A guy won a deathmatch by hiding in stealth the entire last 2 rounds!

[magi_melcior]

It is annoying when this happens but it is unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your POV) a legit and viable move. The stealth mechanic has been in the game since day one and stealhers have always used it to avoid being killed, trouble is in Arenas the only way to win is to kill the enemy team so all at once stealth can become a super move.

And while I would dispute anyone who said it was cheating or exploiting to use it, I would also say the it is very hard to justify using such a tactic and all but a very few situations. I would also call the use of such a move cowardly and unsporting, but it is not cheating.

 

And before anyone points this out yes I have both a Shadow and an Operative, but I have never used stealth to win a 4v1 fight, the only time I did use it was when it was down to 1v1 on the 3rd (deciding) round against a PT Tank on my Shadow, and I only used it to get enough distance between us to heal up (he also healed up btw), what followed was a rather fun 1v1 duel for the match, the Shadow won btw

 

I think a good solution to this is to make it harder for a stealthier to hide for any length of time, it should not be totally impossible but it should be a lot harder.

 

What I had in mind was the game could be programmed to recognize a specific situation, in this case it would be that (a) 1 team only had 1 player left, and (b) that player wasn't in combat. The old Baron Deathmark could say something like "This is the arena of death, get in their and start dieing" and multiple random scanner probes drop down (like VG/PTs stealth scan), these would drop in random positions across the field and the longer the player stayed out of combat the more of them would drop and the wider their search area. If a stealthed player was caught in the scan, he would be de-cloaked, put into combat and get a short debuff to prevent him re-stealthing straight away (debuff would last just long to allow the enemy team to reach him, if they are paying attention.

 

The combination of 4 players looking for them and the stealth scans would make it much harder for a stealth player to hide for any real length of time.

[HaoZhao]

There's a really simple solution for this. Make it so the gas comes in two waves. The first wave would come when time runs out and it would last for one minute. This first gas would do a flat 1 damage per tick, basically making it the anti-stealth gas. After one minute has expired, the second, normal gas triggers and everyone dies as usual.

[Vodrin]

There's a really simple solution for this. Make it so the gas comes in two waves. The first wave would come when time runs out and it would last for one minute. This first gas would do a flat 1 damage per tick, basically making it the anti-stealth gas. After one minute has expired, the second, normal gas triggers and everyone dies as usual.

 

Pretty similar to what I had suggested.

[sithBracer]

The system is fine the way it is. No need to add any mechanics that can break the game.

 

Pulling a 4 v 1 win is very difficult for a stealther and very easy to counter by the group. If the group knows what it is doing they should win the match 100 out of 100 times. If they don't understand the mechanics of the arena then any loss is on them. Just like if a team loses to a jugg because they let him reflect their most power attacks back at them or if a team wastes their CCs on a sniper in entrench.

 

It is not complex to win against a stealther in an arena, it is very easy actually. If a team cannot do it, they have no one but themselves to blame.

[Lotharofxev]

/\

 

Says the stealther.

[Technohic]

The system is fine the way it is. No need to add any mechanics that can break the game.

 

Pulling a 4 v 1 win is very difficult for a stealther and very easy to counter by the group. If the group knows what it is doing they should win the match 100 out of 100 times. If they don't understand the mechanics of the arena then any loss is on them. Just like if a team loses to a jugg because they let him reflect their most power attacks back at them or if a team wastes their CCs on a sniper in entrench.

 

It is not complex to win against a stealther in an arena, it is very easy actually. If a team cannot do it, they have no one but themselves to blame.

 

I quit most arenas when I see them loaded in, but the ones I have, I have seen several attempts by the enemy team to try to do this and never succeeded. I have also managed to stealth out myself as my last teammate died, but didn't really try. I used /say to taunt it for a second but then unstealthed in the middle of the arena so they could just finish it.

 

Whether it is successful or not though; doesn't really matter to me. It still just makes for boring gameplay and is just one of the reasons I rather not waste my time with arenas most days.

[sithBracer]

/\

 

Says the stealther.

 

I play more than one class fyi. As a stealther I personally do not do this unless there is like 1 minute or less left. If you think it is so easy, go ahead and try it. You will find out it takes a lot of skill to pull off this win where you have to be precise by the second and it is ridiculously simple to counter.

 

If your team is too stupid to stand in the center of the gas and spam AoE, then it is on you. I have personally never even needed to get to that point except once. We always find the stealther when he tries to hide.

Edited January 8, 2014 by sithBracer

[SenatorPalpaTANG]

The system is fine the way it is. No need to add any mechanics that can break the game.

You can't be serious.

 

Stealthing away from a duel gets you a forfeit. Abandoning the objectives in WZ to hide in a corner all match gets you nothing besides a vote kick. So please explain why this should suddenly be a valid strategy in arenas. It's literally relying on the environment to kill players for you, in what's supposed to be the pinnacle of PVP in this game.

 

It's not like there's some big mystery on how to address this. WoW solved this dilemma several years ago.

[sithBracer]

You can't be serious.

 

Stealthing away from a duel gets you a forfeit. Abandoning the objectives in WZ to hide in a corner all match gets you nothing besides a vote kick. So please explain why this should suddenly be a valid strategy in arenas. It's literally relying on the environment to kill players for you, in what's supposed to be the pinnacle of PVP in this game.

 

It's not like there's some big mystery on how to address this. WoW solved this dilemma several years ago.

 

For the last time, this is not WoW. WoW gets a ridiculous amount of complaints for their PvP being unbalanced and gear reliant.

 

You are not waiting for the environment to kill anything. You are using the environment to your advantage, just like snipers can use high ground, KB and crouch as an advantage against melee opponents. The fact that you think a stealther can just sit back and let the gas kill someone proves you have no idea what the gas mechanics are. Let me guess, you also think healers can heal through the gas while everyone else dies?

 

And stealthing away from a duel does not get you a forfeit. Leaving the battle area does. Stealthing away just gets you out of combat.

 

And there is no vote kick in wzs. And nothing is wrong with stay in stealth next to an objective.

[LanceCorporalDan]

For the last time, this is not WoW. WoW gets a ridiculous amount of complaints for their PvP being unbalanced and gear reliant.

 

You are not waiting for the environment to kill anything. You are using the environment to your advantage, just like snipers can use high ground, KB and crouch as an advantage against melee opponents. The fact that you think a stealther can just sit back and let the gas kill someone proves you have no idea what the gas mechanics are. Let me guess, you also think healers can heal through the gas while everyone else dies?

 

And stealthing away from a duel does not get you a forfeit. Leaving the battle area does. Stealthing away just gets you out of combat.

 

And there is no vote kick in wzs. And nothing is wrong with stay in stealth next to an objective.

 

^ This. It's called "positioning." Just because a sniper can sit on ledges and I can't leap/pull him doesn't mean we have to flatten the maps. And as so, just because a stealther used his tools and brain to beat a full 4-man group, doesn't mean that we need to pop them out of stealth during the last minute.

[TehMadHatterz]

At the one minute mark an indicator on the mini-map should pulse the general location every 15 seconds. Edited January 9, 2014 by TehMadHatterz

[Campaigner]

#hero

[SenatorPalpaTANG]

For the last time, this is not WoW.

Indeed, this is much worse. There are several reasons why WoW's arena ladder is populated with hundreds of thousands of players and SWToRs ranked scene is dead or dying across almost all servers.

 

You are not waiting for the environment to kill anything. You are using the environment to your advantage, just like snipers can use high ground, KB and crouch as an advantage against melee opponents.

Those two situations aren't analogous at all.

 

The key difference you seem to be missing is, a sniper using KB is still engaging their opponent. They're still actively fighting. It's PvP.

 

Hiding for 4+ minutes isn't PvP. An environmental mechanic like acid isn't PvP. You can try and spin it however you like, but you're relying on the environment to take >90% of the enemy team's health while you spam AoE from behind your def CDs and hope you can do more damage to them than they can to you in the 5 seconds before everyone dies.

 

And that is supposed to be a legit way of determining a deathmatch?

 

The fact that you think a stealther can just sit back and let the gas kill someone proves you have no idea what the gas mechanics are.

Not what I said.

And stealthing away from a duel does not get you a forfeit. Leaving the battle area does. Stealthing away just gets you out of combat.

Keyword being "away." Away as in "out of the battle area" which is much smaller than an arena. Do I really need to spell that out?

 

And there is no vote kick in wzs.

Flag for AFK.

 

And nothing is wrong with stay in stealth next to an objective.

The objective of an arena is to kill the other team. Hiding in arenas is the same as abandoning an objective in a WZ.

[Reivalyn]

the acid mechanic being used when it's 4v1 is kinda stupid. At the end of 5 mins, if one team has more surviving players than the other, they should win. If it's tied, then acid should start.

 

I think making the equation more complex would make it much more difficult to be fair. What if it's 4 vs. 3 after 3 minutes, and then 3 vs. 2 after 5 minutes? How much health is remaining? Where is the cutoff between simply ending the round / artificially declaring a winner or going into sudden death? I don't think it would be fair to call the round strictly based on which team has more players still alive when it's that close. Even 2 vs. 1 is not a guaranteed victory for the team with 2.

 

I think the simplicity of the toxic fog sudden death is the most fair, impartial approach; it eliminates the possibility of a match continuing indefinitely but still allows the players to sort out who the winner is.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Reivalyn

[Marrius]

Stand in the very middle of the map.

 

Be sure to have some way to detect or unstealth him just before the acid closes on the mid because if he has some kind of push he is gonna try to knock your team into the acid. Drop the aoe/detect a few seconds before the acid zero's in on mid and be ready to cc/push/stomp his butt.

[Reivalyn]

Part of the problem has to be the crappy way Bioware / EA determines a victor. Four (4) people alive vs one (1) and the lone guy wins?

 

But in the end it must have been zero (0) people alive vs. one (1), right? The fact that four people were alive earlier is irrelevant.

 

So my question is (and I'm not being sarcastic), why were those four players not able to find and kill the last player once sudden death started? Is there a problem specifically with how the poison fog is implemented? If so, then perhaps that can be addressed. Otherwise, I don't see the problem.

[Hei_Atzfel]

There's a really simple solution for this. Make it so the gas comes in two waves. The first wave would come when time runs out and it would last for one minute. This first gas would do a flat 1 damage per tick, basically making it the anti-stealth gas. After one minute has expired, the second, normal gas triggers and everyone dies as usual.

 

1 point of damage wouldn't break stealth. Certain very low damage DoT's from Operatives have stayed on me whilst I was in stealth and didn't break it.

[Reivalyn]

You can try and spin it however you like, but you're relying on the environment to take >90% of the enemy team's health while you spam AoE from behind your def CDs and hope you can do more damage to them than they can to you in the 5 seconds before everyone dies.

 

I think this is a good point. Let's just suppose that it's down to 4 vs. 1, everyone is at full health (let's just say everyone is at 30,000 HP), and the toxic fog starts. Just keeping it simple, if the toxic fog takes everyone down to 3,000 HP, then effectively the fog has done 108,000 damage to one team and only 27,000 damage to the other team. For a mechanic that is just supposed to prevent a round from continuing indefinitely, that doesn't seem appropriate.

 

It would seem more appropriate if the 4 team members, (perhaps only if standing near each other), could spread out the damage among each other. Perhaps not a full 75% reduction in the amount of damage per player, but some reduction so that the team with 4 players is not taking 4 times the damage that the team with only 1 player is.

[sithBracer]

Indeed, this is much worse. There are several reasons why WoW's arena ladder is populated with hundreds of thousands of players and SWToRs ranked scene is dead or dying across almost all servers.

 

If you think WoW is so much better then go play that. Many of WoW PvPers claim that the PvP here is better and more balanced (as bad and unbalanced as it is).

 

Those two situations aren't analogous at all.

 

The key difference you seem to be missing is, a sniper using KB is still engaging their opponent. They're still actively fighting. It's PvP.

 

Hiding for 4+ minutes isn't PvP. An environmental mechanic like acid isn't PvP. You can try and spin it however you like, but you're relying on the environment to take >90% of the enemy team's health while you spam AoE from behind your def CDs and hope you can do more damage to them than they can to you in the 5 seconds before everyone dies.

 

It doesn't matter, it is using the tools and environment you were given to your advantage. How is it different from relying on a cliff to stop your opponent from doing any damage to you while you just root and shoot? Who cares if you are "actively engaging" or not. You are using a fair mechanic that was given to you. It might be annoying, yes, but so is jumping try to get a small hit while the sniper roots you and uses ambush from his high ground.

 

And that is supposed to be a legit way of determining a deathmatch?

 

Very legit, because it is very easy to counter. If you can't counter it, then it is your fault.

 

Not what I said.

Keyword being "away." Away as in "out of the battle area" which is much smaller than an arena. Do I really need to spell that out?

 

It's smaller but it is a 1 v 1. Still very easy to hide.

 

Flag for AFK.

 

Very easy to get around. You don't even need stealth.

 

The objective of an arena is to kill the other team. Hiding in arenas is the same as abandoning an objective in a WZ.

 

No it isn't. You are biding your time and planning an attack, similar to stealth mezzing, interrupting + phase walking, hiding and waiting for your teammate to come help from respawn.

 

If there was some kind of broken mechanic that would allow a person to always win by hiding until the acid came, I (as well as anyone else) would probably agree with you. As it stands there isn't. This mechanic is VERY easy to counter, and if you can't, you are bad. Is it annoying? Yes it is. But it is no less annoying than a sniper sitting on a ledge, rooting and attacking a melee, or a jugg carrying the huttball into the endzone and interceding to a stealther, or a tank/healer combo guarding a door at void star, or a double pull gank behind the LoS in the catwalk arena. The only difference is that mechanic is by far the easiest to counter.

[SenatorPalpaTANG]

It doesn't matter, it is using the tools and environment you were given to your advantage. How is it different from relying on a cliff to stop your opponent from doing any damage to you while you just root and shoot? Who cares if you are "actively engaging" or not.

That's kind of the whole point of competitive player versus player combat.

 

Again, in your scenario, the sniper is the one doing all the damage to their opponent(s), not an unavoidable environmental mechanic.

 

Very legit, because it is very easy to counter. If you can't counter it, then it is your fault.

The onus really shouldn't be on the winning team though. This isn't competitive hide and seek. Your objective is to defeat the other team in combat. In the case of the OP, his team was successful to the extent they had a 4-1 lead. So why then would they "deserve to lose?"

 

If anything it should be the responsibility of the 1 remaining player on the losing side to actually defeat all 4 members on the opposing team. Which is what it comes down to for every non stealth class in the game.

 

LoSing or stealthing away and healing up, perfectly fine. Picking people off 1 at a time, smart/skillful. Relying on the map to do the work killing the entire other team for you... PvE.

 

Stealth detection orbs would make this a complete non-issue. I suspect that's the route Bio will take eventually.

[Reivalyn]

The issue that I have with arguments along the lines of "it's a part of the environment, so it's fine" is that it's basically saying "It's fine the way that it works, because that's the way it works." It's a circular argument. So if the game designers choose to change how it works, then that should also be fine, because then the new way that it works will be "the way it works."

[sithBracer]

The issue that I have with arguments along the lines of "it's a part of the environment, so it's fine" is that it's basically saying "It's fine the way that it works, because that's the way it works." It's a circular argument. So if the game designers choose to change how it works, then that should also be fine, because then the new way that it works will be "the way it works."

 

You really need to read the whole thing.

 

I am writing that "it is fine as it is because it is easy to counter".

 

Please tell me what is so hard about the team standing in the middle of the acid and spamming AoE? Is it the "standing" part? Or is it the "spamming AoE" part?

 

Ok let me explain it to you very simply. When you hear the acid start, everyone goes to the center of where the acid will end up (are you ok so far? Are you fingers broken yet? Your legs ok? What about your back? ok?). Ok, now the next part will sound like rocket science, so you might need a dictionary. You find your AoE button, and you ... are you ready ... press it. And then ... you press again (I know, I know, it's madness, but it works). Still don't get it? I'm sorry I have no simpler way to explain this. Go play pokemon.

[Reivalyn]

K, bud. Relax.

 

My only point was that arguments that essentially boil down to "that's just the way it works" are invalid, particularly when talking about an arbitrary game mechanic. You clearly did make that kind of argument in two separate posts.

 

Yes, you did also make a statement in your last post that it is an easy tactic to counter. Fine...but that wasn't relevant to my post.

 

Honestly, I'm of the opinion that this game mechanic is fine as it is. If the team that is ahead 4 to 1 is doing stupid things, then too bad...they don't deserve to win. Is there really a tactic where a lone player against a group of 4 players (not doing stupid things) can easily / consistently turn the situation into something like a 50/50 or better chance of winning? I doubt it.

[LanceCorporalDan]

The onus really shouldn't be on the winning team though. This isn't competitive hide and seek. Your objective is to defeat the other team in combat. In the case of the OP, his team was successful to the extent they had a 4-1 lead. So why then would they "deserve to lose?"

 

LoSing or stealthing away and healing up, perfectly fine. Picking people off 1 at a time, smart/skillful. Relying on the map to do the work killing the entire other team for you... PvE..

 

They deserve to lose if they can't come together and finish the job. Utilizing the map to your advantage is smart. Huttball firetraps anyone?? Hypergate explosions?? Novare minefields behind bunkers??

[Makavelithug]

They deserve to lose if they can't come together and finish the job

 

A job to play hide and go seek is the most garbage way to have arena I have ever seen.

 

Fact is only stealth can get away with this cheap way to play, non-stealth can't hide in a corner and pray the acid kills the other team before dieing.

 

Also the fact of the matter is this is arena, not lets hide don't do nothing and basically let the acid beat the team.

 

What kinda skill is involved here hiding 2 rounds, and not doing nothing but hiding?

 

Give me a break, Bioware needs to enforce if the time runs out and who ever has either more damage or more alive in their group that team wins.

 

Take the stupid acid away from arena, problem fixed and these cheap azz players can stop hiding like some sissy's.

 

/end thread

Edited January 9, 2014 by Makavelithug