Countering Leechers

There have been quite a number of leechers in Aspenwood and other competitive missions. leechers being players who join and don't do anything at all.

There are actually a number of methods that Arena Net can use to make leeching less of a problem.

Examples:

1) Add a feature to prevent the game from automatically (and randomly) assigning you to a team with someone in your Ignore list. Or more preferably add a new list for each player specifically for that purpose - e.g. a personal Lamer/Enemy list (each player would have their own list of people they don't want to team with).

Optional: after being added, lamers stay in the Lamer list for 30 days and then automatically get removed. Players can reset the 30 day count by re-adding the lamer at any point in time. I'm guessing that 30 days is a fair time.

The following are optional:

2) Perhaps players who end up on lots of other player's ignore/lamer lists should get titles.

Examples: Lamer of Cantha, Somewhat Ignored, Mostly Ignored, Very Ignored, Mostly Ignored, or Outcast of Aspenwood (could depend on the location you were added to someone's list).

High rankers could end up being put on a lower priority for joining battles.

3) Detect players who don't contribute to the battle at all - e.g. don't use any skills on enemies or allies. And then give them titles if they persist - Idler, Thumb Twiddler, Deserter etc. This is probably not so useful, could serve as a warning, but some people might just choose to do so for the title. 1) and 2) would still have to be implemented.

If players use bots that actually use skills then a sufficiently advanced bot might be better than some non-leeching players.

Clarification: I'm not suggesting that ALL suggested methods be implemented. The only one that I think is sufficient and necessary is 1).

Well, it would be pretty cool to know who not to let join your group, but with the title system you will end up hearing this alot "Ignore himcuz hes a noob and doesnt play right ignore him ignore him!" There would be alot of misuse here.

Someone makes a PUG. Just so happens theres a new guy in the group and he doesnt do so well it being his first time in a mission or what not. Everyone puts him on their "lamers" list and then he gets a title that keeps him from being able to find any more groups...

/notsigned

thats why i quit alliance battles ...
/not signet the tittle thing sucks

Making it a title wouldn't do anything. It'd only show us- "Hey! That guy is a prick!" But that does nothing once we're already in a fight in Aspenwood or where ever. You could potentially have a script that boots the player or rewards him no faction for the battle, but that might be hard to implement.

I wish there was something that could be done right now for this but the suggestions above wouldn't do it.

/notsigned

I think you guys don't get it. I suggested 3 items for discussion.

I never said all of them should be implemented.

How about implementing just 1)?

Let me rephrase it:
"Add a feature to prevent you from being randomly assigned to a team with someone in your Ignore list. Or more preferably add a new list specifically for that purpose - e.g. Lamer/Enemy list."

Random teams = Aspenwood, Random Arena.

Why wouldn't that work?

pretty easy solution - if you enter a battle and do not move before the timer hits 0:00 = NO FACTION

you have anywhere from 30 secs to a minute to at least move.

That's easy to get around, I imagine.

Bot Commands:
0 seconds: enter battle
1 seconds: move left
2 seconds: move right
3 seconds: move up
4 seconds: move down
5 seconds: move left
6 seconds: move right
7 seconds: move up
8 seconds: move down
9 seconds: use a random skill.
10 second: Repeat 1-10.

I just wish leechers would at least cast mending, Watchful Spirit, Holy Veil or something on Gunther & Gatekeepers, before they went afk.

Or at least programmed their bot/macro to do that too.

edit:
And I ~would~ like a 'do not group with' ignore-list option. Giving them titles isn't the way to go, acting as a badge of dishonor for the Goredengine's to wear with gross pride.

Yes, there would be situations where newbies would get 'do not group with' tags, but I can't see it being that badly abused.

Editted Edit:
And the best solution is to simply have Anet act on those reports of leechers, suspending players or even penalizing them & their alliance. (One tag, [KoA], keeps cropping up in Fort Aspenwood leechers, which makes me wonder.)

With titles like "thumb twiddler" and others like it, I'm sure some people would actually try to get them for a max lvl on their People Know Me, I dunno. Then again if they got that title, they wouldnt have to show it so that wouldnt work..
/notsigned just yet.

Just remove the reward for losers (biggest blunder ever, who came up with that), or even add a punishment for the losers.

I.E lose 300 Faction if you lose the battle. That way, leeching wouldn't be viable and you'd have to actually PARTICIPATE to get something out of it. Of course, a reward increment for winners might be a good idea so the place doesn't dry out, but you get the jist of it.

/not signed. i agree with the no faction for none movers thats a good idea

Eh, I've seen people run around in circles, ping the map, cast the occasional heal area or other random spell that does more or less nothing to help. Frankly, I'd just like to see the PvE rewards from a PvP event go away completely. It was a horrible idea that has led to problems like this. If not completely, at least no faction for the loosers would be acceptable.


As for the titles and lists from the OP: /notsigned I wouldn't trust the players of this game to use this properly. Alot of eliteist jackasses would add a person to the list not because of leeching, but because they used Frenzy or something like that. A beginning player would have even more reason not to get into PvP, and there's too many obstacles for them as is.

or you could just let those noobs who think amber/jade is a good source of income waste their time... I personally pity them

Uh guys... why are you all mostly complaining about the secondary suggestions?

The main suggestion will still work, and that's all I want. The rest are just icing.

Maybe I need to give examples.

Say you add Lamer#1 to _your_ personal Lamer list, that means the game won't automatically put you in a team (or maybe even an alliance battle) with Lamer#1 for battles like Aspenwood, Random Arena etc.

Lamer#2 and his friends add you to their personal Lamer lists. It means you won't ever end up being assigned to teams that have them as members.

If one day you find all the teams have lamers (either on your list, or you are on their lists), and you have problems getting into a battle then maybe you are the real lamer .

Is that clearer now?

Very easy, you dont get any xp arround your spawn

If you take away rewards for losing, people will get frustrated and stop playing. Attendance will recede and eventually it will be 25% or less of the current population.

I like the Lamer List idea. Although I'd have a condition where you could only place them on the list if you actually played with them and they did not move for 10 rounds. Without this condition, a guild or alliance could single out someone and destroy FA for them.