wants to do other people's work for them?
2) Griefers - Who wants to sit around while someone sits around taunting you with an invinci-build when no one on your team brought the appropriate counter?
3) Players who don't load into the match until everyone else is dead (or don't load at all) - 3v4 and 2v4 are a big waste of time for a random team.
4) Guild requests immediate presence for GvG - Considering how tough it is for some guilds to get GvG going, you can't penalize someone for leaving to go join his/her guild in Guild Wars in PvP.
5) RL emergencies/Acts of nature - Things happen: medical emergencies, power outages, etc. can all cause someone to have to leave.

So unless the punishment system can account for each of the above and handle them fairly, punishing leavers will simply result in killing RA. It is for reasons #1 and #2 that I also vote against Proposal #1 regarding Gladiator Points, even though it would have some merit otherwise.

Orange Milk · Aug 14, 2007, 02:00 AM // 02:00

Quote:

I can appreciate that there is a bit of an RA vs TA debate, but right now what we are trying to find is a system that works well with both. If you have any suggestions on how to achieve that, please share them. And by all means, if you do not like any of these suggestions tell us that, but if you could also offer alternatives, that would be great.

Please see Post #25

Quote:

And i think the majority of players will enjoy the slightly easier reachability of a higher gladiator rank... plus all the v

No Enas, this is not a lightbringer farm. get better, dont make the system easier

Isileth · Aug 14, 2007, 05:14 AM // 05:14

I dont think any of the given options would "fix" the problem. It is good however to see you have taken an interest in this, because as you pointed out RA has a lot of players. While it may not be the highest level of pvp around it is popular and as such is still a big part of pvp.

Allowing people to get a point per win isnt going to help anything, infact it would make it a lot worse, while leavers would be reduced, leeching would increase drastically. More than that however and the key point for me here is it would remove any skill from gaining the Glad title. Winning one game isnt worthy of reward having to face the current 10 teams ensures you will face several other good teams running varied builds. This means only a team with enough skill to overcome different enemies, builds and tactics is rewarded.

As for proposals 2 and 3 these also lower the skill required to obtain the title. To a much lesser extent of course but its still there 5 wins can easily be obtained when compared to the current 10.

What I think its important for Anet to realise is that RA and TA are very different in nature and sharing a title between them makes it very difficult for any changes to be made to one without effecting the other in a bad way. RA allows for quick games (No forming teams, working out builds etc) where a new or lesser experienced player can go and learn the game. TA on the otherhand is all about the team rather than an individual player. New players have a much harder time here as it requires knowledge of not only your build but also your team mates and how they work together. Games take a lot longer to setup and competition is much tougher.

Of all the suggestions by players so far I find limiting glad point title gain in RA to be the best. This way a new player can learn how to play without having much more experienced players or players simply looking for the perfect team to ruin the learning experience for them. So once a player has reached R1 for example they would then need to move onto TA and its higher level of competition rather than "farm" RA as a lot of players currently do. This will also promote TA for those looking for glad points as well as a higher standard of competition.

Another option that also works is simply removing the title from RA (possibly replacing it with a new title that uses one of the systems you proposed earlier). This leaves RA purely as a place for more casual pvp and practice. Again this would also promote TA as a higher standard of pvp.

Now while this might be slightly off topic it is in regard to punishment for leaving so I feel it maintains some relevance due to its appearance in the negatives of some of the proposed changed.

Punishment for leaving should only be put in place when you can ensure someone is leaving for a punishable reason. To often you face a runner, a team of pure deffense, someone on your team leaves and so on. In these cases is it wrong for someone to want to leave?
Even if you introduced a time limit (which I most welcome by the way) should someone be forced to hang around 10-15 minutes (or however long the limit is) because someone is running or the game is in a stalemate?

phoenixtech · Aug 14, 2007, 05:30 AM // 05:30

Does it count as "Leaving" if I leave after we win and waiting for the countdown to the next match? Because I'll stick it out with a team with no real chance to win streaks just for one game but sometimes I just want to move on.