Guild Wars 2

I have played all types of PvP in GW 1 but my favorite is Random Arena. It wasn’t as complex or strategic as other types of PvP, but I liked the fact that I could start a new match in less than a minute. There was no boring setting up of the team or waiting for 10 minutes for the match to start. It was fast and fun.

Currently there is nothing like that in GW2.

If I want to have the “GW 1 Random Arena experience” in GW2, the closest thing I get is the free tournament. However, if I join as a single person, two things happen:

1. I will be put in a random team with random people
2. At some point in the tournament, we will face a guild team and lose, because they have a pre-built team and use vent

This is highly frustrating and made me stop joining tournaments altogether.

I could of course play the regular SPvP, but the issue with that is, that there is no reward for winning multiple matches in a row. In GW2 when you won 10 matches, you got a reward and were moved to Team Arena. This system was nothing less than perfect. Why did you guys change this in GW2?!

I can only describe this whole GW2 tournament thing as a huge design flaw. Random teams should not have to fight against pre-built teams. Period. Why? Because it’s unfair and you will lose every single time. Random teams are nothing more than cannon fodder for pre-built teams, which is not fun for either party.

My suggestion to fix this problem is simple: Make ALL free tournaments random.

So when you join a free tournament, you always join as a single person and get put in a random team, exactly like sPvP works right now. This way the concept would be same as in GW1, and people like me, who prefer fast matches with rewards for multiple consecutive wins , have something fun to play.

Hot-join is random arenas.
Tournaments are team arenas.
Paid tournaments are team arenas for people that want to be ranked.

The reward for multiple wins has been removed, but arguably that was never a good component of random arenas in the frist place—luck was far more prevalent than skill. Rewards (glory) are earned for your own actions, not uniformly distributed to the team, so even a series of losses can be extremely profitable for a player. This is more fair and less of a design flaw than giving one team a bonus for being lucky several times.

Fildydarie.1496:

Hot-join is random arenas.
Tournaments are team arenas.
Paid tournaments are team arenas for people that want to be ranked.

The reward for multiple wins has been removed, but arguably that was never a good component of random arenas in the frist place—luck was far more prevalent than skill. Rewards (glory) are earned for your own actions, not uniformly distributed to the team, so even a series of losses can be extremely profitable for a player. This is more fair and less of a design flaw than giving one team a bonus for being lucky several times.

Hot-join is not like GW1 random arenas for three simple reasons:
1. It lacks rewards for multiple wins.
2. Team roster changes between matches. The guy you fight with during one match, will be your opponent during the next.
3. GW1 Random Arena was all about battle, not running between points.

Reward for multiple wins was the ONLY good thing about GW1 random arenas. Without it, what would have been the point? That 10 consecutive wins gave you a GOAL which motivated you to play. Without that goal, it would have been pointless. Also, the fact that you played with the same team (if you won) was a cool way to meet new people and learn their style.

The way hot-joining is right now.. it’s like one big grind. Everyone getting Glory might sound a good idea at first, but the problem is that it makes winning and losing even LESS important. For example I had multiple matches today where the LOSING team got much more glory than the WINNING team. Is that not a design flaw? Sure the losing team probably killed or enemies or whatever to get that score, but isn’t WINNING the match the whole point? I mean in real life, do you give bigger rewards to the sports team who lost the match but played “better” during the match?

Hot-joining SPvP in a nutshell:
- thousands of individual matches with no real “end goal”, just a reset after each match
- winning or losing does not matter, reset happens no matter what
- it’s better to selfishly grind your Glory, than it is to help your team win
- doing strategically important things like keeping 3 enemies busy while rest of your team captures points, is BAD for you because, win or lose, you will end up with less Glory

Random Arena in GW1 was perfect. Anet had the perfect formula, but for some reason they changed it.

Scaredgirl.4861:

The way hot-joining is right now.. it’s like one big grind. Everyone getting Glory might sound a good idea at first, but the problem is that it makes winning and losing even LESS important. For example I had multiple matches today where the LOSING team got much more glory than the WINNING team. Is that not a design flaw? Sure the losing team probably killed or enemies or whatever to get that score, but isn’t WINNING the match the whole point? I mean in real life, do you give bigger rewards to the sports team who lost the match but played “better” during the match?

errr no.
the point of gw2 is to have fun.
win or lose is not important.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

the point of gw2 is to have fun.
win or lose is not important.

Wow, I didn’t know people actually thought like that.

Newsflash: people don’t like to lose.

It is just basic human psychology that males (majority of gamers) have. Sure, losing an occasional close match 499-500 might be fun, but if you never win, it’s going to suck. A player who fights 100 PvP matches and loses every single time, will most likely quit the game, never to return again.

Why do you think developers today make games too easy? Are they morons? Of course not. They make games easy because then less skilled players can “win”. If you make games too difficult, people will rage-quit and you make less money.

No serious PvP player plays just to “have fun”. They play to win. Why? Because it’s the winning that is the fun. If you personally don’t care about winning or losing, you are either not a serious PvP player, or you are the best player in GW2 and you have never lost a single match so you don’t know about the emotions related to a loss.

As I said before, Random Arenas in GW1 were great because there was the goal of 10 consecutive wins. GW2 “Random Arena” doesn’t have that. It’s just one single match after another. Who won? Who cares, just keep grinding that Glory like a zombie.

From my perspective this issue is really annoying because it would be so easy to fix. Just a small tweak that would have absolutely no downside. Make it happen, Anet!