Player Effort Reward System [For HA and RA]

I just thought up a smashing idea that would stimulate PvP activity! Here it is:

Heroes Ascent: For the first round only in Heroes Ascent, players are now awarded one fame point. This point is awarded for "effort", not a "win". If a team resigns, leaves prematurely. This point is NOT awarded for beating NPCs before the UW map.

Random Arenas: For the first ten rounds only played by a player, that player is awarded one gladiator point. This point is awarded for "effort", not a "win". If a player resigns or leaves prematurely, this point is not awarded.

This system would offer a decimal reward for effort, and it would boost PvP activity in the above stated arenas.

I'm so amazed at my own idea that it makes me want to shed a tear at how awesome I think it'd be if Regina, Martin, Stephane, and the rest of the team blessed the community with this by coding it into the game.

NOTE: To counter botting in HA, a bot-reporting function can be assigned whereby it'd flag the match and save the observer mode recording for review by the developers. Any offenses made will result in account termination.

So, what do you guys think?

Tone it down. One fame a -game- is just lol.

Do you realize how long it takes to assemble teams? Anything less wouldn't be enough to enthuse anyone to play, and with the lowest activity levels ever I don't see how +1 fame per round would affect anything. One fame point per round is such a decimal gain in comparison to the 1337ists, who rick-roll teams and reap points exponentially. So, one fame point every round is fitting and balanced. Anything less, and I couldn't be bothered to play HA.

Rewards for simply showing up to the match are not a good idea, simply because of any botter ever. With RA, a bot could enter the match, wait for the team to get decimated, and then join the next team. Eventually, it will just rack up free points for nothing. The same case is true with HA, except there, I predict it would turn into a large case of teams running a build to stomp the Zaishen NPCs and then the return of "Red Resigns!" (or in this case, "Red gets ROFLstomped!").

I would, however, approve of an idea to adjust the Gladiator title track as a whole so that a single point may be the reward of a single win in RA, since currently there is little reason to try playing there if your team doesn't have a good chance of getting five wins in a row.

The bot scenario raises a great point, but the second point you made concerning /resign? [read the OP again]. You're right, they can do such a thing, but let me ask you this: do we not have Observer Mode to catch them? Competent teams can also generally tell when they're faced with botters because there'll be certain patterns in most cases that'll tell them up front. Now, whether teams decide to intentionally let them bot because they know it's an easy win and let them plague the game is on them. Bots already plague HA and GvG, so there's no big difference other than gaining a fame point for entering. Also keep in mind that botters have to face the NPCs, and unless bots are smart enough to handle them [ie: run to them in a timely fashion simultaneously AND defeat them], their chances of getting in are significantly reduced. So, those are two pretty big mountains they'd have to climb before getting a shot at that one extra fame point.

IF PVP was a bit alive,id point out the flaws because of bots and shiz...

But PvP is so freeking dead,you just can't do anything to harm it.

Nice idea ^.^..anet should try it,if it works keep it if it doesn't remove it.

You get effort point for defeating npc? Come on, people are not retarded.
Leave RA as it is. Only problem it should be fixed is when some player joins later and others get to 25 wins sooner than him and he gets kicked back into RA.

I will agree with the aforementioned points--as great in theory as an idea like this is, it's exploitable. The last thing ANet needs to worry about is cleaning up after another mistake.

Instead of this I would much rather see them make a 1 player arena that TEACHES people how to play high end pvp. This includes : field watching, anti-ball tactics, how to play specific maps, tactics, counter-cap, bodyblocking... etc. The problem is that people that played for a long time know how to do all these things, so when people who just start out and face an experienced team they will just get decimated and not know why. There are guides on guru, but if there is a place for people to learn how to play better in game it will lower the learning curve to be able to play HA or GvG efficiently. (rank discrimination will always be there, it's everywhere in little ways tbh)

The whole point of the Reward System is to stimulate more activity as well as make it more enjoyable through acquiring their titles in a more feasible manner this late into the game. Guild Wars activity levels are at an all time low, and by putting this system in, the activity level will only rise upward. Rewarding effort's never been wrong. Think of it like extra credit from a class in school, or bonuses from work. Rewarding players for playing this late in the game not only makes it worth the while, but it will also give players a chance to attribute something more to their HoM for GW2 when it comes around. The 1337ists in HA will also have more players to fuel their winning streaks, so it's pretty much a win-win for both the 1337ists and the non-ranked players because they're all getting points one way or another.

Well, botters would still have to deal with the pre-fight with the zaishen before getting into an actual match so I would have to say I support this. Just because it will give more incentive to new players to join in and it will degrade the rank situation to the point where the morons with their heads up their rears will be forced to actually talk with people and decide intelligently who to take with them and get their matches started rather than sitting around for an hour or longer waiting for such and such rank because it would make the rank part a moot point.

i agree with him however you CAN exploit it. BUT ghoul has another idea...this is highly possible and he should *cough* make a thread on it!* regardless even if exploitable youd still need a team of 8 and you cant just add heros to exploit it like most botters used to do nor henchies. so to exploit it would only mean getting a team to farm the zaishan waiting for timer to get done and the FAME point is AWARDED AFTER the timer is finished and you load. now if the team that stays and not leaves for underworld gets a point for the other team leaving ... hmm that CANT count...thats where the flaw is.

itll be red resign all over again and a fail red resign at that. so the FIX idea to your idea is

1. Team forms just to beat Zaishan (gets reward [AFTER] underworld loads)
2. If one of the teams leaves before defeated or winning then the point is taken away from the previous battle(Zaishan) of the team that left and the team that wins moves forward to continue the meta version of HA.

Only way you can make this idea is to punish them for failing and to prevent them from another Red Resign day again, but reward them for effort with an extra fame point. the winning team keeps the fame point AND gains another fame point.

this however will NOT improve the HA idea. your idea eats itself. Arenanet will not sit through EACH observation to improve this idea or to "terminate" the accounts.

/close

Perhaps I was unclear. I never wanted to make the assertion that bots would be the ones farming fame in HA as a result of this change. It would be the players, and it would be through a mutual system similar to that of what happened to HB in its final days. Instead of resigning, the red team would just walk outside their base and get rolled by blue. Teams doing this can be extremely gimmicky, since the only thing you really need to build for is taking down the Zaishen elite or other players as fast as you can.

Do not want! I might be okay with trying to scan through Obs matches for potential botters if this was a tournament or something on the high-end spectrum for GvG or HA. If we're dealing with run-of-the-mill matches, it's obnoxious to think that it's worthwhile to pull developer time for picking bots out of a video.

What ever gave you the impression that the Zaishen NPCs couldn't be defeated by a set of eight bots? It could be as easy as loading up eight touch ranger bars and just rushing the nearest target. The only reason you don't see players doing stuff like that now is because there's no reason to, and because eight touch rangers isn't going to last against all the other kinds of teams you'll face now in all the different kind of objectives that are present.

All that aside, I re-read the OP, and I've got another problem with the RA suggestion. Smart teams wouldn't dare go past ten wins. The points you'll pull in from wins in the first ten games would total 13, but the back 15 would only yield 16. It's a better value on your time to start over after your tenth win.

I don't think the reward system if the problem... Its how uneven the playing field is for the people that play PvP 24/7 and have the experience vrs the player that casually plays PvP.

If anyone remembers back when HA was in tombs, was PvE chars only, and rank didn't exist. It took a 5 whole seconds to get a team... and you didn't even have to ask.

Rank discrimination started when it was created... and the gap between casual and hardcore just got bigger and bigger, until it wasn't worth many peoples time. PvP characters were allowed entrance and nothing else was required of them to play. So some played nothing but that, making teams very selective and available to a close group of people.

Making the reward partially non-win based may aid this but doesn't directly solve the problem. I think making a sealed deck like codex... but much more skills would be best because a player wouldn't have to know the meta build to get into a team. Leaving nothing but rank discrimination to deal with.

As for RA... leave it alone.. you don't have to form a group for that.. and you might as well play poker.... because the first half is getting the right team/cards. And is very exploitative as it its.

But the most important.... Anet do something about the interrupt bots that are running rapid all you have to do is get the ban hammer out. Has anyone else noticed that this bot always interrupts at 50% cast time to compensate for any high pings?

Red-resign can happen with or without my proposed change. But if it's that big of a problem, then I say the /resign function should be disabled for the sake of mitigating abuse. I'd rather lock teams in and reward them than not reward players at all. If players enter a match in HA, they should wait it out entirely and get their point at the end.

About the observer mode arguement, if they recieve an influx of flags all pointing to the same small group of matches labeled "[insert team1 vs team2 here]" it shouldn't be hard to take a look at just one of the recorded matches and say, "Yeap! They botted." *account terminated* or "Mmmm... not enough to convince us *close flagged obs. video*. I highly doubt there'd be more than a small handful of malicious botters this late in the game trying to cheat their way through [judging by how empty HA's been].

i, for one, do not think bad players deserve shit no matter how good of a college effort they're giving. need to get good at the game if you want those pretty ranks, the liveliness has been taken out of pvp already let's not try and take the diminishing competitiveness out too now huh?

ITT: guy keeps losing and still wants points

If you want to boost HA activity make a Random HA arena.

Rank discrimination dies, long prep times die, and the fun of HA finally outweighs the disadvantages.

Similar story with RA and TA; you can mess around in 'random' HA all you like but eventually you're gonna want to make decent amounts of fame and will go back to 'regular' HA to face the same rank discrimination that was always there. You can't escape it, that's just how it is. People need to suck it up, most people want to have fun but also win, so if you're r5 and they're r10 naturally they will turn you down for that other r10 dude.

>implying we waste our time there in the first place

Nope. I'd play Random HA, and if I ever got tired of it I'd just stop. No reason to bother with regular HA.