Syncing, is it against the rules?

I think so.
If people find it, people will use it, so I can't really complain, but if you REQUIRE syncing to do RA well something is wroung.
On a side note, I shank them with a scythe or two.....

Just go to Korean district. Much higher chance to egt better group than syncing.
/endofdiscussion

Please let us know which company you work for so that we do not buy stock in it.

The QA folks that work for me check functionality against design specs, not "designers intention", whatever the heck that is.

Exploits may or may not be bugs. In a game as complex as Guild Wars, there is no reasonable way that the designers could have anticipated all possible Use Cases, so it is difficult for outsiders to understand whether an "exploit" (whether this is an exploit or not is even up for debate) is a bug or a simple matter of unintended consequences. We can argue that the design is poor, but unless we see the requirements document, we have no idea whether it is a bug or not.

To be specific. If I develop code to spec, which says something like "Randomly assign players to teams when those players hit "Enter" during any given 30 second period". I may code that perfectly, but the requirements document may not have anticipated that people would "sync" their entry into battle.

Is that a problem? Yes? Is that a bug? No. At best it is an enhancement.

Anything that isn't specifically against the rules is fair game. Syncing is a very strong tool if you are trying to get gladiator points.

So I ask:

Why are you trying to get gladiator points?

In my company, QA folks are required to not only test according to design document, but also to provide feedback about possible exploits and anything they would consider oversight. Blind scenario-followers are not welcome.

But again, were talking banking/insuarance in my case.

Plenty of companies will see both the reason behind the spec's and spec's themselves as equal importance. We also do game balance and feedback. I have a very hard time taking you seriously if you honestly don't know this...

You sound like you work for one of those places were you have your testers act like mindless drones slaving away on test plans with all other input ignored. While everyone uses test plans, its not something to be absolutely set in stone. Testers have brains. Let them use them, otherwise your game is very likely to ship with tons of holes in it.

It is an exploit. That's not up for debate. There is even a guild called [SYNC] that can be found at certain times during slow hours that is basically dedicated to Sync-running balanced N - Mo - W - R in order to farm glad points.

What is up for debate is whether or not anyone really gives a shit. The general consensus is "No".

On Topic:
There is a distinct advantage to Synchronizing. You can build a balanced team that employs skills that compliment each other... something the opponent has only a small random chance of accomplishing. Synchronized teams also have better communication options (re: teamspeak or Vent.) They can issue directives audibly, leaving their fingers free for more efficient skill use and maneuvering. This is a clear advantage over random teams obliged to type and ping information.

I feel that if people wish to be on synchronized, co-operative teams, they should play in the team arenas. It is a clear and unfair advantage over those who play in the random arenas as they were intended by the designers.

A possible and imperfect solution would be to block players in the same guild/alliance from being placed on the same RA team, or even the same matches (because if placed on opposing teams, one might work against his/her team to benefit the other).

If you really want to PvP with your friends, try Team Arenas, HA, or Guild Battles. Random arenas are supposed to be just that, random. Attempts at synchronizing are an obvious effort to circumvent the intended use of that element of the game. There are places set up for co-ordinated play, and RA is not one of them.


Now on to this nonsense:
Why do some warriors always say this? It truly baffles me. It is not cowardly for a low armored ranged attacker to keep their distance from the high armored attacker; it is common bloody sense. Just as it's common sense that if your attacks only work at close range, you should probably bring a snare or some sort, or a speed boost to better run down your target.

Last time I had someone call this on me was in AB. I cast a degen on him and then kept my distance. The warrior chased me across 1/4 of the map (away from his support). When the degen wore off, I stopped and cast again, and began kiting again. At 25% health, he continued to chase me away from his support and landed no blows. Not surprisingly, he died and I returned to my team. Also not surprisingly, he started spamming ALL CHAT with taunts of me being a coward and having no honour.

Now if he had stuck with his team (in the team environment), he probably would have lived. He may have even killed me. But if someone is willing to abandon their team in pursuit of a target they can only hurt if the target willfully lets them, that's not courage, that's ignorance and hubris.

Calling someone a coward because you want them to fight in terms that are advantagous to you, and disadvantagous to them is not honourable, it's hypocritical.

You want the caster/ranger to stand and fight, then give them the same armor. Or take off some of your own. Otherwise quit your crying and actually invest some time in learning how to play the game.

I didn't say that. What I said is that the QA testers test against the specs. It's the people who create the functional requirements that are responsible for doing what you've stated. Our company has outsourced / offshored / nearshored much of our development (using all level 4 and 5 firms), so it is paramount that we get our specs right, not that the onshore QA testers be left to determine "designer's intent". The 1/10/100 rule applies here.

Again, you're inferring something. I don't work for a gaming company, I work for a Dow 30 company with over 2,000 systems employees. And I didn't say that the QA testers couldn't make suggestions, but rather that it's their job to test against design specs. It is unfair to hold them to a standard where they have to somehow divine what the businessperson intended when they requested specific functionality.

I would tend to agree with both of your points. But unless we see the design specs, we won't know. I also think it's an exploit, but as I said before, this is a player problem, not a system bug.

And I especially agree with your last point. Feel free to take the last shot, then I'll cry "uncle" and let you win....

But this isn't "life". It's a game. And games are supposed to be fair.

its only against the rules if you dont do it

I'm not trying to be a negative bastard or anything, but....nothings fair, ever. Even in a game, the rich get richer, the poor stay dumb, the skills get nerfed, the market values drop when you finally get one, the zchest gives you shit, the way aggro works gets changed.


Nothing is fair, nor will it ever be, the only way that anet could make the game "fair" for everyone is for it to come with free blowjobs every time you start up the game, but even then it's not exactly fair to our female gamer population, so it goes back to being unfair again...yes?

thread win imo.


this thread has devolved into a arguement about whether or not it's morally acceptable, and as everyone has different morals, arguing them is retarded. and before yo try and tell me otherwise, consider this, in other countries it is "immoral" for a woman to show her face in public... to many of us it's immoral to force such a thing on a woman, but the moment you try to argue with someone who supports it you'll get two sides of an arguement that both end up losing because neither will make a compromise.

"Exploit:
Mostly used about multi-player games, an exploit can be defined as a case where a player knowingly uses a flaw in a game to gain an unfair advantage."

A Dictionary of Video Game Theory

If you are able to to create order and organization in a game designed to be completely random, is it considered a flaw of the game? Does knowingly using this flaw provide an advantage over those who don't? Seems like an exploit to me, which has nothing to do with "morals"...

Using misspellings and unusual spacing allows a person to take advantage of flaws in the naming filter, and therefore exploit the system in order to use words which are otherwise against the rules. While this doesn't provide them any sort of ingame advantage, it is still a punishable offense according to Anet.

Now, what seems worse: using an exploit to have an inappropriate character name, or using an exploit to gain an unfair advantage in a competitive arena?

Gogo rethinking priorities.

Seems to me, the only issue considered is how hard it is to deal with a given exploit that determines whether or not Anet takes action against it.

Wait...what? I'm curious who confirmed this? Oh right, no one or else we wouldn't have people arguing over it in this thread. As for the guild, not really sure what that proves...

Too bad I only saw this thread today

Saw this (or something like it) posted several times in this thread. I take it you people assume that because of the name, it's intended to be random?

As some people may remember, RA used to be called Competition Arenas http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Competition_Arena, so I guess that would mean the design-goal of that arena (whether we call it RA or Competition Arenas) has changed with a change in names?
If it hasn't, why would the design-goal of that arena be to make random teams when it could just as well be an arena where competition is meant to be extreme (seeing as we use names to determine the goals of an arena apparantly). And as we all (probably) know, with extreme competition there are people pushing the boundaries (synching). Seeing as Anet also knew that competition would cause that, pushing the boundaries (synching) was intended when they designed the arena.

Owh, and yes I do synch. Why? To have some fun times with mates while earning gladpoints. We do it with the three of us so it's not as if I do it because it's more efficient earning glad points that way (it's not I can tell you from experience ). Also, we don't leave/quit/run into the other team when not synched.
Sure, we could do AB but that gets boring after a while too. TA is an option too, but that's no fun with randoms (like I said, we do it with 3 people) and takes a lot more organization to have some fun. GvG/HA is for even more people.

Again, no idea why games are supposed to be fair. But even if they were, I care more about 'life' being fair (to everyone) than about fair games.

Do you get to pick your opponets? No. Then its random in my book.

GvG is now Random Arenas.

Players who hit enter close to the same time as someone else enter the same instance, thats how the system works, it's not an exploit.

Summary of the logic in this thread:

I use it, therefore it is not an exploit.
I like that it gives me an unfair advantage over other players, therefore it shouldn't be changed.
Everyone who disagrees are just QQ'ing care bears.

Did I miss anything?

There is nothing preventing it, the creators of it have no intentions of correcting it, and there is no penalty for doing it. Therefore it is not an exploit.

Sure did:

It isn't illegal so it must be the ethical and correct thing to do.

I always wonder how many would figure it must have been an exploit if Anet closed it tomorrow (and then just move on). I figure most would moan and complain and fall back to one of your three reasons since their main point of rationalization was taken away - at least that is what happens when Anet finally closes other exploits (say, quitting RA matches over and over until you get the team you want).

I also suppose they will not bother with it until it becomes a real problem (like quitting finally did). Then again they may have someone spending a handful of cycles a week on it and have a "fix" at some point anyway. However to say it is anything other than an exploit is not being honest - it may be an exploit Anet looks the other way on (for a variety of reasons), it may be one you enjoy doing, and it may also be one we can all equally abuse but it was obviously never meant to be the way you entered and played RA and people are taking advantage of the system used to match teammates (in other words, an exploit).

Like any other exploit it may be closed and it may not - the only thing we can conclusively say it isn't an exploit Anet finds worthy of banning or spending enough cycles to have fixed by now. As such abuse away - as long as few enough do then the previous statement will be true and those abusing it will have an advantage. If enough abuse it then it will get fixed.