One of the trends I'm noticing in our battlegroup is that of reform teams.
Namely, we see people that we recognize as members of 2300+ teams slumming in teams in the 1700-1800ish area. We've noticed these people -always- do it early in the week. It never, ever occurs on fri/sat/sun/mon.
While I'm not entirely sure why they've been doing it, I suspect that they are having people on a team play 10 games early on tuesday, win or lose. Then they have some people from one of the 2300 teams and play 10 games to boost the rating. They can do this on 2-3 different teams and then drop and go back to playing on their original 2300+ teams for the rest of the week.
Their own ratings do not suffer from it while they are boosting the scores of their guildmates/friends/whatever.
Is this a fair tactic? Is it something that should be allowed?
Who's to say what's "fair"? I think it's kinda dirty, and I wouldn't partake in a team that did that (and I've got the shit arena rating to prove it). But people have tried to exploit every single aspect of the game so far, so this doesn't surprise me in the least.
The druid on our 5v5 team is currently playing on two squads. We just started using him this week, and he doesn't have a problem with playing games with us (the higher rated team) and then switching to his original team after that and staying there for the rest of the week.
IMO, it is worth it for the flexibility. And as for the 2300+ mercenaries, are they doing this to help friends gear up for pve? Because I don't really understand the point of having a high Arena rating if you didn't earn it. That's like playing for an NFL team but never seeing the field. No fame, no glory, not feeling the thrill of victory, what's the point?
I think it's very cheap but I know a lot of people who do it.
Nothing more fun than beating the top team on your server and getting 2pts instead of 27pts when you find out they are on a new team even though it's the exact same roster.
A real Lose-Lose situation. Playing top competition when you have everything to lose, and almost nothing to gain.
Would even be a good (dirty) tactic to build up 2-3 spare lower rated teams and play them against the teams ahead of you just to knock them down.
Are you seeing full teams swap over, or just a player or two? Given how half our healers go awol every other week, we usually have a lot of arena teams left high and dry on sunday/monday nights, with 0 games played. So a healer from another team swaps in for the night to help out and get the team 10 games played.
It does seem strange that there's no penalty for swapping teams like this.
Actually, come to think of it, you may be seeing these people on "practice" teams. If my rating was 2400+ I wouldn't want to blow it due to having a bad day. It would be nice to go play real teams on a "junk" team for a while then jump back to your "real" team for some serious matches.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell
I think it's a bunch of crap, personally. Add an option for non-rated team-only matches for people who want to get in some practice, and either implement a "1 switch per week" policy, or start tying personal rankings to players rather than to teams so that if you lose on an alternate team, your personal ranking takes a hit, and when you go back to your primary team, the team ranking takes a hit to account for it.
Melador> Incidentally, these last few pages are why people hate lawyers.
Viator> I really don't want to go all Kalman here.
Bury> Just imagine what the world would be like if you used your powers for good.
Changing teams to help a friend probably doesn't matter too much, but this has a lot of abuse potential.
Imagine you're the #1 team. At this point, you're earning shit for points for every match you win, but lose a lot any time you lose.
So rather than playing on your #1 team, you make a new team, earn it some rating so it can actually fight the #2-5 teams, and then you just play matches hoping to match up against them (you could even check if they're online and pvp'ing if really needed). If you lose, they gain like 1-2 points, same amount they'd gain from anyone else, nothing happens to your real team. If you win, they lose 25-30+ points, and you just gave your main team a solid lead over them.
Not sure how likely this is to occur, but it seems like situations like that could be very messy.
Changing teams to help a friend probably doesn't matter too much, but this has a lot of abuse potential.
Imagine you're the #1 team. At this point, you're earning shit for points for every match you win, but lose a lot any time you lose.
So rather than playing on your #1 team, you make a new team, earn it some rating so it can actually fight the #2-5 teams, and then you just play matches hoping to match up against them (you could even check if they're online and pvp'ing if really needed). If you lose, they gain like 1-2 points, same amount they'd gain from anyone else, nothing happens to your real team. If you win, they lose 25-30+ points, and you just gave your main team a solid lead over them.
Not sure how likely this is to occur, but it seems like situations like that could be very messy.
That's a good point... it's one way to knock down the competition, which leads to significant abuse. I don't think it's a good idea to have secondary teams for practice, mind you, as my above post may have indicated. I was just thinking of other reasons why they might have joined this team in the first place.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell
SOmewhat related to Morthis' point, what's to stop people reaching their #1 ranking and then basically stopping once they gain a reasonable lead? A friend of mine is in a bracket where his 2v2 is #1 by a comfortable margin. This team doesn't seem to play any games at all anymore, since he gets satisfactory arena points from his 5v5, and if his 2v2 stays up there he probably has a good/great shot at a netherdrake.
To be fair, he's mostly not playing since his parter has some RL stuff to take care of, but there doesn't seem to be any penalty for just sitting on a ranking - once your competition has taken a few large losses and dropped behind, there's no way for them to catch up other than playing a lot of games, since your team is the only one that could give them a large point boost - and you're not playing.
So rather than playing on your #1 team, you make a new team, earn it some rating so it can actually fight the #2-5 teams, and then you just play matches hoping to match up against them (you could even check if they're online and pvp'ing if really needed). If you lose, they gain like 1-2 points, same amount they'd gain from anyone else, nothing happens to your real team. If you win, they lose 25-30+ points, and you just gave your main team a solid lead over them.
I think that's kind of BS, though. So, alright, you're the #1 team ... but you don't want to play any games because you might lose. What kind of crap logic is that?
Yes, I understand you only get a few points for a win and you lose quite a bit at #1 ... but that's the way it should be. The top rated teams should be the ones that win the fair majority of the games.
As a reverse to this:
Is it fair when my team loses at 1900 to a 1700 rated team with 3 2300+ rated players in it and end up losing 20+ points?
SOmewhat related to Morthis' point, what's to stop people reaching their #1 ranking and then basically stopping once they gain a reasonable lead? A friend of mine is in a bracket where his 2v2 is #1 by a comfortable margin. This team doesn't seem to play any games at all anymore, since he gets satisfactory arena points from his 5v5, and if his 2v2 stays up there he probably has a good/great shot at a netherdrake.
To be fair, he's mostly not playing since his parter has some RL stuff to take care of, but there doesn't seem to be any penalty for just sitting on a ranking - once your competition has taken a few large losses and dropped behind, there's no way for them to catch up other than playing a lot of games, since your team is the only one that could give them a large point boost - and you're not playing.
Theres not really any motivation to try hard at this point, if you're at a 2,000+ rating you'll likely have most of your set and/or a weapon, and since we have at least a month left you'll have plenty of time to save up and carry over 5,000 points to the next seaon.
Once we're actually told it's going to be ending it'll hopefully pick up, but trying hard at this point is just a waste of time.
think that's kind of BS, though. So, alright, you're the #1 team ... but you don't want to play any games because you might lose. What kind of crap logic is that?
Yes, I understand you only get a few points for a win and you lose quite a bit at #1 ... but that's the way it should be. The top rated teams should be the ones that win the fair majority of the games.
As a reverse to this:
Is it fair when my team loses at 1900 to a 1700 rated team with 3 2300+ rated players in it and end up losing 20+ points?
Very good logic? If you're #1 the more games you play just gives you a higher chance of screwing up and losing points requiring you to spend more time to make them back, regardless if you play 10 games or 100 games in a week the rewards wont change since you're still getting a Netherdrake, and you'll likely have every piece from Arenas that you actually need so the extra 50-100 Arena points wont change much.
As a 1,900 team you probably have people who still want some pieces at least so the points actually matter to you.
Last edited by Shadowed : 04/24/07 at 5:44 PM.
Reason: Solipse post
Blizzard? This is the first time I hear about it but it's possible and I think this shouldn't be allowed.
It boosts players above a rating they deserve - the minor issue imho
it takes these points from players that should not be playing these top teams, especially not for 15 rating points - the huge issue. (along with the issue of top vs top mentioned earlier)
Very good logic? If you're #1 the more games you play just gives you a higher chance of screwing up and losing points requiring you to spend more time to make them back, regardless if you play 10 games or 100 games in a week the rewards wont change since you're still getting a Netherdrake, and you'll likely have every piece from Arenas that you actually need so the extra 50-100 Arena points wont change much.
So that somehow makes it OK for said teams to leech out another bunch of points from midranked teams?
If you're going to play games, they need to be played on your primary team or they need to not be played at all. It's idiotic that 2 games vs a team ranked 200 points below us can wipe out nearly an entire night's worth of work just because those guys are too afraid to risk precious ranking against teams that have a chance to beat them.
While it doesn't make it okay, I tend to agree with Shadowed.
If I wanted to play arenas for fun, I wouldn't want to risk losing my high ranking in the process.
Alternative would be to roll a alt, level him to 70, gear him up and play arenas with him. Or play on a alternative team with my main.
I could see this problem solved by allowing people to join several different arena teams. So you could play your serious games with one team and have fun with another team.
Fans glory to the Gladiators,
Gods glory to the Heroes.
So that somehow makes it OK for said teams to leech out another bunch of points from midranked teams?
If you're going to play games, they need to be played on your primary team or they need to not be played at all. It's idiotic that 2 games vs a team ranked 200 points below us can wipe out nearly an entire night's worth of work just because those guys are too afraid to risk precious ranking against teams that have a chance to beat them.
Well, the rating you're talking about are two different things, on Nightfall at least you have around 50-60 teams that are within a 1,900 rating so you don't take that much of a hit if you lose, once you reach 2,200 you only have 6-7 teams that are within your rating range and besides those teams you start getting into losing 17-20 per a lose, if you're only getting 1,700 rated teams, you're probably playing at a bad time or day, but I find it hard to believe that everyone is sitting at a 1,900 rating purposely.
Thats why you can't really compare a 1,900 rating team vs a 2,300 one.
Now, reforming and changing teams for the sole purpose of boosting your own rating at this point it's mainly an ego thing, unless it starts becoming a big issue i'm not really worried...it's not that different from the teams who play at obscure hours to only play bad teams or playing right before the season ends and climing to a 2,200+ rating in a week or two.
I could see this problem solved by allowing people to join several different arena teams. So you could play your serious games with one team and have fun with another team.
About unrated...does anyone actually play them? We used to queue for 1-2 games before rated to get into the "mood" and never faced anyone who could've threatened us.
So I'd say unrated doesn't really work in it's current form.
No fun rolling over randoms. It was true in the battlegrounds, it's true now.
Fans glory to the Gladiators,
Gods glory to the Heroes.
It's full teams I've seen doing it. Hell the #2 team on my BG that is now in the qualifier has run at least 3 separate teams all the way up to 2200+ (Low 2300's is #1 on Whirlwind). There are at least maybe 3 teams in the top 20 on Whirlwind that are re-rolls of some kind.
I understand the want for a practice team without killing your rating but honestly if your not good enough to hold your rating you don't deserve it and pussy-footing around just to save you a few points is going to hurt you in the long run.
When we run into a team that beat us 2 nights ago for a 3pt loss and then we lose 27 to that exact same team with a new name it comes across as just a bit unfair. Then you check the armory 2 days later and both teams are in the top 10 now. Not making this up, it's happened to us.
The top teams play a ton regardless of whats going on. Thats what makes them the best, learning to overcome, not being babies and trying to protect a few points.
Feel free to look up my team for my background on this issue. We play a ton. More than anyone else on my BG. I believe we are #1 in losses and #3 in wins. Were still not top 10 but were competitive. We have fun and know that we've earned everything we have.
Clearly an issue which needs looking into by blizzard, I am sure this was never their intention.
There are a multitude of ways you can stop this of course, with different side effects.
- You can force people to stay with a single team all season. Not really ideal as you are locked out of the arena if your team stops playing for some reason.
- You can have a "cooldown" on rejoining a team once you have left it, say 1 month. This takes care of the high rated abusers but low rated players can still reform a totally new team and buy their way back to a 1500 rating and thus decrease the time it takes for them to get items.
- Let the ratings follow the *character*, not the team. Switch teams, well sure, but if they are worse than the team you usually play with your rating will suffer. No more low rated teams that can buy a better rating now and then. This can be made as a single rating, or you can let each character have 3 different ratings, one for each group size.
The problem with the last suggestion is that top rated players can get together at the last minute and form a team (which will get rated based on the avg. rating of their members) which then out of nowhere takes the first spot before the playoffs. If you want to call that a problem.
Obviously the one big benefit to struggling teams is that they will have a higher rating and therefore more Arena Points at the reset.
Team swapping once you are at a comfortable place and are scared to lose rating is entirely stupid really. I can see a few ways to possibly fix it.
1) Make arena teams free to create, but cost money to join. Higher the rating higher the cost. So to join the #1 team might cost you 400g. An Average 5v5 team with 1600rating or so would cost you maybe 30-40g to join. This means that if its a one time fee upon creation, its no problem as it basically means every player splits the cost to create the team. However to keep swapping back and forth will quickly mount up in costs. So sure, you CAN still do it, but its going to cost a ton (430g per player per week, only IF the team they swap too is a 1500-1600 team and once the rating is higher you are lookin at 500g per player per week!)
2)Enforce a cooldown upon leaving a team. If you leave a team you must wait exactly 1 week before rejoining the same team. You can still jump around to other teams, but you will miss out on your top rated arena points team if you leave it, so why would anyone?
The first option does not limit a player, and the values for joining are purely theoretical. It has the added bonus of preventing people from "selling" their arena teams. Want to buy a nice 5v5 team? go for it, but its going to cost you something like 4k+ gold in the end.
The second option is a harsh. It would prevent it totally, but do nothing to allay the Arena Team Selling issue that others have brought up. It also means if you accidentally leave a team, you are screwed that week!
There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The only problem is, it's often an incoming train.
I'd still like to see no team charters at all and just have dynamic teams, with a rating for every combination of 5, 3 or 2 players, just like WC3's Arranged Teams.
No cooldown on transferring teams allows good players to sell spots (aka Arena Points) on their team for gold. Very, very similar to raiders selling BOP epics to non-raiders. Probably a good thing because there are no gold drops in PVP to speak of.
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04/24/07, 2:12 PM
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