Syncing, is it against the rules?

Cloud of Ambiguity: We are talking about Picking your teammate, dodo.

AND I WILL SAY THIS ONCE MORE with a twist: LAME EXCUSE, you know very well what players are talking about here. Needless to cast cloud of ambiguity.

Not only does the name insist its Random, the explanation also says it should be random: Read for yourself, if not, let me pick you some excerpts:

"Test your mettle! Lead your team to victory or drag them to defeat. Two teams of four randomly allied players fight it out gladiator style."

"The Random Arenas (or RA) is a PvP arena where two teams of four randomly selected level 20 players battle each other."

"This means that the randomly assembled team will face a non-random, and usually better organized, team."

Theres only 1 reason why Competitive Arena has been move to Battle Isle.

Reason 1: so that players need all 3 campaigns to play in "high end" meaning PvP using level 20 characters. As oppose to Ascalon Arena and Shiverpeak Arena.

It is never for the purpose so that players can SYNC AND EXPLOIT.

Life will never be fair, because it is impossible to make it so, I wish, and I hope, that deep down human would want life to be fair. But as you can see, evidence speaks for itself, look at Synchronized Random Arena (Woot! an Oxymoron). Everyone wants that little edge over another human. But in a game you can play fair, yes you can. But do you want to?


This is another of my little suggestion:
instancing - low bandwidth - low cost = no monthly fees to play = Good

When players are trying to get into the battle, they are in "shared instanced area like outpost", when players get into the battle they are in "shared instanced area that has limited players" such as any one of these: a 2, 8, 16 or 24 players field (AB, HA, GvG, HB)

What happen in my opinion that happens when players click enter battle, they form "a line" like lining up to get into the arena, but there are many lines depending on how many Server are up and running, I am thinking it is one line per server, now, the system picks first 4 in each line, pair them then transport these 8 players onto the limited shared instanced play field.

Assuming the above is correct. bear in mind I don't do any type of game programming/coding.

Instead of picking the first 4 in each line, pick alternate in the lines, the alternate is also random, meaning pick player 1 from line 1, player 3 from line 2, player 6 from line 3, generate a random numbers to pick ever 30 seconds (the waiting time) the next time the system would pick player 2 from line 2, player 1 from line 3 et cetera. But never first 4 in any line, never match all first in all lines. Also don't have a set timing where match starts ie this one: After a short waiting period (with intervals of 30 seconds) make it differs 20 30 40 50 seconds wait period.

Question answered? http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...&postcount=132

But is this technically a flaw?

Random Arenas is an arena where two teams of four randomly selected players battle each other. It's working exactly as it should be. Yes, you and a friend are both clicking enter battle at the same time, but the two (or more) of you are still being chosen randomly by the party system.

In the end, the parties are still randomly chosen. As long as the parties are randomly chosen (in other words, as long as you can't do something to have a 100% chance to be in the same party as your friend), there is no flaw.

The only thing that can be done to prevent this is to change the way the party system works, which isn't going to happen.

Go into a foreign Random Arenas district where 4 people are fighting 4 other people, then the 4 losers all leave, you get 3 friends and all enter at same time.

100% chance you'll all be paired up.

</smartass>

But yes, it's not against the rules because the system does it.

that is a flaw system,

i'll say this one more time, the system does it, everyone knows it, knowing that system to be flaw and using it to gain advantage over other players is call, let me see, hrmz, EXPLOIT. as oppose to if the system is not flaw, and you use it, then I have nothing to say. but this system is flawed, and using it to gain advantages is I REPEAT EXPLOIT

don't need to cast cloud of ambiguity here, we know what you are trying to do. to both above posts.

How are you using it to gain an advantage if its purely random that you gain such an advantage?

On empty server, it's 70% chance of success, if not more.

First part this post says it best, if you have follow this thread you would have understand.

Cloud of Ambiguity:
If you really really must and need me to explain, let me ask you a simple question first: if there's no advantage in synching in RA, do you think players would have come up with this cheat method in the first place?

when it involve players counting down and pressing the enter battle button at the count of 3, then its not random anymore.

But it's not a flaw. The system works exactly the way it's supposed to - it chooses 2 teams of 4 random players. The fact that you and a friend end up on the same team doesn't mean it's a flaw. The system still randomly chose you and your friend.

The way you and a friend click it at the same time isn't random, but the way the system chooses the teams still is. It will always be randomly chosen teams.
Yes, there's a high chance of you successfully syncing on an empty server. But the fact still remains that the system is randomly choosing the teams, which is how it's supposed to work. Until someone alters the system to guarantee you and a friend on a team (which means that the teams were not randomly chosen), there really isn't an exploit.

First, let's not forget that with the currently used system for creating teams it is entirely possible to end up on the same team as someone who does not hit enter at the same time as you do. The chances are lower in theory, though it is an entirely possible and common outcome.

From there...

Throughout this entire thread you are calling for Random Arenas to define some pattern to discriminate against certain situations and people and prevent them from ending up on the same team based on certain criteria...

By definition, then, you want Random Arenas to maintain it's randomness by creating teams based on rigid criteria in order to eliminate the chances of a random outcome of which you do not approve. Methinks there is a word for this? Oh yeah:

You can adjust the queue system all you want, but if there is a pattern at all to how it's done people will figure it out and abuse it... just get 16 or so people together, find and empty dist and experiment for half an hour. Not much of a problem. Or you could change the queue order every time, but that still leaves the possibility that two people who know each other end up on the same team. You can't add additional criteria to circumvent the random aspects of the system though and still call it random arenas. If you do you get "Clouded Ambiguity Arenas."

I'll post it if you don't want to read it, and i am not going to argue with you, how random the selection is.

I am going to tell you this, however, why player sync.

Because one day some friends ended up on a same group, weather purposely doing it or not, it made them think and subsequently found out that you can get into a same group if you use certain method, and they thought since random arena is so hard to get a good group, why not, since we can get into a same group by using countdown, why not, we use a team arena build and sync into RA, that would be so cool, so they try and tested it, and words travel fast, and many many have use it until some players quit playing RA all together, and as many players here have stated, its fairly easy and success rate is high to sync.

many many other players start to complain, because too many players kept leaving looking for their sync partners, while leechers suck on, so Arena Net put in a report system, why, because they think if they deter players from leaving a group, then cases of players synching might be lower, but, the success rate of synching is so hight that most the time, synchers do not even need to leave a group, rendering the report system against synchers useless.

Hence the over flowing of Random Arena with Synchers.

Synching is all about taking advantage over other players, may it be Random or not, expoiting the system and other players to get ahead in that game = exploit = cheat

This isn't an exploit. It's exactly how the system has worked for 3.5 years, and how it was intended on working. If there was 1 district for RA, then syncing wouldn't be possible. This only works because of empty districts. Koreans have done this LITERALLY since release.

Exploits involve abusing a bug/glitch. There is no bug or glitch. It selects the team based on the players who enter at the same time from the same district. If there are less players, then the team will be made up of whoever is there to select. There is no exploit here.

Well Fenix, RA is obviously serious business these days.

Yeah, punish the vast majority of non-syncers as well in your attempt to 'solve' the problem.

/notsigned.

Two people is much much better than 4 people.

What probability should there be for all 4 to be on the same team so that it is a random arena? Does that fit with the probability created by synching?

Is this a way for players to use game mechanics in an unintended way to get an unfair advantage over other players? If so, it's an exploit.

It's intentional that some teams are organized, and the rest random? I doubt that.
An exploit is that users find a way of using game mechanics in an unexpected way to gain unfair advantages. There doesn't have to be any bugs, hacks, or glitches for there to be exploits.

Pretty much. So?

Also, like you say the solution is simple: pool queues from the different districts, then randomize order.

Does anybody else find it hilarious that removing glad points is considered a punishment? I'd consider it a blessing.

I will say this for this thread: it seems to have raised awareness of synching.

I just visited RA, and a) got in a synch team (they weren't in the same guild, but were moaning they didn't get their own monk), b) fought at least two synch teams (two or more on the other team had the same guild tag), and c) there were a lot more leavers than usual, almost like in the bad old pre-dishonorable days.

Which I suppose is good. Widespread abuse is probably the only way to goad ANet into action.

erm 10 wins in RA you get sent to TA. So whats the big deal?

the argument seems a bit one sided here. people saying syncing makes it harder to win in random arenas. they say that teams that sync win a lot more often. lets ask why that is. is it because their builds compliment each other? maybe thats true, but then lets see this from the other point of view. say they have complimenting builds and they dont get on the same team. what then? a less than efficient bar mixed in with other peoples non coordinating builds? so they fail hard? if you look at it that way, its not really that bad. maybe people sync with a bar they would use that doesnt at all have to do with their sync partner. maybe having two people with a rez sig on the same team wins in ra... oh yeah thats right, 8 skills > 1. the players are prolly just better, id take a team of decent players over a team of fail and one prodigy. they are undoubtedly sick of how bad people fail so they want someone on the team with an idea of whats going on. its random arenas, bring a rez(and use it early), dont be a hero.

Yesterday I experienced a new level of madness in the RA.


I started the timer and see I get matched up with a guildmate who started in another district. We weren't on TS/Vent/Whatever and not aware that we both started at the same time.

We win 2 matches and at the start of the 3rd match the opponent starts to write in all-chat:

"Resign or be reported, syncers!"


Do I now have to fear my account gets banned for something I have no control over?

Anet, please remove gladiator points from the Random Arena.
Turn this place into a test-arena again where you gain nothing but balthasar faction for winning without idiots who accuse you of laming/syncing/whatever.

I just want to have fun and play a few matches!

Well I said 2 in my example there, but the words 'or more' should have been implied. Teams aren't composed of only 2 people, and syncing 2 or 3 is easier than syncing 4.

I'm not sure what exactly the question you're asking is supposed to mean, so maybe this isn't what you're after, but the probability of two people being on the same team should be the same as the probability of them not being on the same team in a random instance. Extrapolate that out to 4 people and the probability of them being on the same team should decrease exponentially as probability of them not being on the same one increases by the same factor. Of course this is assuming there's a fairly full district of people to choose from (which isn't the area syncers target), as fenix pointed out. Forcing everyone into a single district would probably be the best solution, though I'd imagine some steps would have to be taken to counteract lag issues.

No different than threatening to report someone for having a build you don't like or dying too fast. Syncing is not a reportable offense and whoever said that would just be wasting their own and anet's time if they tried.

Also, on a side note, am I the only one who finds it ironic when those threads pop up complaining that the quality of discussion on these boards is plummeting? Whenever something does provoke some semblance of a decent sort of discussion it gets flamed as "srs bsns" and even the mods start trolling it...

It's too bad people appear to be so heated over something like this. I'm sure there are folks that try to "farm" points but I'd imagine more are doing it for the sheer lawls. Considering the age of the game now, I tend to only hook up with the odd guildie here and there (folks just aren't on including myself). When we do hook up, we often want to do something together and most PvE aspects have gotten old. Since we're not out to actually compete or be serious, Ra often becomes the choice (with Aspen being the only other typical suggestion/exception. TA/ AB often has a more competitive nature and seems to focus more on the "points farming" not to mention that you actually need to form a team). Generally it's BYOB (or joke theme) and go in to hang out and have a laugh. If we earn a glad point here and there, great. If we get rick-rolled, that's fine too. Just reading through several of the posts in this thread, it floors me how serious people are taking this. I could see discussing something as an "exploit" (and no I'm not looking to discuss symatics of what an exploit is or how the developers intended things to work etc) from a competitive stand point in relation to other formats like GvG but if you can't go into Ra with some sort of humility and an expection to lose/re-enter; regardless of circumstance, than you may want to be looking at a different (more competitive?) aspect of the game.



elk

Let him report, you're in no risk of ban.

At present ANet don't believe synching exists, much less is a problem, and least of all a bannable offense.

I think everyone here agrees it exists, so the discussion is on whether synching is a problem and if it requires fixing.

Today i had several situations, when from international dis i started to play RA, got 9 wins (3 times, one time 4) and we got owned by team of 2-3 sync players. Its not a joke, i got rid of RA like that. Anet must know that syncing is a serious problem that needs fixing immeditianely.

if you take the reward of glad points out of ra, then ta becomes the same as ha with rank descrimination and such. someone mentioned that all that you need to do is take away the timer from view. that would help a bit. best i can tell the team order goes team a fills in order of entry and then team b. a simple alternation in the entrance sequence would relieve the issue. team a player 1-> team b player 1. so then people that hit enter + cancel + reenter at the same time would go opposite teams with the alternation. im not so good at the computer programming stuff but i dont see that being too difficult. best way to fight syncing would be to have them face each other right?

You know how inconsiderate you sound?

If you do not have some sort of humility to see that not only you and your friends want to have some lawlz and fun in the game, then what are you preaching other people for not tolerating? in which case, like I said before in earlier posts, non-synchers have been tolerating synchers for too long. what do you think non-synchers have been doing all this while? resign and let the cheaters win?

Just because you wanted some lawlz at other players' expanse, they just need to make way cos you don't play often and when you login, you should be treated special? sheesh.

Jaximus:
Better still remove RA and all points and title earn there, wipe clean.

Well, do this and then you'll just have groups of 8 attempting to sync instead of teams of 4, resulting in two synced teams of four (or two teams of three synced, four of two, etc). A slight inconvenience maybe, but not really a solution by itself. It would fit within my earlier suggestion, though:

Have, say, 16 (for the sake of argument) different queue combinations in place, then simply have each district select a queue order at random each time the timer resets. This would make the selection unpredictable and sufficiently difficult to sync intentionally. Also I don't think the coding for this would be all that difficult, nor would it slow the matchmaking process down noticeably.

Maybe you did a poor job of being sarcastic there, but if elk is being inconsiderate you would be, too, by that logic (at least towards everyone who got some title there legitimately). The type of syncing described in the post you quoted is not the kind you're attempting to eliminate (if that description is accurate) since the builds are synergized; it is no different from a team of complete strangers with builds that don't synergize, save for the fact that they're not complete strangers. If you do consider that syncing then you must also advocate not allowing people who RA every day to be on a team with someone else who does RA every day, as there is a chance that they have met before and gotten to know each other some. Also, that would qualify as bitter.

Raul the Rampant

I have many points from playing RA when there's no synching problem. many points that I would give it up if it means getting rid of synchers in RA.

You obviously did not read all my suggestions of how to make RA better.

RA is still going to be RA no matter what they do. It is the only PvP arena where you can push button and receive pvp. Wipe glad points from it. RA will still exist, the glad point farmers are just going to whine because it is 'too hard' for them to move on to TA and they don't want to adjust, but the usual people playing RA for random arenas are going to stay.

I have read all your posts here, but no, you've barely made a single decent or plausible suggestion of yet (in this thread or the ones in Sardelac), just repeatedly screamed that it's an exploit and that it must be stopped (usually using CAPS LOCK and bold words in place of actual evidence).

The closest you've come is here (and it almost got lost in that fragmented rant over some cloud of ambiguity... lucky for you I toughed it out):
If you have actually read my posts you'd notice that I agreed to a loosely related concept a mere 9 posts below the one I just quoted from you.

As for your latest 'suggestion,' many people have lots of glad points earned in RA that they got without syncing. Problem is people also TA and those glad points are identical in the title track; anet would not have the means to determine which ones were earned where (much as they couldn't retroactively give points for streaks of 5 when they changed how glads were earned). Therefore forfeiting glad points would have to be an all or nothing proposition, and that (meaning forfeiting all) simply will not happen at this stage in the game's progression. It would not be fair to penalize the people who actually earned their titles correctly in the more difficult arena simply because you feel you are disadvantaged in what is essentially the minor-league version.

Removing all future glad points from RA (as Reverend Dr been suggesting since way back on page 2) would probably solve the syncing problem, but, as I said earlier (not that you bothered to read it), I believe that this would simply cause RA to shrivel into nothingness as the majority of the player base would move to TA where the rewards are; others may not agree with that assessment and that's fine. I do think something along the lines of multiple simultaneous queue systems may be an effective compromise should any action be taken, though, so I hope this particular point is moot.

Also, still waiting on some information from the 'study' you mentioned on page 2 of this thread that is being done on this...

Havent read the rest of the thread yet, just up to here. I do number 2 (lols bad joke). Eh a lot of times in RA people leave after the first round, I've barely ever see a chain reaction forming out of that. Why would it matter if one person leaves, if you go back to town you are still just going to get another random team I don't see why you would leave a 3/4 team in RA.

Raul the Rampant,

Save your breath, what I am trying to say is: I made an effort to voice my opinion hoping Arena Net will do something about it, and giving my ideas as a non-programmer. If they are not applicable, fine, don't use it, but do something about it.

I am not interested in arguing with you about game programming or who has the best idea how to change RA. If you have the best idea, I suggest you go over to Sardelac Sanitarium.

I also would have no trouble giving up my gladiator points, that's how much synchers annoy me, so much that I's give up something I play over a year for.

That is because you are alway the first one to leave, what happens next, you do not know. Please also keep in mind that winning 1X in random arena gives you nothing, you need consecutive to gain points, but most players who had one other players left will 80% of the time leave, right after the first player leaves. 100% of time everyone will leave if the syncher who left was a Monk. In the scenario that one person left follow by another, and when you only have 2 other players left in a team, the third one will 99% leave. Except me most the time, because that still count as 1 win to me, which most players don't take into consideration, that if they restart, one have to count from 0 win again. If I stayed, I get 1 win.

So I stay with 1 win, joins up with another random team, while you go on, do your little fun lawlz synching, come game 10, I meet with your sync group on the opposite end and gets wipe out. That must be some win for you ey.

Now I ask you, if the scenario in the second paragraph is true, can you give me back my time lost there? Can you? I am not talking about time spending playing 9 RA battle, I am talking about time spend until you get a 9 consecutive wins, you do know how long that takes, don't you, that is why you sync. so, question: Can you give me back my lost time just cos you want to save yourself the time and trouble and have a little lawlz. Can you?

I am not claiming that I would 100% win the 10th battle, but knowing that you lost not because the random players you team up with makes a bad team, but you lost because the other team have an edge over your team, they synced, do you know how frustrating that can get?

You know the sport that one always sees in Medieval English Movie? a sport called Jousting. If you are in that sport and the requirement for the Lance that everyone use is, say 3.3 meters in length. You think its fair to go into that sport with a 3.5 meters long Lance?

Have I not done exactly this myself? I offered my opinion right away and have since offered a few ideas.

See, now I know you don't actually read my posts since I mentioned Sardelac in the one I made just above this. I'm semi surprised this hasn't already been moved seeing the direction it's been heading for some time now come to mention it. At this point it probably belongs there.

But really, I'm not trying to get into a flame war with you or anyone else. We know you think it's a exploit and the rest of us are agreeing or disagreeing as we see fit... repeating "IT'S AND EXPLOIT!!!11!!1!1" and "NO IT'S NOT!!!!!11!1! will simply lead to a lock. Since we clearly cannot come to a unanimous consensus as to whether or not this actually, the natural progression of things would take us to thoughts on potential changes to please everyone. If we don't progress like this the thread dies or gets flamed into a lock and nothing will come of it (not that anything will from this either, but there's always the chance).

But anyways, more new content:
Generalizations FTW!

No, only the people who should be in TA do this. Those who actually enjoy the random aspect of RA appreciate monks but do not require them.

Even if the lances are exactly the same length that does not take into account the fact that not everyone's arms are exactly the same length. Say the guy with a 3.3 meter lance has an arm that's .7 meters long and the guy with the 3.5 meter lance has a .5 meter long arm? Suddenly things are equal again. You have to consider both the equipment and the people using it. And before I get blamed for going off topic, there is a point in this. The beauty of guild wars is that everyone's lances are exactly the same. We all get to use the same skills and get access to the same equipment; no single character is inherently any better than the rest. The difference is in how we use them. To finish tying this together and maybe clarify some:
Would it not also be every bit as frustrating as a new player to get demolished in RA by a group of 4 experienced RA-ers who were put on the same team without syncing? Both teams have access to the same skill sets and equipment as the other (the lances from above). In this case the new player might be on a decent team, but they lost to a more experienced, more skilled (longer armed, if you will) group of random players. Yet we consider this to be a fair advantage given to the more experienced and skilled players (even though the lances are the same length the experienced ones reach farther, giving them an advantage). Do we need to make the queue system also take into account the pvp experience of all the players hitting enter as well? Or implement some sort of handicap system?

On the other side, that same sync team that beats a bad random team can lose to a decent random team. Synced teams are only as good as the players operating the synced characters. Not every synced team destroys every random team it faces. Not only that, but synced teams lose to other synced teams. It's the nature of the beast.

Acting like a spoiled brat and pouting because people don't agree with you won't accomplish much. Be constructive and have an open mind.

No, Raul The Rampant,

I don't want to read your posts, because I am not getting into that area of debate with you, I don't have the qualification or knowledge as a game designer to do that, nor do I want to. I am here as an annoyed by synchers player who wish they can play RA again like they did before.

There is no possibility of having unanimous consensus here. People in general will almost never admit that they cheat or use exploits to gain advantage so they will argue regardless how obvious the facts are. Same is true for the other side, people will try every even the most ridiculous argument to prove their position because they do not like what others do. When there is nothing more to say then the flames start.

The problem is that if many people do something it becomes generally acceptable regardless if it is an exploit or not. Only a few players are really against syncing here. It's just too popular now. Anet did not do anything so far so the community thought it is ok for them to continue and more people start doing it since they do not want to be worse. If Anet had reacted when they received first complains then there would be no such discussions anymore. But they did nothing so the people thought that it must be ok to continue.

I still remember that I was afraid that my account will be banned for using wall warping tactics in the bonus of dunes of despair long time ago (after finding on wiki that it is an exploit). Nothing happened of course. So now I keep using it... Similar is here but the difference is that syncing harms people who do not do it and obviously they do not like it. In this case some solutions are needed or people will start leaving RA and possibly GW.

I do not see any good solution to change RA in a way to prevent sync. There were many posts in Sardelac but sooner or later they were put down (not only by syncers).

In my opinion the easiest solution would be to change the description of Random Arenas to:
"if you are not able to sync then you will be placed in the random group"
or something like that and publish syncing instructions on the official wiki....

Another one would be to remove gladiator points from RA. Syncing will be reduced but it will not disappear because people will still sync to have better chances of obtaining B faction.

Anyway I am not playing RA anymore. I just feel pity for the ones who still do...

I cheat and exploit whenever possible. It is fun.

I sync with my husband. We have different guild tags. It's fun, and I'll do it again. I don't do it for the glad points, nor for the faction, but just because I like playing on the same team as him. I know I could do TA/HA/GVG with him, but we all know the challenges finding 8 people etc.
Is it against the rules? No. Is it unfair? Maybe..

I honestly find it totally laughable people would bother with such an exploit.

The GW community gets greedier and more deplorable by the month.

In saying it's for a title.

Personally I couldn't care less yet I sympathize with those that attained such a goal honestly.I imagine Anet will pick up on it at some point.

RA is a scrub-fest, pure and simple.The title was always a joke and tbh I'm surprised people even care although I agree it should be addressed and fixed.

R a n d o m arena.