PvP Handicap

(reference: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...4&postcount=62 )

Talesian mentioned possibly adding some kind of handicap system to PvP in GuildWars. I think this is a great idea, and wanted to explore it further.

First off, to stave off some yelling, I'd assume it would only be for some forms of PvP, and definitely not for the highest levels (like Hall of Heroes). Suitable formats might be unranked GvG, certain arenas (that could form random teams based on ranking, amongst other things), or seasonal ladder tournaments (that reset every few months or so).

None of this is intended for determining who is the better player. Rather the goal is to let weaker teams have a reasonable shot at beating stronger teams, and to give stronger teams a challenge. In all cases, it should provide a good fight for any team which might not be able to easily find someone of equal skill.



Some brief thought of ways to handicap (assuming you've figured out which teams are better through previous play):

• Attribute Points: Add or remove attribute points from a team. This is fairly easy and has excellent granularity (can be used to bring two close teams just a little bit closer, or wildly differently skilled teams much closer).
  • Simplest method: At the start of combat, give the weaker team some number of bonus points. They can spend them during the battle, but their attributes return to "normal" afterwards.
  • More complicated would be to give each team a time period to adjust their skills before opening the gates, which more reasonably would allow for taking away attribute points.
  • This could involve simply zeroing out all attributes for the players (as if they had "refunded" all the points), and letting them spend the amount they have.
• Skill Slots (much harder to implement and less useful)
• Players: Just add or remove the number of possible players. Henchmen could even fill in here.

The exact details would require some experimentation, I think, even once the method is figured out. Once you have a "rating" for the team, you need to figure out how many attribute points bring the players to equal. Example: Give every player a rating (already done to an extent). Find the average rating of all the players from both sides. All of the players who are above average lose some attribute points, and the below average players gain some. Figuring out how many to give to or remove from each player would require a lot of testing to make sure enough but not too much is being done for the handicap.

Very open to hearing other ideas. =)

Uh... I think this is a really bad idea. I mean, no offense or anything, but, why? Bad teams can beat skilled teams too, there's no way one good player can completely turn around a team in random arena, unless he plays a monk, and even bad players playing monks can still outweigh a good player on something else.

i don't like that system at all, everyone should play at the same level.

I think maybe adding henchies instead of players is a possiblity, I just wouldnt like attributes taken away, even if it was only lower level chars, other than that...good stuff

Why would I want to play handicaped?

I can't really test builds or strategies, because they may fail only due to the handicap...

Playing with henchies? So not even my whole team can participate?

I don't see any reason for doing handicaped matches. It is much more challenging to fight teams that are stronger or equally strong than fighting a team you could easily beat but lose because a henchmen got stuck somewhere or the other team easily outdamages you (due to the lacking attribute points).

Can you explain my more about why it would be fun?

Handicaps are boring and stupid. Equal skill lvl, equal stats is the most fun.

First, it is definitely best if you can always play against a similarly skilled team. That will provide the best challenge for both sides, and both sides will easily have a chance of winning. Multiple have said this, and I agree completely. That's the whole reason for wanting a handicap system.

It's not much fun if there's no challenge, or if there's virtually no chance you can win. But it's not always possible to find enemies who are equal. I've played enough PvP to realize that it's not that uncommon for one side to crush the other side.

The goal of handicapping would be to make the teams equal in strength through artificial means. The goal is definitely not to make the weaker team into a stronger team, just to make them barely equal to stronger team. Then you would have a good game again; if you are the strongest team in the game, it would provide more challenges.

And I guess I shouldn't even have mentioned henchmen, because that's mostly all everyone is complaining about. I'm just brainstorming here, people. I don't actually like the idea of henchmen in PvP, generally.

Anyway, for all the people who were strongly naysaying and saying that "equal stats" is the most fun should understand I'm not suggesting they change any of the existing game options, just add new ones.

Yeah I don't like the idea. So I went and finally earned the elite skill for my build I'd been looking for and now I get handicapped when I want to use it in PvP? Why the hell should I get handicapped for my hard work?

Makes no sense to me.

Everyone understands that no one would be forced to be handicapped, right? You'd voluntarily play in the handicapped arena / ladder / whatever.

I thought I'd made it clear that this wasn't a change to existing systems.

Bad idea. If you level the playing field so the inexperienced have a better chance, then you take away the drive for the inexperienced to get better. The same people will always be handicapped, the same will always benefit from it.

Very not good.

Erm. Handicaps exist in many games, including many "real life" sports, especially at lower levels of play. People don't stop trying as a result.

Extremely useful handicaps exist in chess, go, golf, croquet, bowling, squash, horse racing, etc. They make the game enjoyable for all parties involved and create competition where there wouldn't be any.

I hardly think this would take away the inately human drive to do better. That theory is, in short, hogwash. And the handicap systems shouldn't make the weaker players automatically win each time (that would be a huge bug in the system). The weak team will still need to fight to win, having no better odds of winning (or losing) than the stronger team. So there's every reason to try to play your best and improve.

There are always that group of people that will hold back when it comes to being ranked so they can have a higher handicap when it counts. It just opens another exploitable door. Golf and bowling, I know, are two great areas where handicapping is often abused.

Yeah, lets all go die repeatedly in GVG and have our rank totally suck that way when we are playing a game off the score charts we can have +10% morale at the start.

I can see the people lining up to do this.

Ok lets just picture this, Sissy Boys want to beat Negative Zero in an *off the charts* PVP match, so they go ahead and drop themselves down from say number 6 all the way down to like number 600, that way they can get 10% morale boost.

This is about the time when n0 just opts to not play the handicapped stuff, and instead laugh at how sB got themselves most of the way down the ladder now.

If we actually sit down and think about this stuff most of the scenarios are going to boil down to stuff like that.

Even if sB beats n0 with their 10% morale, you know what n0 says, yay you beat us, now beat our place in the ranking charts newb rank 600 team.

*Disclaimer* all names and quotes are for example purposes only, none of this was actually spoken by a member of sB or n0 or any derivative of those guilds.

Tsunamii Starshine

Let's say a disgruntled few from various uber-guilds get together to screw things up for the uber-guilds just because. Throw a few while working on strat, attack the uber-guilds with the advantage just to knock them down, throw a few to lesser ranks to keep the handicap, attack the uber-guilds...

Never underestimate the vindictive mind.

This would be terrible... if Arena Net added enforced handicapping to all PvP games. Which sounds like a stupid idea, which is why no one has suggested it be done, and everyone has said it shouldn't be done.

Adding it to some specific PvP formats, however, would be good.

Another problem I see with adding that into other areas, means that they have to save each person's wins and losses, which would not be fun for the servers at all.

I can't imagine that would be difficult. It's likely that it logs tons of this information already.

The whole purpose everyone having the same pool of skills and stats is to rule out the of the possibility or at least limit the chance of luck winning a battle. Skill is what this game is based around. So what you are saying is "People are more skilled than me and I don't like it."

Tough. That's life. If you want to improve your skill, work at it. Please don't waste time by trying to limit other's abilities. That's a terrible mindset and you should try really hard to break from it. Total equality does not equate with fairness. Play your strengths and and don't mess with a good thing.

Jeez. No need to be a jerk about it and put false words in my mouth. Did you even read the whole post? You have a terrible mindset, my friend, for saying things like that. It's rude and offensive, since you obviously paid no attention to what was actually suggested.

I don't think you understand the goal at all, which I why I have to wonder if you read anything except the title and gave your kneejerk reaction. I understand what you seem to be saying, and you are severely confused about the goal of adding any kind of handicapping.

1. It's strictly voluntary. It's only for some arenas, and every single place that has handicapping available should also exist in a non-handicapped format. I am not trying to make everyone the same under every circumstance. That would be absurd, and you are absolutely correct in saying that's a terrible mindset. Luckily, no one here has that mindset.

2. The goal is to allow more fun games. There are lots of games I'm good at, and plenty I'm bad at. Yes, I would like it if everyone had a good chance to win if they enter a special arena for that purpose. Excellent players would have a chance to play against friends who are far worse than they are, and not just wreck them. (This is why I mentioned Guild battles.) Players who know they aren't very good could at least play PvP for half a second without getting instantly crushed (which is quite, quite common right now... and I'm not suggesting that change in most places).

For example, I like playing Go. Go has a fantastic handicap system that lets you start one player off with anwhere from a very minor to extremely major handicap. The handicap system allows me to play against players who are far worse than me (not many of those people) or far better than me, and it will still be a good, challenging game for both players. It's not much fun for either player when both know that one guy will just crush the other.

That's all that a handicap system would allow. Like all games that have handicaps, you don't use it for competitive play, just for fun games. Remember? This is a game? For fun?

For people who only want to play in extremely competitive environments where winning is all you care about, handicaps are not for you, in any game.

Sheesh. I've got a long post elsewhere about how PvP isn't fair enough and trying to come up with ideas for making more skill-based formats. It's not like I'm against Guild Wars being a skill-based game; I wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't, and I think it needs more skill based PvP formats.

I'm sorry if I'm sounding particularly defensive, but it's hard when I'm debating against other people who are telling me the game is too skill based already, and PvP is too competitive. Sigh. I should know better than to actually ask for helpful ideas. People come to forums to shoot other people down, not to actually help with anything.

I'm very suprised at how negative people are to this.

I would enjoy the OPTION of having matches that are scaled to make things more balanced. I'd rather lose a close game than win without trying.

The reason this idea has been repeatedly shot down is because most (gaming) people dont want to play (pvp) vs a challenge, they want to win. Most (gaming) people dont have fun losing in pvp, so logically this idea doesnt suit their purpose.

How many games have you played where there is open pvp, and the lvl 50 hoser runs by you and one-shots you? No challenge, but I promise they got some enjoyment out of it.

I think maybe that's true for some hardcore people, but not most players, especially not repeatedly. Seriously, not to stereotype, but the kind of person who likes to play fully open PvP (in games besides Guild Wars) and kill every low level person they run by is not the average player. The average guy might do it once or twice for a laugh, but that's about it.

It's really not much fun, even ignoring whether or not people want a challenge. It's just over too fast, and you didn't even do anything.

I think its a fairly good idea. And all the people who have said "its a crap idea" seem to have completely misunderstood your point and treated it as if handicaps would be included in the GvG ladder (which they wouldn't).

He asked for them in UNRANKED GvG (read that, yeah it says unranked...like... not ranked...or the opposite of ranked...get it yet?) not the ladder. So some guild with a rank of X fights a guild with rank X-600 in ladder match. no handicap, rank X guild slaughters them. They go "Okay, that wasn't really very fun" then PM them asking if they want an unranked handicap match. They agree and play. They have fun. X still wins, but they get much more enjoyment from it as X-600 guild actually put up a fight.

Please, tell me how that can be exploited...oh wait, it can't.

I still don't like this idea since I'd like to be able to fight all players on the same skill level with or without handicaps.

RTSFirebat: You still can, if they want to. That ability is not taken away.

If there's a team you want to play without handicaps, and they refuse to except for handicaps... well, do you think they'd normally want to play against you at all? More than likely, those people just won't play against high ranked PvP groups, and you lose the option to ever battle against them.

Handicaps are bad. Matching teams to each other according to skill is good. It's better to play someone who is at your level, than to play someone who is better than you, but gimped.

This is all true. I don't understand why you think this makes handicaps bad.

• It's best to play someone of equal skill.
• It's worst to play someone of wildly different skill; neither side will have any fun.
• It's somewhere in the middle to play someone of wildly different skill level with a handicap. (Note that handicapping doesn't have to be gimping per se; could just be bonuses for the smaller team, if that matters.) This is likely to lead a game which is fun for both sides, when it couldn't exist before.
• If teams are of equal skill, there won't be a handicap.

Handicaps would make the unfun cases fun. The best case is obviously still the best case, and handicaps wouldn't have any effect on that. I don't understand why having them available would be bad in any way. (That's asking for it, I know, but no one has given a reason why having handicaps available would be a bad thing.)

I just read that you said hall of heroes is the highest level of pvp and stopped reading.

Erm. OK. I did mention it as an example of one of the highest levels, though not specifically the highest.

Perhaps I am truly ignorant, but why did you stop reading? I'm sure you'll only look down on me more for not knowing something, or for having a differering opinion from yours, but what are the high levels of PvP? Did I offend you by not mentioning something else specific?

Edit: Or, is it just that you don't like the shorthand of Hall of Heroes for Tombs? No, still confused.

-Actually Bewildered