08-11-2006, 10:51 PM
Quote:We are getting pretty far off the reservation here, but since it was a highly speculative topic to begin with, I'll keep on going.
It doesn't have to. Right now everything is warped by a few design flaws, notably the lack of matchmaking. First off, on most PvP relms, it takes more then an enourmous quantity of time, it takes a ton of time and a team that is capable winning 95% of the time by demolishing Pugs, scaring off lesser teams, and recognaising the teams that need to be /afked to.
Once matchmaking goes in, the good teams will no longer match up with pugs. Since /afk will not result in an easier match, there will be no reason to do that either. And since winning competitive games will now be exceptionally important, your middling player will be jettisioned by the pros he is trying to piggyback on. Or so I hope.
Two things. I think you have to look at the effects on what little world PvP remains, especially for the lower number faction. Somebody who went from 55-60 only in a group of 5-10 from cities to the end game dungeons would be substantially higher in rankings then somebody who soloed all of the EPL/winterspring quests. Is that a fair reflection of skill? What about somebody who kicks tail in BG's for two hours a day, then goes to try and farm rep for a while in EPL or silithus. Does he deserve a middle of the ground ranking of skill?
Second, you would have to look at how it would affect battlegrounds. It would definatly discourage trying. The losing side would have a strong incentive to turtle up far away from the objectives, to stop from losing any more honor. It would also defeat 40v40 BG's. For this system to have any effect at all, you have to charge the people who leave BG's early for a defeat. But if a BG is supposed to go for 2hours, it can easily streach to four. Are you gonna penalize people for leaving early from that? And ofcourse, who will be willing to fling themselves into fearbombing a tower if they will be dinged honor for doing it?
I certainly can't entirely discount your points (which are good ones.)
Given some sort of theoretical situation in which you always gain/lose rank according to your estimated probablility of winning (which in this theoretical case is exactly equal to your actual probability of winning) most of your cases would be just fine. The lvl-40 ganked would gain huge honor from beating the lvl-60 ganker, so would be good-to-go even fighting mostly-futile battles vs the ganker.
But I agree the turtling effect would occur where you believed your actual current probability of winning was less than your honor-system-estimated probability of winning. This is quite possible if your probability of victory declines during the match ...
Anyhow thanks for the discussion it's given me much to think about.