Take out half the random from random arenas?

Although I don't see a need for it, the only change I can see them making I would 'support' would be a simple one. Make it max the classes put on a team to 1. This makes it hard to run a Smite Monk and still end up with a healer Monk on the team though. But that is why I don't see a need for it. If your team sucks, then you try again. Part of ANY team sucking is yourself though. As noted, all classes/secondaries have options for self preservation. Sure, they can't sustain heavy fire, but they can stay alive long enough to kill someone else if their team helps.

Take builds that have self defense and healing if not playing a Monk. The Monk's will thank you, and your team will do better. It is RANDOM, so the only part that won't be random is yours. Make your part work, and let the rest be random. If everyone learned how to take a competent build, it would soon become a fun place to play. Matches would be challenging unless you found a 'perfectly balanced' team, and it would rely on player skill as much as luck of the draw.

Exactly.

Also, when you start controlling how members of each team are chosen, you limit the creativity of the people who are entering. One of the best things I've come to enjoy after all my time in RA is the ability to make new builds and experiment with them.

Stop trying to turn RA into TA, yeah?

There are plenty of possible situations where four monks could win an RA match. When you limit how people enter, you limit the possibilities. I've been on a four-monk team that actually did quite well. It wasn't totally uncommon when smiter's boon was in the meta. Had a WoH, two boon smiters, and a mo/a SoJ spike. We got a lot of wins, and I don't see how you're going to tell me it was by griefing when we were actually making kills.

The main point is that you can't limit how people enter without having to remove "random" from the title.

No thanks!

I like the randomness... non-healer teams are fun.. so are 4xWarr/4xSin etc...

Nothing is wrong with RA.. It's the best part of GW imo.

^ agree

You also have to take into consideration, the less they mess with something, the less chance of them screwing it up.

IMHO, Anet doesn't have a very good track record when they try to 'fix' something.

Well, it seems only few people don't like the complete randomness of team composiotion and would like any form of control over it, my bad.

Don't come to a general conclusion based only on the few posts in this thread.

@ OP:

I've made some similar suggestions in the past concerning these issues, but Anet's never looked into it, nor has anybody brought it up to their attention seemingly because they have yet to take any course of action on the problems in RA.

I think that there should be some measures implemented into RA to make it fun while minimizing annoying 3-4 monk teams that almost ALWAYS choose to stall by running and healing [I see it... all.. the.. time!]

There also needs to be a way to stop bullshit runners/grievers in RA. Too many people become inspired by the negative energies in RA to find ways to shadowstep, block, regenerate and outrun teams for the duration of the matchup, forcing them to choose between wasting time, or mapping out and taking the dishonor hex with them. There's nothing dishonorable in leaving a matchup because you don't want to stay and watch somebody run/stall/grieve for 8+ minutes.

RA's local chat is one step shy of Jerry Springer mixed with total Sadistic and malicious flamers/trolls. Thought I'd also put that out there.

If there were a bit of scripted balance it'd be a good start, the first [and biggest] step towards improving Random Arenas. I'm totally FOR this "balanced" random. It's STILL RANDOM, but with a hint of balance to make fighting each other fair and competitive. It'd help counter all monk teams, and gives players ZERO REASON to grieve. It cuts down on inspired negativity we've seen in RA ever since the Dishonor and /report systems have been fired and forgotten into RA.

Take glad points out of Random arenas.

Every.single.complaint about random arenas originates from the fact that the arena has a title attached to it.
-People that don't like the format, but want that title
-People that don't like the atmosphere, but want the title
-People that want to goof around, but too many serious players that want the title
-People that rage the rest of their team, because their team is holding them back from their title
-People that sync, because they want the title

There is not one complaint about RA that ultimately doesn't come from someone wanting the glad title.

Titles are the reason for replaying the game to bring forth a sense of achievement. Take titles away, and you're essentially taking away the purpose in gaming! No one's going to play just... to play! People want to be able to show record of their gaming and successions. Your idea is totally. utterly. completely. FLAWED.

I don't think you quite grasp the concept of video games.

"Would you like to play this game?"
"No."
"How about if we put a little bar that shows 'progress'"
"Well hot damn! Now you're talking"

Dear Reverend,

It's called competition.

Oh lookey, I has gladiator rank 5! Oh but w8, this guy in front of me has rank 6! Hmmm... nao I will play until get to glad 7! ...oops! I almost forgot.. RA BLOWS BALLS! Maybe if they.. y' know.. made it less shitty? Y' know... if the other three snotty little dirtbags from the ocean of little shits parked in Random Arenas AD#, trolling up the local chatbox [as usual], didn't have the power to [ab]use the /report function with everyone for the slightest little itch while they grieve with runner/tanker builds that stall 'til the very end of the counter/timer anyways. Y' know... maybe if Anet fixed shit instead of just deleting arenas, or replacing an unmanned arena with a terrible joke arena..

Take out titles and it won't matter; like I said titles are everything that is wrong with that arena. The best competitive games don't have shitty titles.

CS
Starcraft
Team Fortress
Call of Duty
Street Fighter
etc

Oh I forgot this is a fantasy game so lets put in grind instead of gameplay

Well, I don't care that much about the title, it is nice to get some kind reward points but the changes I have in mind are to make the arena more competitive and less 'to goof around', that's what I would like to see, because
1. I like the instant action of RA, the format and the casual atmosphere
2. I don't like unfair matches, I want to win or lose depending on my and my teams' skill
Honestly I'm all for removing titles from PvP, this way we have no more discrimination, and the argument that all the best online games don't have such thing is perfectly sound.

just make it like that that you wont get 3 monks in your team, ever. 2 to be the maximum, and this ONLY for monks

If the GW1 devs were to cause the players randomly selected in Random Arenas to be balanced, it'd keep it's random nature and just have the upside of viable matches. What's not to like in that? Would ya'll rather knowingly fight through what you know will be a loss because your team has no monks and the opposing team has 1-4 monks that're glad rank 3+? I've seen a team of 3 monks and 1 ranger mercilessly LOL kill my team because my allies were all set to 100% kill/utility and no self-heals.. and had they some self heals, they'd still only stalemate the match anyways [unless their monks just gave up]..

"Balanced" Random Selection would definitely reduce grievers and ragers, and it'd give a fighting chance to both sides. I bet you anything that /report [ab]usages and runners/tankers would become rare because the "balance" system for RA would offer so much more hope and cause less grieve, anguish and despair.

I [along with so many others] rush in to suicide because: a.) WE HAVE NO MONK TO KEEP US ALIVE! and b.) the best damage-dealers in game [melee] always keep having to break through web after web of blind [bsurge], block [/W's entire tactics line], and anti-melee hexes [curse, domination/illusion hexes, and ele's water/air att. lines] to land a single f'ing hit! That's bullshit in my book! Pressing 1-1-1-1-1-1 with BSurge or casting empathy/Faint/etc.. on recharge is utter garbage.

The instant action of RA is the only real positive that the arena holds. Any attempt to make it more serious is going to end up approaching TA. Even if you did like TA and dislike that it was removed, you cannot avoid the fact that TA was a ghost town.

the unwarranted hostility of the first few replies made me lol xD
the posters seem to think that the current degree of randomness is less arbitrary than that suggested by the OP, and that anyone who might prefer a different degree of randomness than themselves is worthy of harsh ridicule.

having said that, i too am a fanatical worshiper of the current degree of randomness in Random Arenas and hereby condemn the OP to his well-deserved place in Random Hell.
Amen.





DERP

No titles, nothing to compete for, RA becomes TA [dead], no1 cares...

..is that what you guys want?

I for one suicide with: vamp + rushing in + miasma + spikes/account-hop/ and ragequit if my team has no monk/too many monks/too many newbs + grievers + runners + tankers. I'm getting so sick of RA that if nothing gets done about it I'm going to wind up not playing, and the game's playerbase is pretty terrible as it is [lemme tell ya].. holy sh...t these truckers come in with the crappiest builds! I swear, I wish builds could be voted into RA just like them PvP henchie's builds were. It'd force players to not play stupid-ass builds [period].

This. I'll bet you if they made an HA that was almost identical to current HA (same rewards and end chest, same maps, etc) but used RA's random team formation instead, people would swarm to it and have loads of fun. I'd LOVE something like that. It'd be way better than HA as it stands could ever hope to be.

A better suggestion might be like codex.....only one of each prof may be used. (Ex:1 only 1 monk, only 1 war etc.)

omfg /signed =ddd