The Problem
 

Someone asked me for help guild sparring, and I wasn't busy so I came to help. Upon realizing noone was in the guild spar rooms, this guy asked me this: (see attachment)

This is a major problem among guild spar nowadays, and the way the system is set up, there aren't a lot of good ways to stop it aside from constant surveillance of the guild spar rooms, which isn't practical. The GST being based on seeding certainly doesn't help curb the greed of these people either.

If Graal announce the GST date 2 weeks before the GST and reset every guild score. Most guilds are most likely fail to boost their guild score since it will bring up the GS activity.

http://www.graalians.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28220

Are they letting former staff host the matches for the GST or the newcomers who I think don't know how to decipher a proper spar match?

What do you propose?

Well this is part of the problem I think. Most proposals to fix this sort of thing might be pretty impractical or a big overhaul to the point system, which has traditionally not been looked upon kindly.

One way to do this could be doing what was proposed just now in this thread, which is reset all guild scores about 2 weeks prior to the GST. The reasoning for this sounded solid to me as well.

Another possibility would be changing the system to one that's used in the singles spar as of current, though it would then become quite difficult to raise your score, as having multiple people all on at the same time to do so isn't always easy.

The constant surveillance of boosting is a third option, though it's impractical as I mentioned also.

The best option to me is the reset of scores prior to the GST. Even though guilds that have sparred a lot prior to that reset will be set back, I think if they're going to participate anyways, they'll all be on prior to the GST to raise their score again. Additionally, as long as the seeding works based off of guild spar ranking, the reset date being close to the GST date provides a more accurate gauging of the guilds.

There are a couple of consistent themes that run through boosting in guild spar: the same guild/guild members sparring repeatedly and imbalanced teams for ease of boosting. I think something in the scoring could be done with this, but haven't really thought about it.

I completely agree with this. Resetting gs score 1 or 2 weeks prior to the GST would limit the boosting guilds since everyone will be gsing. I don't see the purpose of the gs leaderboard. It's mostly used to get score to enter the GST but other than that it's not really competitive, only the boosting guilds or the noob ones are trying to get on top of it so it doesn't really show which guild is good at gs. Most of the good sparrers are only doing a few gs for fun only and not for the leaderboard.

This honestly is probably the most efficient way in dealing with this issue.

My idea: there should be a "GST practice" room completely separate from regular guild spar. ONLY registered GST guilds, and ONLY registered members in these guilds can spar in this room. The score would be separate from regular guild spar, and this score would be used to make brackets. This room will be open 1 month before GST.

-This would eliminate the possibility of boosting GS points.
-This would stop noob guilds from recruiting "pros" to help raise their score.
-This would stop teams from using "practice guilds" and hoard points on their main guild. (But of course theyre still allowed to spar in normal GS room with no risk)
-This would also prevent anyone from sparring on different tags
-It also makes the brackets more predictable since there are no non-GST guilds on this scoreboard.
(^This is only for my proposed "GST practice" room, not normal GS; so dont flame)

However, I admit this roundabout way is very unreasonable to implement. There would have to be a LOT of planning ahead for both staff and players.
-Team registration would be have to be open a whole month in advance.
-Teams would have to have enough members registered to be able to spar and get enough points in time. Most people arent sure if they are going to be available a whole month from now. Even with registration open 1 week, people leave last minutes, and the team has to find a fill-in.
-It would be unreasonable to kill the regular GS room for a month. Or maybe the regular GS would still be active, and the "GST practice" room would be too sparsely used to bother implementing.



tl;dr: had a good idea yesterday, but highly unreasonable to implement.

If GP's know that the GST is coming up why do they not watch the rooms for boosting and/or cheating? it makes no sense to me, they aren't doing anything anyway.

Not enough manpower online at once most likely. It's also not exactly the most exciting thing to just watch a GS room 24/7.

They volunteered for it they have to do it, it's their job, no matter how boring the task.

LOL thats NOT how graal staff works. Try running that quote by a development member, but replace "do it" with "make quests."

"do quests", I can imagine their response "does not compute" xD.

Let the boosters join. I mean they aren't getting good training in they are just boosting so they could make the tourney. Then they'll all jaut get creamed cause they are lazy. The boosters will probably beat out the noobier guilds but won't be able to stand against the experienced and trained.

The boosters are cheating and I hate that, but I don't think these people are going to win any rewards
except +rep when they are cybering with some angel princess in fox's house.

that wasnt intended to be funny. My point was, theyre volunteers, therefore they dont have the same amount of obligation as a paid employee would have.

On Pokemon Showdown, when you fight on the ladder they only allow you to fight against players who have a similar ranking to you. As your points go higher you begin to battle more experienced players. A concept similar to this could possibly help end boosting, and could possibly stir up more activity in the guild spar rooms.

I don't believe there is any practical solution to this issue, and I can't think of another way to seed teams for the GST. People suck and abuse the system.

It's the same reason why the singles leaderboard had to be changed. I'd love for it to be that old leaderboard we had, but unfortunately that's way too easy to manipulate and there's no automated means to control it.

Even the "good" guilds resort to certain tactics. I personally hate sparring for #1 every season now:

1. I feel it provides no actual advantage anymore
2. I am competing against guilds that have achieved their score in the lamest way possible
3. I am having to brainlessly spar 5 vs. 2 against noobs 100+ times to actually achieve a high score, not by selection, but because the better guilds will use alternate tags and the boosting guilds will avoid you

I think a lot of that comes from problems in the guild system more than sparring itself. But I do think a tag should be worn for a certain amount of time before you can enter towers or queue for guild spar.

that right there will kill everything. I would only use that for the GST.

Been suggesting that for years, my man

THE SOLUTION
 

Wait for the dust man to revamp the guild system. He's almost done.

This is the best idea I've seen on this thread.