Dishonorable and Lower-End PvP

With the recent updates and promises of PvP-love, will the dishonorable status (Aka the bane of lower-end PvP) get fixed, or better yet removed all together? And what about the other issues with these lower-end PvP formats, will they get looked at in the near future? In the small chance they might, I decided to sum up several issues with these formats from a player's perspective, while at the same time having a decent writing excercise.

Initially, dishonorable got introduced to do 2 things:

-Stop leechers in JQ and FA
-Stop leaving in matches if the team-setup isn't right. (RA without Monk)

So several years later, what did dishonorable actually achieve in practical situation? Overal, not so very much. As a matter of fact, it probably did more bad than good. Please let me elaborate on several aspects of PvP why dishonorable is one of the worst impementations yet in the lower end PvP arenas. (Or PvE arenas, whichever you please) I also realize that the majority of the PvP community understood these things early (as did I), and just accepted them, but a large part of the PvE-community don't understand why Dishonorable got implemented and don't understand the true implications of such a system. Therefore, I'm still going to lay them out one by one so everyone should be able to understand what I'm talking about.


Healing

The inherent flaw with GW is that you need some sort of healing -From now healing both protection and healing prayers fall under "healing"-. Health bars go down, naturally they need to get pushed up. However, in Guild Wars healing is implemented in such a way that profession specific healing (Heal Sig, Life stealing, Ether Feast -altough better than most others-, aura of restoration, ...) are vastly inferior to Monk healing. (Or to a lesser extend rits, but why anyone would wanna run a heal rit over a Monk, when effectiveness is the cause, is beyond me)

As such, one can state that it's almost mandatory to have a healer in your team to be succesfull in both higher and lower end PvP games. In practice, there is offcourse several exceptions (BYOB GvG that still works), but those builds only work because of completely different parameters -split and spike capability- and not because healers aren't mandatory. The same thing goes for Random Arenas where teams without a Monk can still win, but that is not contributed to them not having a Monk, that's contributed to them being alot better (Be it through bars or skill) than the enemy team.

The bottom line is that there's nothing that keeps the team alive like a Monk, and therefore they're mandatory in PvP. The odd case where you can win GvG without a healer, or get 25 consecutives in RA in no way invalidate this statement. It only prooves really good players can beat lesser experienced players regardless of build.


Random Arenas

So then, the first stop from higher-end PvP to PvE is Random Arenas. Anyone with some RA experience will tell you that a healer is necessary. Anyone who doesn't either doesn't have enough experience, is just a casual player or is just someone who likes to go in, brainlessly smash some buttons untill he looses and go in again. Whatever the reason, anyone with the slightest insight in PvP should be able to understand why and how a healer is necessary even in lower-end PvP arenas such as RA.

So what happened in the early days of RA? People simply left their randomly signed up team untill they were matched up with what, in their eyes, looked like a good setup. (Pretty much a 1 Monk team) A practice I didn't approve of either, but looking back a better alternative than forcing people to play a game which leads to no points, only to leave afterwards anyways.

People often argued that it's called Random for a reason, but that statement holds as much value as saying you have a good chance of winning with a 2-7 hand in Poker. The truth is that the chance of winning (Which ultimately still is the goal in PvP) without a Monk is alot lower than winning with one, let alone getting 5 or more consecutives. The only natural reaction to bad hand is to fold it, preferably as early as possible.

So rather than fixing the flaws of the format with alternatives, they chose for a system which punishes people trying to circumvent the natural flaws of the format.


Alliance Battles

The next stop is Alliance Battles, which luckily I can keep really short. There is far lesser abuse in Alliance Battles and the natural flaws of the game get circumvented by the fact there's 24 people on the map, aswell as the fact it's more of a byob playstyle where you can survive by good positioning rather than raw healing power.

The issue with Alliance Battles, aswell as JQ/FA but I'll come to that later is that it often happens a game is already won or lost in the first few minutes of the fight. What happens is one side manages to get a 100 point lead, and from there on, it's downhill 99% of the cases. However, as with JQ/FA, when Anet implemented dishonorable, they indirectly forced everyone to keep on playing, even if the match was already lost. In RA, this usually isn't a big problem because matches last no more than 2 minutes on average, but AB-matches can last up to 10 minutes of which you'll sometimes spend 5 minutes litterealy just moving around to avoid getting reported or auto-reported for standing still.

And you can argue all you want, the bottom line is that playing a game which you know you're going to loose simply is not fun. The sole fact that Anet had to force people to stay in the map (And not just stay, MOVE aswell, actively play) when they lost shows there is a clear need to rework the /resign system.


Jade Quarry/Fort Aspenwood

The format closest to PvE, if not already concidered PvE is JQ and FA. Both can be exciting to play at times, but both get ruined just as much by the dishonorable status for anyone playing the least bit competitive.

The main issue with FA is that there is such a severe map imbalance, you can already tell wether or not you're going to have a shot at winning (as Luxon) if you count the opposing healers. I won't go into this much deeper, as again anyone with reasonable amount of experience would understand the clear issues with this format.
As for JQ, the only real issue I can bring forward here is also true for FA, which is that shrines simply should NOT be insta capped by killing all the people there. This only leads to redicilous gimmick builds (N/A bomber, RoJ Monks, Mesmer nukers, ele nukers) which are completely brainless, completely boring and simply don't belong in any PvP format, regardless of how close to PvE it leans.

On to the more underlying issues with FA and JQ is that you can enter these outposts straight from PvE without any form of education or explanation towards the PvE crowd on how to play it. This results in experienced players being able to tell what kind of meat they're working with the second they load in, and already tell wether or not they're going to loose or win.

There simply needs to be a better explanation than the hard-to-understand cinematic you get upon loading in, which isn't even clear at all. Allow people to observe JQ and FA matches similar to how observer works now, so that people atleast have the option to learn the map, learn the builds from an overview perspective. The truth is that a majority of people playing JQ and FA simply won't improve because they're not seeing the larger picture. A wammo going in will notice that he's killing stuff, capping some shrines, dying alot, but ultimately still win or loose which he will most likely contribute to unrelated actions he made. (Oh nice, I killed a necro, and we won, therefore killing all necros = winning JQ) Allowing people to have an overview while swapping between players (read: observer mode) would make alot of people understand why certain builds aren't effective, and others are. -same for tactics-

And also here, dishonorable is something that ruins both formats alltogether for me. I find myself getting dishonorable for standing afk in the last 30 seconds of a won or lost match (So when it really doesn't matter anymore), I find myself getting dishonorable for reporting other people standing afk as the only one reporting them, I find myself getting dishonorable for leaving after 2 party members have already left, and there's no possible chance we could overcome a 6v8 handicap, pretty much whatever I do after 2-3 hours of JQ/FA I find myself with dishonorable status despite me being one of the few people who tried really hard to carry my team to victory.



Dishonorable

The matter of fact is that dishonorable failed on every possible level it got implemented. The amount of leechers that got reduced only got replaced by people running bots (Often not even compicated scripts, but rather solely scripts to "fake" not being afk), and the amount of good people kept getting pushed back by these redicilous dishonorable statusses that get dished out for the most random actions. Simply mentioning someone was playing bad was enough for him and his guildy to report me, and give me a 15 minute dishonorable.

If I was allowed to make up percentages, I'dd say that 95% of all the dishonorable reports in GW are purely out of spite, anger and rage whereas only 5% would truly be to report leechers.

This system needs to go, and instead the actual issues need to get adressed. The issues that I've explained in this post.



Solutions

Pointing out issues with these formats is easy, creating solutions, however isn't. Especially knowing the extremely limited resources Anet have dedicated to GW1. But that doesn't mean it's impossible to fix, or atleast improve the playability of these formats.


Increase Faction compared to PvE-farms

Anet always claimed they're against grind, yet to achieve ranks in these titles one needs to do a redicilous amount of MQSC's or DTSC's. For years on end, people actually botted both titles, and noone simply cared, because deep down, everyone (including Anet) realized the these titles simply take too long to get.

I'm suggesting to create a large influx towards PvP (Which is good for reasons much more than to reduce grind. Think more people playing RA, GvG and HA) by increasing the rewards of Alliance Battles and JQ/FA so that they're superiour to Speed-Clearing.

Luxon/Kurzick titles should never have been so hard to get in the first place, so I see no reason to atleast double the current rewards for PvP matches. Right now, it's double JQ/FA weekend, and I find that I'm still barely scraping the bottom-end faction I would have been getting if I was Speed-clearing. Luxon/Kurzick titles initially got introduced as PvP titles and I think it's time to take a step in the right direction again. Double, or even triple JQ/FA and AB faction rewards. There's no such thing as making a grind title 'cheap'.


Improve player mentality/capability

Upon entering JQ/FA for the first time, there needs to be a forced cinematic (Forced, yes. After all, JQ/FA is the step between PvE and PvP which makes for a drastic difference) which quickly and clearly explains the goals of these formats. Doing this would take no more than a day's work as all the material is already there.

Allow people to observe matches. If observer mode isn't possible (for resources or mechanical issues), create an articificial game which can be viewed by talking to an NPC standing in the respective outposts.

These self-made observer matches should contain clear tactics and bars so that someone without GW experience should be able to understand what are the goals of the format. Give the different (made-up) players recognizable names, such as Nuker, Shut Down, Healer, so that people can click on one of these "players" and immediatly understand what they're trying to do (Nuke, shutdown or heal) while observing them.


Rework "/resign"

/Resign works in HA and GvG because you got 8 coordinated people with the same goal in mind. In lower-end formats, there's always going to be that one player who is too busy killing useless targets for him to understand everyone else already resigned, forcing everyone else to wait in frustration.

Either lower the benchmark for a /resign to through (50% of the team as opposed to 100%) or rework it in another way. I don't have adequate experience in other games to see how it's done right, but I'm fairly sure there is far better options than the one we have now, which is utterly useless in JQ/FA/AB.


RA Monk Problem

Add either an environmental effect which heals players for certain actions (Killing someone) OR an NPC similar to the Priest with target heals. There will always be an advantage to having a Monk in your team, but the difference between 2 Monks - 3damage dealers vs 1Monk (NPC) 4 damage dealers is alot less severe than 1 Monk - 3 damage dealers vs 4 damage dealers.


RA consecutive problem

As a whole, the gladiatory title needs another rework. Since TA got removed, it's unlikely anyone will ever max it, or even come close for that matter. Points are gained at too slow of a rate, aswell as at an inconsistent rate. Awards a set amount of points for every win (1 points) and every 5th win increases in increments. (So: 1-1-1-1-5-1-1-1-1-10-1-1-1-1-15...) This would give incentive to consecutives wins, while at the same time not making single wins useless.


Leeching problem

Punishing leechers will always be a double bladed sword because there will always be "innocent" leechers who got forced to afk because of real life circumstances. I don't have an ideal solution worked out, but I do believe the current system needs to get rework.

For starters, punishment for long-term leeching need to get severly increased. If someone leeches on a daily basis, for whatever reason, it's a clear sign he simply isn't very competitive to have in your team, and thus he shouldn't be there. Individual cases, however, should get punished as few as possible, because real life in the end still is alot more important than a game.

It's pretty hard to pinpoint the ideal ratio, but it's pretty easy to realize where we're at now is far from that ideal ratio. (Way to much innocent people get reported)

I might add more in the future, and I sincerely hope changes get made to these formats, because I would love to be able to play these formats, even if casual, without having to fear getting dishonorable every time I click "Enter Battle".

Lots of stuff here.

Considering the dishonnor system: I think a lot of your complaints come from this:

and the fact that, basically, you would like to be able to leave if you think the party is not going to make it.

First of all, I know by experience you definitely cannot predict if you're gonna win a game or not at the start (ok, unless you notice there are 4 leechers and 2 bots in your team ). And even during the game, it's often hard to tell. I've seem many times my team getting beaten down during half of the game, and finally win it, for various reasons: leavers on the other side, bugs (like turtles/juggernauts being stuck in JQ), or simply because it took some time before they understand the objective and how to play together.

Without the dishonnour system, how would it be? * Wait 20 minutes to enter JQ * "Oh, there is no MoP in our team!" *leave* *Wait another 20 minutes*

I understand that sometimes teams may be frustrating, but the main reason I play allegiance stuff is because that's fun. I don't play to win. Of course, I'm happy if I do. Of course, if I can choose between 2 missions I like, and one of them if more likely to get me a victory, I'm gonna choose this one. But the bottom line is... Even if I fail, I like the game.

Again, my biggest concern if you get rid of the dishonnour system, is that the number of ragequitters will increase dramatically. That would ruin these missions. However, that could be an option but only on one condition: fill the holes. If someone leaves, then someone who's waiting in the outpost should immediately replace him, even if the game has already started.
If this is implanted, then, yeah, I'd be willing to let the players leave if they want, and that would content both the "I wanna win" players, and the "never resign" players such as me.

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Now, concerning the fact that you also get dishonnour points is no one else reports a leecher, I always report them. Often, no one else do in my team. I never got the dishonnour status for this reason. I got it only twice since I play, and both times that was because of connection or hardware issues that made me leave the game.

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I do agree with you concerning the bots. They don't get reported most of the time, but I really think it's the not the dishonnourable system tat should deal with them, but Anet themselves, and the sanction for using such 3 party tools shouldn't be to have to wait a few minutes before you can join a PvP team, but a ban, plain and simple.

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About the factions now: Anet already drastically increased the amount of factions earned in JQ/FA/AB. And to be honest, I don't find the allegiance titles too hard to obtain. Back in the days, that would have been impossible. The fastest way to get luxon factions for example, was to run the 'supplies' quest outside Hollow (when GW Factions was released).

Nowadays, any player can max it pretty easily, provided he's a dedicated JQ/FA/AB player. That implies the casual PvE player who goes to one of these missions once every two weeks won't probably be able to max them before a very long time. But is that so bad?

Speed-clearing may be faster. I don't know, I never do that. But if it's the case, I would suggest to nerf it instead of increasing the factions rewards in AB/JQ/FA. Indeed, it pisses me off when I see people with the allegiance title maxed, and I know they never played these PvP-like missions, but then again, nerf speed clears.

Random Arena...

Random Arena...

Random Arena!

If you're not prepared to play without monks, with 4 of them, with a hamstorm or any other fancy build, you have nothing to do in there.
If you want your perfect structured team, go play GvG or HA. Why they got rid of TA is beyond me...

They should also allow players to report obvious sync so they get their account banned

However I do agree on lowering the /resign requirement to only 3 people for a 4 player team. 8 minutes of watching 2 monk teams fight is pointless alright, and its often (ok... always) due to 1 player from each team not having a clue.

I do like this suggestion as well, but I'm worried about potential abuses. Not in RA, but in competitive missions.

Take JQ for example. You know if you're a kurzik, you'll have to wait a long time before you can join sometimes, because they outnumber the luxons. Now, if you resign, what happens to the other team? Do they get their 3500 factions for a victory, or do they not?

If the opposite team gets the 3500 factions, then I can definitely see kurziks of large guilds going to the luxon side just to resign so their mates can have an easy victory (sometimes there are 2 kurzik districts, and only 3 or 4 luxons in the outpost, so they could easily do it).

Now, if the opposite team doesn't get factions for their victory, then I can already see team resigning right before they lose just to piss off those who were about to win.

Really? An automated system where the accusers are also the judge and jury has problems?

Who would possibly believe that?

Since you obviously put some thought into writing this because it is very long, I will refrain from saying the post lacks any thought.
But there are many, and I mean MANY, things that either you typed out without noticing or your desire to get a point across hindered your thought process.

True, the dishonor system is flawed, but its far better than not having one. A good number of people who would disagree are those who often leave matches 3 seconds after loading because they don't like the team set-up (in all random pvp formats, not restricted to just 1). OP seems to fall in this category (going by statements made in his post)

And to this:
First, no, a healer in RA is not necessary because its more than easy to win without one if the other team is in the same boat, and usually 50/50 if the other team has one. But to use the term "casual player" as a negative towards those who disagree with YOUR OPINION is just plain offensive. You seem to think casuals are of lower skill than yourself, but as a casual player myself, I can say that there are plenty of good casual PvP'ers. If anything being a causal player can be an advantage because in random PvP formats, most "hardcore" or "skilled" players play very predictably and can be outmatched by going against their stale tactics.

I actually rarely leave an RA match.

As for the last part:

A healer is necessary if winning is your goal. I also specifically said that it's very possible to win without a Monk, however your chance of getting consecutive wins without a Monk are soo low, you're better of leaving and going in again.

I also didn't mean to offend anyone, I don't even know how you could possible interpret it as offensive to call people who don't care "casual".

The statement I made was: Anyone who extensively plays RA is going to tell you a Monk is necessary to get consecutive wins. Obviously you can say: "No it's not", and it's true, but neither are tyres (The rubber part) required for a car to drive. Yet everyone will tell you you need tyres (again the rubber part) to drive whilst a car works without them.

Sticking with the analogy: who are the people who would disagree with this statement? It's the people who don't need to drive very far, aka the casual players. The players who, in between dinner and television time, play just a round of RA for the crack and don't even care about winning. And those are the casual players. And within their mindset, it's very much true you don't need Monk in RA to win, or have fun better said.

I was making the claim that Monks are needed from a competitive point of view (Which PvP after all is).

Dishonourable system works. It prevents massed leaving and griefing, while still giving a window of opportunity to leave them times in a row no matter the circumstances. Before it was implemented I'd see monks arbitrarily 'judge' their team by primary and secondary profession setup, and then either stay or leave, instead of playing at least one thing with them to assess the skill of individual participants as well as their build's worth.

GW1 PvP is hardly ideal, given how the entire PvP is centred around 'killing the enemy monk while keeping your monk alive', i.e. depriving the enemy of means to negate your team's damage output. Like I've said earlier, since it was implemented I've witnessed less ragequitting, less 'idiot' builds (like saccing to death, charging straight into enemy team naked -> dying -> quitting) and less arguments during and after fights, like 'you are trash, I'm leaving'. For all the 'disadvantages' you've listed for low-end PvP format, I'd say that low-end PvP benefited the most from dishonourable feature, and that the advantages of this system outweight it's necessary drawbacks.

The only player I can see as 'disadvantaged' is the arrogant monk itself, which previously hopped from game to game leaving/ruining game for everyone until he finally got into that 'perfect team' of his, to spam consecutives (what was especially relevant back in the day when getting anything out of random arenas boiled down to getting 10 consecutives or getting nothing). That's not to say every RA monk is arrogant, some of them are genuine.

I play RA and for my part can guarantee that any decent Rit or Derv can keep your team alive through 25 consecutives. In similar venue I've met many terrible monks, which probably shouldn't play this profession in the first place. Monk is optimal, but you don't always get one, and you certainly shouldn't quit every single time you don't get one because it's 'optimal'. No, it's not 'optimal' and it's not 'pro', as long as monks are in the minority. You'd need 1/4 of RA players, roughly, to be monks.

I'll also argue another point - playing not just to win. It's just like with sports, a little bit of courtesy and fair play is highly desired, both in victory and defeat. The most enlightening matches for me were without monk, as it is these encounters that reward teamwork the most and punish for slightest error - that is not to say every match can be won, but 'build wars' and 'I haz a monk' are sadly the core 'features' of GW1 PvP balance. Applying the same 'play to win' analogy from competitive segments (GvG, to some extent HA) to CM/AB/RA just doesn't quite cut it.

RA is in huge part a social event and half it's worth is teaming up with random players to fight other random players. While the system (game) allows you to a limited degree to 'sync' or 'quit when there is no monk', thanks to badly designed RA format coupled up with bad game balance & bad title design (glad), and many people will choose to play the game that way, personally I don't advocate this ethic. To me, RA always introduced a unique experience that mATs, HA and GvG never did, and apparently will never do.

Let's not fight the 'random' element of Random Arenas, please. It's just useless.

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Now, a few comments in specific:

The bottom line is that giving your enemy a good fight regardless of the odds is equally important as playing to win. Play to win strategically by picking your guilds, friends, enemies, builds, playing times carefully - but once you are in the game, on a tactical level, show a bit of courtesy and respect both to your own, often 'suboptimal' team, and to your enemy, by actually giving them a fight (instead of leaving or sitting idle).

If that makes you happy, consensual surrender (resign) is not something I'm against - just make sure everyone in your team wants to resign. Flaming them because they don't is immature - simply fight to your best, you'll have your chance in another match. Also what I said earlier, specifically about RA and indirectly about CM/AB - it's social experience. Don't compare it to GvG/HA, just don't.

Pathetic generalisation, but I'll give you benefit of the doubt just to make sure you are genuine, despite numerous desperate attempts to push your point across in the opening post.

The only truth, is that there is no truth. If you are a Ritualist and you happen to prevent the enemy from dealing 2000 across the match as well as heal 2000 damage, you are just as (if not more) useful than a Monk who prevented 1000 damage and healed 3000.

Ritualist has the dubious advantage of compressing offensive & defensive abilities in a decent skillbar, and by pressuring his opponent and/or assisting spikes can greatly reduce or delay the damage flow he'd have to deal with by healing.

Ritualist also has weapon spells, which introduce a completely different mechanic than Monk's enchants, forcing the enemy team to adapt appropriately - this fact alone can prevent more damage that the said Monk is able to heal, depending on enemy team setup, especially true for RA.

I can agree with the notion that 'in general' Monk is preferred, but I'll not agree with the idea that he is irreplaceable and certainly won't agree with 'friendly advice' to leave, if there is no monk in my team. It's entirely abstract -> prevent & deal more damage in total than the opposing team = win.

Divulging into statistics that 'Monk is most useful' doesn't prove your point at all here. RA is not statistics. Farming titles in competitive segment, when Meta is stagnant and balance terrible - pretty much. But that's settling for mediocrity, just because the game itself has irreversible flaws. But again, I'm not telling you how to play.

Justifying removal of Dishonourable feature because a certain format is flawed, is just exactly like that - flawed. FA/JQ were flawed well before dishonourable was even in place, the same can be said about RA and AB. I understand your bottom points about idiot reporting system and 'organised harassment' through mass report, though, and I agree that the system needs to be tweaked. Certainly not removed, though.

I definitely agree with this part - dishonor is certainly imperfect, but at the very least, the 5 points for leaving a match cut significantly into the number of people leaving before matches.

I feel like his assessment of "casual player" in this situation means that he believes that they care less about going to 25 consecutive. Would you disagree with this?

No.

Fix the sync problems in RA. Some guilds sync and skew the RA experience for many other people. FIX IT!, thank you.

With what the OP said about it being "Random" I agree with. I disagree with the sentiment though. It is random and you should stay regardless. That is why the dishonor system is in place. If you don't like the format, don't play. It's pretty simple. When I get frustrated with running into too many 1 monk balanced teams, I take a break. I have had plenty of the opposite, where I get a good team and get a lot of points.

The other problem that isn't even being touched on here is the attitude problems of a HUGE number of the player base. People with attitudes make for a much worse experience than the flawed system imho. Maybe what needs to change is that bans start being handed out to crass, toilet-mouthed ignoramuses in the RA lobby. One of the reasons I don't play much GW anymore is because the player base in LOTRO is vastly a nicer crowd than GW. That type of thing fixes an RA problems really quickly.

Hah. I tend to crush these monks for fun, until 10 or so consecutives the monks you get on enemy team are pretty bad ... then as you climb up, the supposedly 'random' matchmaking feature will try to place you at odds with another team with comparable score of consecutives, rather than a newly-formed team.

The problem with the dishonorable system is that reports never go to staff review.
The frequency of hardcore leechers is reduced, because of dishonorable, but they do not go away. They just wait a little longer before they look away from the other end of their multibox, to enter again.
Bots often do not get the required number of reports to gain dishonorable status. When they do get dishonorable status, that's all they get. No one ever goes through and takes any practical steps against it. All you get is a bot that infrequently has to wait to enter, because of dishonorable. Bots don't mind waiting.

I don't think that there really is a solution as long as there are random teaming formats in a game that has such well defined roles. There may be ways to make marginal improvements but having been built around organized play, catering to casual/pickup play just doesn't work out. The general issue here is what GW2 seems to be focusing on, and whether basing it on more self-sufficient templates can still support higher level play remains to be seen.

No. In lower-end games, like RA, a high-damage team can win just fine, by putting out far more pressure than the enemy Monk can deal with. If there's someone to lock down the enemy Monk, so much the better.

The problem of course is that your average RA team is not geared towards putting on extreme pressure - by its very nature as a low-end PvP arena, it tends to have a fair amount of bad players running mediocre builds.

Guild wars multi-mod. I rage/flame/leech/run all day.

But seriously, it has to go. If it goes away everyone will rage all RA teams without a monk. But this already happens just after the battle is ended anyway, so who cares? As far as leeching, keep dishonorable for report abuses, increase number of reports to trigger dishonorable.

playing a game which you know you're going to loose simply is not fun.
Pardon? The idea is to play the game and enjoy, not to go out hell bent for a 17 consecutive wins streak!
Okie, human nature is going to want to win every time, but the idea of most games out there is not necessarily to win at alll costs. Learn first, win later.

They should also allow players to report obvious sync so they get their account banned
For Syncing
This could be interpreted as manipulation, however, w. the setup at the mo' there's simply no way you can prevent this!

Biggest bugbear afiak are cheats / bots, which seems to be on an upward trend. These guys will always be one step ahead cos of, once again, human naure.

Replace missing players by taking one or some from the queue
Bravo! First decent sentence I saw in there. Implement pls A'Net
Fighting 8 vs. 5 or 2 vs. 4 is always gonna be lop-sided.

How would that work from a programming standpoint, with instanced servers and all.

Replace servers

I get where you are comming from with the AB, and forcing people to play.

But lets face it, somebody has to loose for another team to win. That's just how it is. You have to loose for me to win if it was me vs you, or the other way around. Therefor I don't think this is an issue. If you cannot stand to loose, don't play games because they tend to give you both winning and loosing.

One of the things I hate the most when playing AB, is the fashion between almost all the players. They ALWAYS RESIGN when they can't win, the first 1-5 minutes of the game. This is like a trend, and it makes AB shit, because you wont gain any balthazar faction if NOBODY is there to kill, nor alot of lux/kurz faction.

I'm talking about the players who consider themself high-end pvpers who enjoy to both play AB then GvG/HA the other day.