Spectate Mode should be removed from Hot-join

#1 - July 14, 2014, 8:16 p.m.

I’m pretty sure many people have noticed.
The current Hot-join community are mostly noobs sit at spectate mode, waiting for someone to join the losing team, then join the winning team to create constant outnumber advantage (5 v 4, 4 v 3, etc)

Seriously though, hot-join should go back to what it used to be, people join and assigned to random team (or automatically assigned to losing team) and make people actually PLAY the game instead of being carried all his life.

Spectate mode also serves NO PURPOSE in Hot-join because it makes you learn nothing, promoting bad game-play style, and makes you watch unfair fight. It also has no replay function like back in GW1, that you can actually observe your own action to improve your play-style.

Spectate mode is not needed in hot-join whatsoever.
It should be added in Solo Q or Team Q instead.
It should also add record and replay option, so people can actually OBSERVE AND LEARN the game instead of abusing it in hot-join for free-ride wins.

Evan Lesh

#22 - July 15, 2014, 4:24 p.m.

At what point are you seeing players join teams from spectator mode? Rewards are based on time played on a team, so are people forgoing partial rewards to be on the winning team?

Evan Lesh

#105 - Aug. 4, 2014, 11:23 a.m.

Apologies if I’ve missed it, but I have yet to see someone suggest team-switching to spectator working the same as switching between Red and Blue. Disallow it if it would unbalance the teams. The general case is still possible, but harder. One person could move to spectator in a 5v5, but autobalance wouldn’t happen unless another player from the same team left the arena completely. Even if this doesn’t fix the problem entirely, it still makes team switching more consistent and less able to be abused. This should probably be done regardless of any other steps we could take.

Evan Lesh

#114 - Aug. 5, 2014, 11:43 a.m.

This thread started with finding a way to NOT let people force auto-balance through spectator mode to get on the winning team. Now I’m hearing that this must be preserved with any hotjoin changes because it ‘balances’ the match. I would much prefer players sit an extra minute in a 4v5 to let someone new fill the spot then let players constantly jumble the teams.

Evan Lesh

#124 - Aug. 5, 2014, 1:10 p.m.

Dahkeus.8243:
Evan Lesh.3295:
This thread started with finding a way to NOT let people force auto-balance through spectator mode to get on the winning team. Now I’m hearing that this must be preserved with any hotjoin changes because it ‘balances’ the match. I would much prefer players sit an extra minute in a 4v5 to let someone new fill the spot then let players constantly jumble the teams.

Teams are constantly jumbled anyways.

If you want to prevent teams from constantly being jumbled, then let them fill up a bit before starting them. Starting new games when there are only 1-2 people in the game total is a recipe for disaster that we’ve sadly tasted too often.

What about upping the minimum players in ArenaNet custom arenas from 1 then?

At some point you change hotjoin enough to just become a queued arena, which is not the point of custom arenas. I really believe there are little changes we can make that will result in a huge difference.

Evan Lesh

#129 - Aug. 5, 2014, 3:47 p.m.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:
this will make entering spectator mode to force auto balance working as it is intended

This is not intended behavior. One upset player should not be able to force other people to switch teams and stay in the match. Auto-balance is there to keep the team numbers even as people leave the game.

Evan Lesh

#158 - Aug. 6, 2014, 10:54 a.m.

Hotjoin is going to be chaotic no matter what we do since people are free to leave at any time. For people who are wanting a more structured experience, why not play solo or team arena? I’m not asking this to sidestep your concerns, but rather to find out why there is a desire to force structure upon hotjoin when there is already a more structured game mode. This would help us determine if hotjoin actually needs some restructuring, or if there is a better place these types of players can go.

Evan Lesh

#165 - Aug. 6, 2014, 12:19 p.m.

DiogoSilva.7089:
Let’s say that, currently, players have to choose between two extremes: either they go full competitive, or they’re left with mindless, unstructured chaos.

In other words, there’s no alternative, outside of competitive queues, that offers structured matchmaking for a quality pvp experience.

(Cough We need an unranked/ leaderboardless queue cough)

This is what I want to get answers to. Is this entire thread a product of not having enough room for casual players to progress within our modes? If we did have an unranked arena, would hotjoin be as big of a problem?