Participation/Inactivity changes to the Golden Plains Battle (Halcyona) arena

[jerrod]

A large handful of individuals across all 3 factions tend to queue this event and just sit in base, receiving the arena debuff timer which does not punish nearly enough. This allows said users to just requeue the instance the next time it is available, and thus no punishment is actually rendered.

While the rewards for joining the instance have been increased already, the rewards for actively participating/helping your team win, are still somewhat lackluster, as the reward disparity is not that large. (A 1600 honor differential between First and Last, also known as one Grimghast/Crimson Rift, or 20 minutes of farming WHM.) To incentivize players to actually participate, and for some to actually queue all together, I propose a buff to actually playing the game:

Placement Rewards: Remain the same. 4000 honor for first, 3000 for second, 2400 for last. Labor rechargers remain the same, and leadership.

Kill Rewards: Here comes actively participating. To spitball, let's say 1 kill grants 3 Kyrios Badges. 1 assist grants 1 Kyrios Badge.

AFK Punishments: Increasing the punishment from the meager 90 minute punishment that is presented currently, make it a 25 hour punishment. This ensures that the person who receives the AFK status cannot queue the next 2 Halcyona instances, which makes it easier for leadership on both factions to lead as they also know their full strength.

What do you guys think?

 

[nemnem]

Your Kill Rewards are a fantastic F* YOU to all support players, the healers and frontliners who are vital to your win and to your kills, but dont do much if any damage to get assists, let alone kills.

I definitely agree that something needs to be done about the afk leeches, especially (and Imma get hate for saying this) from pirate faction where your numbers are already capped, so having afks does real harm to your team. But punishing support players and giving increased rewards to DPSes is not the way to do it.

A 25-hr debuff would get it done, at least they'd have to miss the next day (except weekends)


the system has a way of detecting AFKs, which causes ppl not to get arena pops to begin with. Is there any way where the AFK tag doesn't just give the arena debuff but actually drops the person from the instance? This would be epic for correcting *part* of this problem, as well as those faced in Fall of Hiram and Red Dragon arenas, as it would deny rewards to afkers.

 

[jerrod]

Your Kill Rewards are a fantastic F* YOU to all support players, the healers and frontliners who are vital to your win and to your kills, but dont do much if any damage to get assists, let alone kills.

It isn't a "F* you" at all. Healers actually tend to get on the top of the charts, and I've seen frontline actually get to the top of the charts before. If anything, this is THE instance for support players, as they can't queue glads/sparring/skirmish on their own. This promotes support players to play at the 'top of their game'.

 

[Cardinals]

Nemnem you need to think that how many kills vs assists most people get, For instance someone getting 20-30 kills a halcy is high and only a few people can do it. But on the otherhand the healers are getting upwards of 150 assists regularly. The only people the kill/assist incentive affects is frontlines and low geared players which i what i was talking to jerrod about in discord. I do however think its a good incentive to actually play and participate.

Ive played frontline on here for awhile now and in that time ive gotten 16k honor from pvp. Frontline have and always be the only ones screwed because of the way the game calculates assists and honor.

Second, i think the arena store should be expanded to include things such as Luna charms, Currently upgrading the one time use gems to their max tier costs 24000 honor. Yes we generate alot of honor but for a new player to do a full set your looking at close to 1Mil honor, add in necklace cloaks ETC your looking at over 2Mil honor for someone to catch up.

If things like this were added to the arena store to make it easier for new and offspec people to gear it would help alot. Also things such as extra loot buffs not just the books (Candy, Elixirs, Purple potions and even the shovels from ice event) Would be good to get people into halcy and arenas as a way to earn gold and buffs for themselves. And coming into 5.5 and beyond those things are just going to get more and more expensive with no easy way to obtain them besides loot boxes and the occasional event.

The arena shop expansion has been good but alot of it has been buy once and never go back, The pets are for Achievement people and the occasional person wanting a loot stone pet. The titles are next to useless because their stats suck and the lutes are essentially useless at this point with hiram being a thing.

 

[nemnem]

Nemnem you need to think that how many kills vs assists most people get, For instance someone getting 20-30 kills a halcy is high and only a few people can do it. But on the otherhand the healers are getting upwards of 150 assists regularly. The only people the kill/assist incentive affects is frontlines and low geared players which i what i was talking to jerrod about in discord. I do however think its a good incentive to actually play and participate.

Ive played frontline on here for awhile now and in that time ive gotten 16k honor from pvp. Frontline have and always be the only ones screwed because of the way the game calculates assists and honor.

SOME healers get fantastic numbers of assists IF they're using ode around targets that have been previously charmed. The assist is based solely on damage being dealt, so it rewards (for example) healers wandering around playing only ode or using skewers with no regard for who is being skewered or worse, who is being made immune to Impale by them, rather than the healers who are laying down CC, charms or, ya know, providing the actual heals that are keeping people alive.

Likewise, it provides incentive to people in the PUG raid to spec useless classes that do small amounts of spray damage to many people (think an 8k's meteor or missile rain) to farm assist points, rather than actually fighting as a team in what is a team event.

And yes, I am absolutely thinking of our frontliners, of whom you are not the only two, who are crucial to fights but would largely get shut out of any extra rewards, which is just crappy any way you spin it.

 

[Cardinals]

Frontline have never been rewarded for play and honestly i dont think they ever will. anything that can be done for them will be exploited by others. its not a glamorous role to play, you can solo nothing in the game your just there to make others look good.

I do somewhat agree on the healer thing though, i was not sure how it works from a healer perspective. People screwing immunities is a problem and something i get pissed at people for in raids. I dont really see a fair way to increase rewards to incentivise participation without buffing across the board. Its probably just got to be the lesser of evils

 

[Drunkenhero]

I like the Kyrios badge addition, but tone down the reward as it is way too massive for one event.

 

[nemnem]

Regardless of any of this stuff about frontliners and healers vs DPS yta yata yata Halcy is a team event and Protag's goal is to promote people actively participating and not afking, right? So rewarding a handful of the already top players who are already participating heavily isn't going to accomplish that goal. And rewarding based on KDA may push people further away from good raid specs and practices, which is antithetical to it being a team event. If you want that, then queue for FFA.

I wish I had some magical suggestion, rather than just "wahh this wont work!" but I really don't yet, and if I do come up with one, I'll scream it from the rooftops

 

[Snek]

good idea

 

[Tazboi]

SOME healers get fantastic numbers of assists IF they're using ode around targets that have been previously charmed. The assist is based solely on damage being dealt, so it rewards (for example) healers wandering around playing only ode or using skewers with no regard for who is being skewered or worse, who is being made immune to Impale by them, rather than the healers who are laying down CC, charms or, ya know, providing the actual heals that are keeping people alive.

Likewise, it provides incentive to people in the PUG raid to spec useless classes that do small amounts of spray damage to many people (think an 8k's meteor or missile rain) to farm assist points, rather than actually fighting as a team in what is a team event.

And yes, I am absolutely thinking of our frontliners, of whom you are not the only two, who are crucial to fights but would largely get shut out of any extra rewards, which is just crappy any way you spin it.

I don't use ode. I mostly only play witchcraft. Assists are based on tags and healing targets that tag, damage is a part of it but not a large one. <3

 

[nemnem]

my last 3 halcys have gotten 5, 125, and 15 assists. Guess which day I had ode. Only reason I had so many assists today is that I AOE healed a couple clumps with quake antith.
I can target heal our DPS carries all day long but it doesn't generate assists, no matter how many kills they're getting. The assists aren't calculated like open world honor shares.

 

[Tazboi]

my last 3 halcys have gotten 5, 125, and 15 assists. Guess which day I had ode. Only reason I had so many assists today is that I AOE healed a couple clumps with quake antith.
I can target heal our DPS carries all day long but it doesn't generate assists, no matter how many kills they're getting. The assists aren't calculated like open world honor shares.

Like you said, it's not like open-world honor shares. That's the same reason that archers with mist missile rain aren't getting assists on every single kill they hit someone between. Ode isn't generating assists because you're hitting people with the charm combo, it's because you're hitting 30~ allies (or whatever the target cap is) with the ode tick before a fight, they're tagging people, and those people are dying. You're not going to be the one tagging targets with ode, especially with melees that w key.

 

[jerrod]

I like the Kyrios badge addition, but tone down the reward as it is way too massive for one event.

Was just the first example of a reward that came to mind, open to more ideas. Kyrios badges are the only item I can think of in the game currently that can be given year round and not a seasonal item, other than Maelstrom coins which don't make sense to be rewarded here.

So rewarding a handful of the already top players who are already participating heavily isn't going to accomplish that goal.

Those "Top players" already have everything they could ever want from the arena shop. The only thing you could argue is titles, but Titan event titles are already way better because some of them give toughness on top of other stats. Not to mention, those on top varies from halcy to halcy, as the winner of each one varies. It's not like 2-3 people are going to be the only ones benefitting from assists/kills.

I can target heal our DPS carries all day long but it doesn't generate assists, no matter how many kills they're getting. The assists aren't calculated like open world honor shares.

That isn't true either, because a lot of times I don't receive honor notifications ever in open world, however in halcy they're much more prevalent. One thing that would be nice would an actual calculation on how the assist is granted, because no one besides people who view source code really knows.

 

[Siëgfried]

Kill Rewards: Here comes actively participating. To spitball, let's say 1 kill grants 3 Kyrios Badges. 1 assist grants 1 Kyrios Badge.

bullying tanks and healers, should be a flat amount just for participate and make it to the board at least with a certain amount of assist/kill like if you get 0/0 dont get badges

 

[jerrod]

Kill Rewards: Here comes actively participating. To spitball, let's say 1 kill grants 3 Kyrios Badges. 1 assist grants 1 Kyrios Badge.

bullying tanks and healers, should be a flat amount just for participate and make it to the board at least with a certain amount of assist/kill like if you get 0/0 dont get badges

That goes back to the AFKable idea. This is to encourage participation, if you get a flat amount for joining, we're back at where we started of people just AFKing it. There's no method to determine if someone is actively fighting in the instance other than kills/assists.

Also to reiterate:

If anything, this is THE instance for support players, as they can't queue glads/sparring/skirmish on their own. This promotes support players to play at the 'top of their game'.

I'm a support tank player, we get the lowest on the board. But some reward is better than none, right?

 

[nemnem]

unless sparkle or sjinder wants to pipe up and let us know how exactly they're calculated and accumulated, we'll have to agree to disagree on this, but its really all irrelevant since this doesn't to me seem like it would solve any of the issues that Protag was looking to solve-- afks and participation. Its only rewarding already active people for being active, and possibly doing harmful things by encouraging more selfish plays in a team event, all while not addressing the AFKs who are mostly low gears or alts, so not exactly poised to make many if any extra rewards. And it doesn't keep AFK alts from blocking pirates from fielding a full, active team.

I mean, I get it.. more shinies are nice for the people who are getting them, but it doesn't solve any of the problems that you want it to solve.

 

[jerrod]

unless sparkle or sjinder wants to pipe up and let us know how exactly they're calculated and accumulated, we'll have to agree to disagree on this, but its really all irrelevant since this doesn't to me seem like it would solve any of the issues that Protag was looking to solve-- afks and participation. Its only rewarding already active people for being active, and possibly doing harmful things by encouraging more selfish plays in a team event, all while not addressing the AFKs who are mostly low gears or alts, so not exactly poised to make many if any extra rewards. And it doesn't keep AFK alts from blocking pirates from fielding a full, active team.

I mean, I get it.. more shinies are nice for the people who are getting them, but it doesn't solve any of the problems that you want it to solve.

That's where AFK Punishments comes in, as I mentioned above. Incentivize it for those who already actively play, to encourage others to get the rewards as well. This will also increase your sides chance of winning if you encourage people around you to participate, since they're helping the raid.

AFK Punishments: Increasing the punishment from the meager 90 minute punishment that is presented currently, make it a 25 hour punishment. This ensures that the person who receives the AFK status cannot queue the next 2 Halcyona instances, which makes it easier for leadership on both factions to lead as they also know their full strength.

 

[bae]

I'm pretty fine with getting 1 kyrios badge per assist since I'm usually at the top of the list anyway. Just the other day I was #1 with like 184 assists or something. I usually only play assassin too (witchcraft) and I use mistsong shield a lot so using ode to get assists is not very relatable? Either way I think giving those who actually participate in the halcy more rewards would be a good incentive to make the event a lot more fun. At the moment, it's usually very one-sided. Some days west will have a huge raid and win with no competition. Other days pirates will win with no competition. It could help to get east to want to actually queue up.

The only other way to prevent people from taking up slots or afk'ing in the event is to change the debuff to 25 hours as previously stated or/also add a gs requirement. I'm not sure if west and east factions should have a gs requirement but if people are actually placing alts in pirate faction to try and grief an event, the gearscore requirement should at least be like 10k imo.

 

[Cardinals]

Pirate will attract some random people but it is highly likely its West/east blocking pirate spots. Mjnon did it to west for months trying to take lead of halcy raid to get a 30sec advantage.

But the Afk kick issue will solve that, and to anyone worried about Halcy not popping sjinderson confirmed that its 10-10-0 needed to start a halcy, so if that ever happens its not on the kick system and people are just busy or not wanting to do it. If they continue to do it after the afk changes maybe the admins will step in and do something about it (I highly doubt it but you never know)

Yes some people who have to step away for kids etc will be caught in this, but it will be small enough to the point where the good outweighs the bad of getting the afks out of halcy.

 

[bae]

The thing about kicking afk's is that they're already in the event as is. It'd just open the slot after the fact to where one of our guildies still can't join and would only be able to the next couple of times halcy pops then the problem would just repeat again once the timer is up. I'd rather there be a gearscore requirement from the start to prevent people who are afk'ing to grief the chance to mess with the event.

I also just don't think people under like 9k gs should even want to go pirate..? There's so much more to benefit from as mainland.