Time to clean up the arenas.

Well, I sat down this morning to play a couple games of snowball fights before the family woke up for Christmas, and I didn't have fun at all. I can't believe Guild Wars started my Christmas day in a bad mood. Almost every match I played there was 1 person who left within the first minute, which completely ruins the balance and wastes 5+ minutes of everyone's time. Why does getting a win for the stupid Skillz title mean that much to people? Before this nonsense people were AFKing for booze. I would rather they didn't introduce the Skillz title at all, and give no rewards at all to the winner or loser except for Balthazar faction. That way the only people playing would be those that want to have fun.

Then I start reading stories about people farming the Commander title by rolling dice. I guess that's yet another title I'll have no pride in earning and showing off (like Lightbringer) because people cheesed and exploited it.

And of course people are still AFK farming Fort Aspenwood and other Factions arenas.

Even Blizzard was faster to fix AFK farming and leavers in WoW's Battlegrounds faster than Anet... for shame... for shame. The clock is still ticking. How can such huge game-breaking exploits and design flaws not be fixed in a timely manner?

You're getting off wrong premise here.

The pride you have in wearing a title doesn't come from title's worth - but from your own sense of acomplishment.

Neither of these are game-breaking flaws, especially not in snowball arena. If someone on your team leaves, follow them. You'll be in next match. You're not even remotely obliged to fight to the end.

But if you want to show your title for wrong reasons, then you'll always be disapointed. Use LB title for what it is, damage increase. Use gamer title to show that you've spent time in holiday arenas. Use treasure/skill titles for better salvage chances.

But never expect anyone to pat you on the back for any title. It's the wrong game for that. Grind simply doesn't matter in GW, or if it does, it's only to the wrong people.

I would say increase the path one has to take to go to the Dwayna vs Grenth outpost area.

Currently, if a player leaves around 30 seconds before the match ends, he will waste the same amount or even more time getting to any Wintersday Priest in one of the decorated towns, and talking to him, loading the areas you will pass by to finnaly reach the PvP Arena. Add the 10 second delay while traveling to Dwayna vs Grenth, and it will be nice.

There is no flaw in rewarding players for their effort. There's always going to be those that take the reward too seriously. Do you remember the emptyness when there wasn't even Balthazar Faction to be rewarded for doing Random Arenas? I felt I wasn't progressing by playing that, with Faction and a title for doing it, I really feel motivated.

Either increase the time it takes to get in the PvP mission or punish people that leave in the middle of a game (which I think would be unfair).

Almost half the matches I played this morning someone on my team left within the first minute. So you want me to follow them and leave too? How is that not game-breaking? The game is the ~5 minute round, which should be a fair round of 4 vs. 4. Anything that interupts or breaks that is game-breaking.

What you're describing isn't fun. It's adapting because Anet won't fix the game.

It should be easy for anet to find out who leaves the Fight on purpose. So why aren't they creating a punishment system for those that leave??? This question may or may not have been answered in the past, but to me it seems that now that they have reconnects. Iding players who purposely leave a fight should be easy to find now. Don't you think?

A punishment? Because this IS A GAME. And people have every right to leave if they want to. I'm not saying thats a good thing...but common dude. Let people have the freedom of choice.

Well, I recently went to RA to play a little bit for fun, and to accumulate some faction. Ok, my first five matches at LEAST one person on my team left, and not only that but I found out something else. 2 of these 5 matches I had the same player leave, and I will not mention the players name, even though I really want to.

Me: Dude, why did you just leave wtf?
Him: I am teh bestest, i iz not playn wit u nubs. (yes, he did say it like this I am not kidding lol)
Me: Dude, you suck ass you bitch (Ya, I was angry which doesn't justify this reaction but still his reaction infuriated me.)
Him: U iz teh nubbest losr evar, stfu nooob.

He ignored me after that, but apparently he does that all day to piss people off. The community can't be changed, there are people like this, and I don't really care. I just want the system to somehow be changed to even out the teams if one has less players than another. This game has so much balance anyway, I don't know why Anet won't just complete their balancing job all over the game instead of just sections.

Tough luck. I haven't had issues in the Snowball Arena. None. Maybe it was your fault..

Etrik, I haven't had this problem in the snowball arena on such a scale until this morning. Maybe it was the time of day. Maybe it was the day I chose to play. Maybe the only people left playing it at this point are people farming points for the Skillz title, and don't give a damn about having fun. I don't think it was my fault. I'm not the greatest in the snowball arena, but I think I'm above average. I've been on a team with a win streak of 15, which would've continued, but I had to leave. I'll try again before Wintersday is over to see if it really was just bad luck.

The simple reason as to why people exploit and talk trash is because they can. Maybe there's just too much crap to handle from the players for the devs to fix it all.

Ya I would love to see a system in place that punishes people for bailing out on a team, its realy doable now with the reconnect feature in place. If the person leaves they should lose points, faction points, title points something, people should not be encouraged to leave to get a title, it sends out the wrong message, let them punish people with -faction points, and or -titles points. Problem solved, and now with reconnect no excuses.

I still have to default back to a game I read about in Computer Gaming World about a feature a particular game set in Roman-Era Britain uses.

If you are a "leaver" there (the article did not explicitly define what "leaving the game" entails, though the impression was someone who untimely leaves to avoid consequences) when you next log in, you will be shown a screen of your character cruicified for seven days, during which you are temp banned.

A good portion of the review of the game was devoted to this specific feature, saying it is a growing issue within the MMORPG environement. It was shown in the light of being a "good thing" to the community.

Imagine rage-quitting and logging in only to find yourself in a Zaishen jail or what not for X amount of days. Of course gamers could still yank their phone/cable cords out to similuate a disconnect, but it removes the easier methods and adds a bit more work to those who religiously rage-quit.

The thing is that most players have no clue how to succeed in a relic run game type, which makes trying to win rather frustrating. If I join a team that has 3 people doing nothing but throwing snowballs at the other team, rather than helping cap, body block or protect the runner, I will leave because it's not fun waiting out a match you're obviously going to lose.

Sorry if that annoys you, but I'm not going to stick around if I'm not having fun just to appease some sensitive types.

LOL I wouldn't take it that far, but a short 10-15 minute ban from the arenas would seem about right. 99% of people who leave on a regular basis do so to save time and get in better groups cause they can't handle a close match or a loss. Punishing them by wasting their time instead of allowing them to waste everyone else's seems about right.

Isn't the same equally true for your opponents? Why not stick it out? I've been in plenty of matches where we're 2 relics down and we come back to win.

It doesn't annoy me. It's just a waste of time. Even if I'm on the winning side I feel like I've wasted my time if it's 3 vs. 4. If you have no problem disrespecting other players by wasting their time I won't argue with you though.

A larger issue are the people who just simply afk it up in the arenas. I know many people that realize that they are effectivly short handed will leave automatically. Unfortunatly, those people being afk are also running scripts to re-enter, so you see the same name over and over and over again, untill you manage to enter at a different time than the afk person. The only way to accomplish that, is to leave the match before it is finished.

Try spending a 20-30 minutes being forced to leave, in order to avoid being paired up with one of at least 5 different names that you come to recognize over time because they are afk and think to yourself how much fun you are having in that timeframe. Seriosly, the OP is critisizing the wrong people here.

People AFKing booze is one thing, an "exploit" of the game. This is another storey all together. They arn't doing anything "wrong" except making you angry. Don't play if your going to get angered by this. Maybe take into consideration why they leave. Change this aspect of the game so everyone can have more "fun".

Personally my top 4 reasons for leaving a SBA game are: Afkers, Leavers, Slow loading, and ofcorse the ever popular everyone else sucks so im going to ragequit. Unless Anet decided to come up with a patch for those issues i ofcorse reserve the right to hix "X"

Its better to move on and hope to find a group with a sence of priority then a group that just trys to snowball the whole other team to death.

Havent you been to Fort Aspenwood a single time for over half a year? That's one of the most interesting arenas when it comes to design, and on the edge of extinction and playability because of leechers. Many, many players including me have become too frustrated to bother with it. Why does that arena exist? So ANet can say "we introduced some PvP modes in the chapter, let's call it a PvP-focused chapter... who cares if these modes are unplayable, marketing ftw".

I don't understand how I am wasting anyone's time if I quit out on a team with zero chance to win 30 seconds into the match. The clearly dominant team will win a bit more quickly, getting them their points faster and more quickly moving them to a match that might be against a team with some potential. My own teammates lose nothing because they were going to lose anyway. I am saving myself a lot of time by not wasting 4 minutes watching my teammates act retarded.

Maybe I have a misplaced sense of fun, but I do not have any fun losing blowout matches because my teammates are a bunch of baboons. Having to constantly re-enter the arena trying to find a group of people who know how to play Guild Wars, so that I can have fun, is the most frustrating thing about random formats.

If you don't want me quitting out on your groups, suck less.

Peace,
-CxE

maybe you should consider a different arena then? maybe something that isnt RANDOM? or is that concept lost on you?

I also hate it how noobs act like they now everything. They are so ignorant it infuriates me, and any build thats not completely cookie cutter will get you this response:

"Dood WTF u suakc go bakc to PvE fr N00bs, wid ur n00b FoW! Go farm UW stfu, lern2play losr and nevar com bakc!"

It really infuriates me, especially when they are the ones causing the most detriment to the team. God, they act so big and bad but if they weren't hiding behind the big doors of the internet I bet you they wouldn't be so tough. Do you guys ever meet people like this?

The problem here is the mind set. In the above example, Ephekt assumes that the other team is full of highly skilled pvp players while his team is filled with noobs. I would argue that while that certainly is the case in some situations in many situations the teams are fairly even. Take me for example. Like many people who are in the snow fights I am not a pvper but wanted to try this winter pvp thing out. I'm sure that there are many regular pver's like me who are joining in on the fun. The problem is that we really are pvp newbs. For people who pvp frequently you have certain skills that you have developed over time - for example body blocking that us newbs have no clue about. Sure it can be frustrating for you but you chose a random areana - sorry. Its not perfect but it can still be fun. Heck instead of rage quitting or giving up you could step up to a leadership role. give some guidance heck maybe even make a friend or two. Because, and again I may be wrong, but I bet that is the whole point of the holiday festivities, to put aside the your typical hardcore playing rules and just have some fun.

Just my three cents - I may be wrong.

True this is RANDOM but one would expect a level of play that would atlast give you a fighting chance to win, not a complete 5-0 blowout. When this does happen best option is to just leave and re-enter and hope for someone with a better understanding of play

How do you determine if a team has "zero" chance of winning? What if the team has 10% chance of winning? Do you leave or stay?

And how did you "act" when you were new to Guild Wars? How long did it take you to become perfect at relic runs? If people didn't want to play with you cause you sucked what would you have done? Probably quit and moved on to another game. Take a look in the mirror, when you say such BS cause it doesn't make you look good at all.

If you can't handle be paired with newbs to the extent you ruin the game, then don't play in random arenas. You might be having fun by cheating the system, but you're ruining it for people that just want to play an honest random 4 vs. 4 without a bunch of quitters.



Please do not flame in this thread. I want to make a point to Anet that the vast majority of their players aren't happy with the state of the arenas, and the exploits that ruin them. I've given up on arguing with the community about this issue. People that just don't understand, that this ruins the game, will never get it. They are cheaters and exploiters at heart. To them it's just using every advantage available for them to win, and to hell with everyone else and fair play. This problem is very old now, and it's completely Anet's fault it's not fixed yet.

Firstly, let me say that I'm usually someone who loathes rage quiters/ leavers. When I frequent the random arena, I will stick with a team, win or lose. If you are with a horribly bad team in RA, you will be dead in under a minute.

The problem with the Snowball arena, as I see it, is that there is absolutely NO reason to stick with a team that you believe is going to lose. This is compounded by the fact that even if your team stands afk for the full duration of the round, it will last at least three minutes, chances are, if your team are just prolonging the match (killing people randomly, not running presents etc) it can grind on for five or more.

My current thinking, is that I give a team 1-2 minutes, if within that time, they are not at least breaking even, or showing promise, I will leave, and get another. It is simply not fun to stick with a team who have no clue what to do, and just stand there trading snowballs. The inclusion of titles, combined with the fact there there is no gain (in terms of points, or goodies) for losing, means that the majority of these "OMFG NOOB LEAVERS" are the ones who have an idea of how to play.

Personally, I think that gamer points should have been awarded as 1 point per present handed in, and then +5 for a win. That way, you still get the 10 for a win, but you can get up to 4 for a loss, and it would give even "bad" teams, a reason to keep on fighting, and clawing those presents in. As it stands, I see no reason to continue playing with a hopeless team all it does is prolong the suffering, of both sides.

Nah if they gave any reward at all for the losing side you know that AFK farming would be rampant.

Then penalise people who afk farm; these are the people who are making these arenas less fun, either directly (by providing 4v3 or worse situations) and indirectly (by causing ANet to introduce anti afk measures, such as no eggnog, no gamer points). Of course they could have simply given us Team Snowball fights, that would have made everyone happy >_>. All the people who didnt care about the points, and wins, could have gone random, and those of us who wanted to play with competant team mates, and enjoyed the dynamics of what is a great mini-game, could have done so.

The PvP snowball arena in particular is going to have tons of leavers simply because the serious players aren't given the choice of Team Arena format.

Two of my guildmates and I got tired of all the bullshit in random PvP snowball, so we started joinspiking. It took us damn near an hour to get all three of us on the same team, and we probably ruined over a hundred games in the process by leaving. If there was a TA version of PvP snowball, this wouldn't have to happen.

Kalki, your reponses to Ensign are missing the point. The fact is that most serious players find it an irritating waste of time to play with newbies and morons. It isn't a matter of having a 0% chance or a 10% chance of winning, it's a matter of whether the player will stay for a match that is just going to annoy her. Since most people play games to have fun, rather than to run a charity organization or win good samaritan awards, the answer is almost always, "no".

Exactly.

Sorry, but there is no such thing as a TA version of the snowball arena. If you have the desire for that format of a small game, because it is different, then you are forced into being frustrated over many different issues that the RA format presents. This is not the fault of the player that chooses to attempt to cycle through losing games as fast as possible and should not be faulted for it, becuase there is no alternative.

Sorry, there is a distinct difference between having the desire to play a snowball fight style arena and having the inability to choose your own team members, unlike the rest of the normal pvp formats. Hell, you cant even go into most of them with a "enter mission" button and be teamed up randomly with others, except the Random arenas and Ft aspenwood/jade quarry.

So, when exactly are they supposed to give everyone on the random team the ventrillo or team speak IP information, so that they can give detailed instructions of when and how things should be occuring, so that his team can learn? I seriously hope you arent suggesting he is to write up a short essay on what not to do and which classes to bring in the short timer before the match starts. I wont even go into how dumb it would be for him to stop doing something useful and begin to write up another essay on tactics mid battle while the gift placement spawns are occuring, while trying to body block and other things. Your idealism is blinding you from the reality of what is feasable within the confines of the game.
A few things to look for. Are all of your team members loaded by the time the gates open? Do your team members move at all before the gates open? Do your team members prepare a hidden rock before the gates open? Do your team members spread out after the gates open initially? Do your team members merely hit c and press 1 repeatedly? These are some of the things you can check off your list pretty quickly within the match and within the first 30 seconds of the game. If you answer yes to any of these, chances are the match will be a blowout in the opponent's favor.
There is a difference here. The difference is that he could form the parties he was in, so that he could evauluate who was doing what and make changes as neccacary. When you are only 1 person of 4 in a game like GW, there is only so much 1 can do to influence the course of the game in a positive way. 1 Person can not make up the difference, if the other players on his team consist of 1 afk guy, 1 new guy, and 1 griefing (suicide)necro for example.
What part of honest has anything to do with people who deliberatly use the RA format to farm balthazar faction, or kurzik, or luxxon faction? What part of honest play has anything to do with necromancers suiciding themselves over and over causing one side to effectivly play 1 man short? What part of honest play has anything to do with the new guy that fails to read that you must bring the gifts back to the avatar on your team in order to win?

Its one thing to not be an expert body blocker, or being unaware of how to limit the amount of times spent with the "slippery" condition on the ice while picking up a gift, its something else entirely to see people assume that its merely just another kill the opponents random arena.

Seriously, i have had 2-3 people chase me around the arena for 2 minutes or more, just because i was low on health and completely ignored the packages accumulating on the field. This is the level of compotence that many people are commenting on being frustrated with, in addition to other problems associated with the RA format. The only thing that the snowball fights have going for them is the fact that new people cant "mess up" the build by not taking a key skill, like hidden rock, as can be seen in other RA formats where dumb builds and weak skills are used regularly on top of bad play.



You are on the wrong side of the fence if this is true, considering your previous arguments.

That is called being competitive without exploiting bugs.

I totally agree because I play RA so much and it has really become bad lately.

Im going to send out a HUGE bomb, full of revelations and life-changing words.

...

...

Prepared for it?
...

Pro Gamerz, have your enchantments up?

...

There it goes!

===
SNOWBALL ARENA IS NOT MEANT TO BE A SERIOUS PVP ARENA

*gasp*
Its there for FUN. Geez.

It annoys the HECK out of me when self-entitled "prozzz" with super-inflated egos from an online game, feel that they can simply screw over other people because they feel that they are superior and must not spend their time among the lowlives. Hey, newsflash for you, its a RANDOM arena for a reason.

Guess what? Nobody gives two craps how you think that your psychic skills can tell another player skills from five thousand miles way.

So, sit down and play the game it's meant to be played.

Punishing leavers will have consequences for people who leave just after the win has been accomplished as well. There is not a simple fix for this problem without punishing also the innocent. You need to think trough what a "punishment"would do in all occasions.

Tho i like to see something done against it. I mention to other players if there is an afk, and i suggest to leave. I prefer to make no kills for them. And he is gonna stick with you if you win, quite nasty.

I think Homer Simpson is to blame for all this.
He taught the peeps...
"If something's hard to do then it's not worth doing."
/quit

How about when you log in it asks if you are playing because you like playing the game or if you are playing to only win and get things fast. Then it'll stick us all on the appropriate servers.

I wasn't aware the definition of fun included playing with people who not only are incapable of understanding how to play the game, but also refuse to learn. Winning is fun. Wasting thousands of minutes losing due to factors beyond your control is not, especially after the novelty of the arenas wears off (in about 10 minutes).

I hate to break it to you but most people load in about 2-3 seconds.

Mega QFT here...

I feel pretty much the same way as the above. I don't quit if we're down 1-0 or 2-0 and might have a comeback. I'll quit when we're losing 2-0 and my team hasn't even knocked down the enemy presents carrier once.

'Nuff said.

Here's what I don't understand. I win about 60-70% of games I play in the snowball arenas. Not once have I tried to join spike to get in teams with people I know. Not once have I left a team cause they sucked. Last night I played about 35 games, and won 30 and lost 5. Unfortunately about 3/4 of the matches where my team won, the other team had a leaver or afk person. I'm not trying to brag, because I'll be the first person to tell you I suck at PvP. After 1 1/2 years I'm still rank 2 in HA, I don't even have Gladiator rank 1, and my guild hasn't done a GvG in about 8 months.

When people say they'll waste thousands and thousands of minutes losing if they don't leave a bad group, either they are exagerating a lot, or it's time to just give Guild Wars one last /ragequit and uninstall the game. It's not so frustrating to me to lose 1/3 of the time, that I have to cheat and exploit the system.

The most fun i ever had in random arenas was with a complete "retard" team, was a first time for 2 players i think, they were both playing to try get 5 consecutives for TA, but we got 12 consecutives in the end, none of the players had a clue but watching them charge in spamming power attack on things was great, they were also actually talking in team chat for a change, nothing tactical but it makes a change to the crap thats usually there.

You don't abandon your comrades no matter how noobish they're. It has something to do with code of honor, which is within each of us to behold. Quitters who abandon their teammates in time of need, for whatever reasons, belong to the same category with hated leechers, no matter how skillful they think they are. As the old saying goes: it's better to die honorably in battle than to run in the face of enemy and live.

If newbies don't have a chance to watch "pro" gamers in action on their own team, it'll take them that much longer to learn.

Since I have no PvP experience at all, I know it took me a good 10 full games (that is, no quitters) before I understood how and when to effectively use each of my skills, and which tactics to apply when.
The first time I was in a game with a winning streak team, we won the first two or three games by pure luck. After that it became skill - we each learned how the others on the team reacted, what worked, and what didn't.
That winning streak could've started much, much earlier if half of the previous matches hadn't been ruined by people leaving.

Right now, casual players continue to enter snowball arena for the first time. If they are given up on immediately, it'll take them that much longer to learn, it'll diminish their fun, and the percentage of players who haven't learned yet will continue to be large, thereby making things less fun for other players, too.

If you know the prisoners dilemma, snowball arena is one game where it serves to be "always generous".