Bizzarre and really frustrating PvP behaviour...

I just started PvP last weekend, and it has been pretty fun. But the other day I was in a match in 4v4 Team Arena and the other team didn't fight -- they just kept running and running. They wouldn't stop and fight, and their hope was that we would give up out of anger and just leave and give them the win. They kept saying "You know you can leave any time you want" and "Don't you have anything better to do than chase us?". Of course, in our determination and pride, we decided to stick it out. The dumb match lasted an hour! I was caught between not wanting to stay and waste my time, and being determined to stay just so they wouldn't get the win from such stupid behavior. They finally dropped at one hour and we got the win. What a waste of time, but I felt good that they at least didn't get a win from behaving like idiots. I figured I'd never have to deal with them again, hopefully.

But then today, I was just in a match that started out pretty well, we had 2 monks (me and someone else) and we were doing a pretty good job of keeping up with healing while the others dealt the damage...2 guys died. Our whole party was all healed up and looking great. Well the other 2 guys (both rangers) pull the same crap -- they just keep running and running and running! Forever! They won't stop, they won't fight, they just run. Eventually 2 guys in my party dropped (including our other monk) and it left just me and a mes. Of course, then they got up enough nerve to fight (of course!), and killed us. What stinks is I was on a pretty good team, we had about 4 consecutive wins, and that little crappy trick broke up the team.

What the heck!! Is this kind of unsportsmanship common in PvP? I just can't imagine anyone feeling good about winning like that. I'm sorry to ramble, but this has really gotten under my skin. Just wondering if anyone else has encountered this...

yup i have encountered that and i think its pretty danm funny i have nothing more to say now

It's unfortunatley not that rare to find people doing this in the Competition Arenas, though I've never seen more than one person doing it at once.

My sympathies to you. It really sucks when people pull that garbage. The best bet you have is to use a snare and try to pin the runner in-between your own teammates, provided you have some teammates left once you realize you're up against a runner.

In the mean-time, smile.

Good for you.

A lesson to be learned: Bring a snare. If you're a Warrior, also consider bringing Wild Blow to cancel their stances. This is especially important in Random Arena, which is a breeding ground for retarded behaviour.

Pack a snare - most of these groups are lousy at actually getting away from a group. Once snared they should be easy pickings.

I don't see a problem with it - and I've never done it or tried to, so don't accuse me of it - it is a legit strategy in the game in a way; bore your opponents. It forces people to either wait them out, pack snares or give up the streak. Many builds could do this - a dedicated healing ball build that deals no damage could likewise sit there and ignore attackers. The old spirit spams could wall themselves in with spirits and just wait, keeping them up with healing springs and fertile seasons. The fact is that if you can't deal damage to your opponents, either because they ran, outhealed you, blacked out your skills or whatever, you don't get the victory.

It's like any build, do you sacrifice from your available skills to fight it? Fighting enchantment builds takes packing enchantment strippers; packing against smiting builds requires anti smiting build skills (diversion for example), fighting against running builds requires snares or the like. Really, every match is determined by who lived longer - some do it by healing, they do it by avoiding the damage in the first place, some do it by killing fast. Take a snare and kick their butts if you care enough, otherwise leave them alone, or win by waiting them out (boring evening). I generally pack a snare anyway, but if I didn't I'd probably just drop. Someone else will have a snare and will beat them.

can I ask wtf is your pet doing in that pic ?????

I think it's hilarious, especially since I have several skills equipped as a warrior that slow them down.

A good strategery is to simply have one party member go one way and the other three chase him. A little cornering should do the trick in bring that straggler down.

It happens a lot in Random Arena. The last guy, usually a warrior or a ranger, decides to run, because being an annoying twelve year old is 1337. I just hit /dance and go out in style.

All the arenas are circles, just split up and corner them. When I play my warrior I bring Sprint and Ward Against Foes to help counter runners. The hardest skill to counter though is escape. It's a ranger elite that gives both speed and evasion.

Whne Our team is losing or has left, I stick it out and fight to my last breath. One time I was in the 4V4 random arena and my whole party left right at the beginning and I ended up winning against 4 W/Mo's. Of course it's kinda hard for them to hit me when they're blind from my belly smash.

Also if you have Ward Against Foes, Have your 3 teamates chase the runner, you go to a choke point and cast the ward. The runner is chased into it and that's all she wrote.

Another tip for warriors is to bring the adrenline run skill, because if you can keep up with them and your strength is high enough you can just keep running.

Two words: Pansy Bastards. If I'm in a situation where I'm the only one left, I will run for a short while to see if I can pull off a res, but eventually I just give up.

I Run If Playing A Ranger And I Could Lay Traps Or Fight And Try To Win But Just Running For Hours Is Boring And Dumb

I hate to quote someone who capitalizes every word in the sentence, but I have to agree. The only reason to run would be if you still had some chance of winning the match. If you run simply because you want to bore the other team to death, or because you don't have a chance of winning by yourself... well, I hate to say it but you're a griefer plain and simple.

Thankfully my one and only PvP build incorporates a snare. This has helped me shut down a number of runners as a convienent bonus.

It's attacking... thought that screen happened to catch it at quite a funny point in the animation.

sorry I type with caps lock on alot because im at work and program in all caps

I wish ANET would ban people who think its fun to run around. As punishment for being so lame, for a week, every time a that account tries to PVP it ports him to a quarter mile track, where he and his fellow lamers can run laps rather than PVP.

That would be justice.

get your sprint on and hamstring goin!

Quoted for truth. Why oh why are there so many arena warriors out there who don't have this?

Here's a suggestion, and it comes from having been in the same situation myself:

Download a shareware screen/video capture program, like fraps, which I use (www.fraps.com) and record a movie of those people acting in that manner. Place the file on a web server (i'd be more than happy to host for you at no charge) and then contact arena net and send them links to the movies, whereby they can see how annoying (and common) this tomfoolery is, and how it upsets your gaming experience. Based on my previous encounters with anet support, when they see that irrefutable evidence of morons behaving normally (for them) they WILL step in.

Thanks for mentioning this aloud to the greater community, because it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

I think running around is fine if they have a reason for doing it. Like working up a strategy.

But I dont see how its so hard to catch them. The competition arenas are pretty confined. All that would need to be done is one or two people wait in different locations and then catching them would be no problem.

Many of these runners are just griefers who will gain satisfaction in proportion to how long they can prolong the fight. If you complain or vent your frustration, it makes it even more worthwhile for them.

Sure you can just snare them, but is it worth spending 5-10 minutes extra of your time to prove something to a bunch of fools? It's better to just leave the battle and start anew without saying a word.

I was playing random earlier and our mesmer is the last one up and their whole team hadn't even died. He starts running an the following conversations insued.

Me: Do you have a rez?
mes: no, I never bring one, that's the monks job
Me: Guild wars Tip: Always bring a rez signet. If you don't your useless (my copy and paste for the staging area for the benefit of newbies who don't know better)
Me: why are you running
mes: to be a pain in the ---

I switch to all chat

Me: hey other team, send two around the other way to cut him off
mes: wtf are you doing n00b
Me: making sure a pansy like yourself learns a lesson. Unless you have a plan that might work just running is stupid
mes: -----
Me: At least I have the decency to fight to the end.

After about 45secs (the other team followed my advice) they cheered for me and thanked me for ridding a runner.

You are like the British fools who complain that the indians / Americans dont want to line up and shoot at them in the open field.

Yes, your a lamer for not running into a MG.

Bring a snare or accept that your build got countered. To quote someone from TGH:

"Other people are not responsible for your enjoyment of a COMPETITIVE game".

What i found the best tactic against runners is to just sit down and let him/her run for all he/she likes. Yeah snare them, whatever. They just keep going and going and going. Why? Because they get fun from seeing how you are unable to get him/her. So just sit down and don't jump on the very probable provocations.
Most runners i've seen just gave up after a minute seeing they could run but no one followed them aroud in their stupid little game and they got ignored alltogether.

Might work in some cases. But in more than 1 occasion that did not happen, when 2 of my team is left alive with a runner (usually a warrior or maybe a monk). Yes a snare or enchant strip might be useful here but what if the ones with theses skills died?

Ok, even with those skills available, it would still hard for 2 person to kill a warrior or monk if they are not damage dealer.

So what happens if we decide to ignore the runner and sit around? The runner just came back and attack us, slowly eating away our hp. If we resume chase, he goes back running.

These are mainly griefers (cant say they are losers as they "will" win the match if we let them), but real winners are practical enough to quit match and go for new rounds to gain factions instead of running for ages just to get the mediocre end victory factions.

EDIT:

Do you prefer players who quit halfway just because the winning chance isnt too bright or runners who just wont give up?

It's even funnier when a party dies, the last guy, a monk, runs around the map in a circle leading the other team on a chase, gets back to his own dead party, hits light of dwayna then kills the other team XD

The problem with the "bring a snare" attitude is that it's random arena. I'll always bring a method of killing runners with a character that can, but when I'm playing a healer, I can't really bring along hamstring/pin down/imagined burden/whatever. If I tried to throw one in, it'd still be worthless due to a 2 second duration, and that's only if my secondary class even has a snare. Since you're in random arena, you can't control your teammates, and unfortunately, 90% of the people you'll get matched up with won't have a way to deal with runners.

However, when I'm playing a character that can't deal with runners, if I run into one, and my teammates can't deal with them, I just leave. It's not worth wasting my time that I could be enjoying myself to deal with someone who's just using grief tactics. It's not like that 10 faction is all that important, especially since you'll likely get far more than that via other matches in the time you'd spend chasing down the griefer.

The only time I've ever come across runners was in one of the random arenas. Since all the maps are circles, they eventually have to come back to you at some point, if someone else is chasing them, so I just hit them with every degen I had (necro) as they circled past me. By the time they got back around, they had half health. Repeat, they only made it halfway back around before they gave up.

There's really no need to CHASE them, as long as your team has one warrior and a lack of bloodthirsty idiots that can't understand how to coordinate themselves should work. Of course, if you have a lot of runners that heal constantly, I guess you could just sit back, relax and watch some TV.

The only real way to moderate this stuff is to add in some weird environment affect that punishes players that run without actually fighting, or adding an "overtime" component to the game at 30 minutes or something that makes it so that everyone experiences natural degen and has half HP, or has double damage incurred from all sources, or causes healing potential to be halved. Something. Of course I'm sure A.Net would just make bleeding last two seconds longer or some other half hearted psuedo-fix, rather than actually fixing the problem.

So lets summarize:

Runners are only a problem in random arena - because you cant do anything about the other 3 slots on your team. You may end up with 3 Necros. With Minion builds.

But on the other hand, random arenas are junk anyway: they are random, and every victory depends on the random team composition, and not your skill. So when you beat the other team down to 1, and the last one starts running, you dont really "deserve" the faction because: they may have had lvl 16 newbs (should not be a problem, remember the skill > time lie?), bad builds, good builds that dont match, and you may have had the polar opposite. You win after ALL 4 are down. If your "random build" cant KILL all 4, you dont win. The victory condition is TO KILL the other team, not kill 3. Killing 3 DOES NOTHING. Defeat is when you have 0 people standing.


Sure its annoying, but actually, if you play to win, running gives you an extra chance to bore the enemy and score a victory.

I started PvP about a week before the big Extreme thing and it was very fun, never had any problems, people were nice, teams were great.. then came something so painfuly ugly it would shater not only a mirror but chop it up into little peices as well...

During my PvP times (which by the way is awesome with good people) ive run into good groups, bad groups and.. well one man groups. After only like 3 weeks of PvP i finaly see why everyone hates PvP, not because of the PvP itself but because of the comunity (hmm just like PvE.. makes you think).. some annoything things i have run into sofar are:

Runners - when one person is left alive they will more than likely run for their lives, if they are a warrior/monk with sprint this can be a real problem...

Leavers - Let me put it this way " Little Timmy has joined that game" "Little Timmy has left the game"....

Quiters - Much like leavers these people leave.. only this time its beacuse they feel the match is over, more than often it has hardly started

Whiners - "REZ ME" "REZ ME".. 10 seconds later "omg n00bs" "Moron has left the game" 5 seconds later, congradulations you are the winner...

W/Mo - Need i say more?

Double monk combo - Most annoying team build ever... 2 monks, two W/Mo.. two words "nearly imposible"

Sore losers - "OMG WHAT N00BS, I CAN'T BELIEVE WE LOST"... yeah.. i can't believe you have not found the cap locks key yet..

Bragers - even if they are on my team i can not stand people who are like "omg owned" in chat so the other team can see it.. "gg" seems to make them angry enough so stick with that, at least it sounds like your trying to be nice.

Multi-targets - Ok ya I understand i was not attacking the same target as you.. but its kinda hard when you do it to 3 diffrent people...

Lack of original builds - Ok i agree random areans is a by chance team but when your against a team of 4 W/Mo you start to think if they payed Anet off or something...


However, i have seen some good things aswell such as:

People with honor - I don't mean to brag but half the time im the only person on my team with this, i don't run when im the last person alive and when my whole team leaves i stick around to chat it up with the other team, if it can get them a few extra faction points then they will be happy

Friendly people - Once again a once in a life time shot but some times i see people who don't say "omg biggest n00bs ever" after their team loses. Personaly when my team loses i normaly say "Remeber me as a hero!" just to try to lighten the mood of the other people smashing their heads over their keyboards.... (so if you see that you just beat me )

Worthy foes - They don't run, they don't say "my team sucks", they don't leave because someone did not rez someone and they stick around til the end... basicly people who don't blame other people for their loss

Friendly losing team - Nothing is nicer than seeing the team that just lost wish you good luck in your next match..

Not so serious people - This is a game after all

Overall PvP is not that bad.. but some of the people you run into make you want to step on an ant so you can feel like a big man... err well maybe thats just me

many of the previous posts in this thread are utterly ludicrous.

running is not griefing. if one team is incapable of killing the other team due to their running skills, then oh well: sucks to be the team that can't kill the runners.

how dare anyone call the runners griefers for running. it's their right to play the game to the best of their ability and survive as long as possible.

not to commit suicide merely to satiate players who are incapable of killing them.

if anything should be done by ANet, then it should be to make running even more possible in the Tombs' maps in order that running players have due opportunity to utiliize their running skills.

Remember that there may be lots of people around that feel that you cheapen (or even spoil) their enjoyment of the game trying to enforce arbitratry, sometimes even twisted versions of WHAT YOU THINK is honor. Its not JUSTICE vs them. Its you vs them.

Again - it's a legit strategy - outlast the opponent. If you don't criticise a healing ball for trying to stay alive by healing, why criticise a runner? Yeah, it's annoying. Build against it or give up, or out wait them. If you leave the next guys may have a snare. If you play their game by trying to out wait them you probably make them happy. If you can coordinate to cut them off, great!

I don't care much. In TA you get to plan ahead, ensure that someone has a way to stop the runner. In Random it doesn't matter, just leave.

Running to end up killing the other team is legit. Healing to end up smiting the other team is legit.

Running for no purpose but to waste time is NOT legit. Hell I run. I run until I get full health bar and fight. I don't run in circles just to stay alive and run some more and to top it all off, post some ridiculous comments instigating a game of tag.

IT IS GRIEFING. Stop elevating the game of tag to 'strategy.'

Running is legit - you didn't bring a snare.

Snares don't always work. Some people have griefing builds specifically designed for running. First they use a spike build to try and win, and then after you defeat them one will start running away. Often you don't have all 4 people alive even after using signets.
Often that runner has skills that overcome your snares.

All ANet has to do is limit the matchtime for 4v4 to something like 30 minutes and then the winner is the team with most people alive, or most kills. Now the unlimited matches are just another thing that inspires griefing.

I agree with varyag. Some players play to cause grief. Other examples are leaving game just when it begins or purposely stay afk and others. Sure, there might be valid reasons for these behaviours. But we all have to admit that some do it on purpose.

And you know what? Its LEGIT to leave game when it starts, its LEGIT to go afk in middle of game.

Legit doesnt mean one action is right all the time...to me at least, if not you guys.

Running is not a strategy to win its a strategy to annoy. And like many have said here in random arena your team isnt usually very well prepared to deal with runners. Because usually you have at least one or two uselss w/mo sword warriors with neither hamstring or rez sig.

Even when I play my ranger, pin shot is iffy. If it hits them, god forbid it be someone with mend ailment, they remove and its fine. The best way to stop a runner is with degen.

And for the record in PVP you should never regain hitpoints from running. That would cut down runners by at least 50%. Nothing is more ridiculous than having someone running 2 feet in front of you and regaining hitpoints for being "out" of combat.

Healing isn't a strategy to win either. It's a strategy to not lose. Running is legit, if you don't like it, play to beat it - I personally don't like smiting builds, so I like to pack skills to beat those. If you don't like runniners make sure you can beat them. There are matches a given build can't win - not being able to beat them isn't the same as losing, but if you can't beat them it's a tie.


There are already maps determined by # of kills. If you can't win it isn't my problem - pack snares. Not being able to beat them isn't the same as losing, but it sure as heck isn't a win. At best it's a tie: The win condition on those maps is eliminate your opponent, not "have more standing".

If you can't beat them it's a tie - kicking both teams out. That's about as far as I'd go - 30 minutes elapse, tie game, no winner so nobody goes on.

A formula like this would help:

If OpponentsKilled < OpponentsDropped no faction awarded for win.
If OpponentsKilled > OpponentsDropped faction awarded for win.

No rewards for winning by annoying.

Also add a 10 minute maximum match length where the winner is decided by total damage inflicted.

heh i guess there are a lot of runners in this forum...

The point is if you have no rez and all of your team is dead and your not strong enough to beat 4 other guys just accept your fate and go down with honor... you guy do understand what the word honor means right?