Guild Wars 2

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ GvG: There’s a lot of equivocation around "GvG’. Keep in mind that when we’re talking about GvG here, we’re talking about a GAME TYPE. Don’t get this confused with two guilds fighting each other for positioning on a ladder. That’s something else we can do (and want to do), and that would work for CTF, or KOTH, or GvG, or conquest, etc.

For the GAME TYPE, people seem to be asking for:

• 2 lords. If you kill their lord you win.
• There are obstacles in the way (a lot of people use the MOBA analogies of having NPC’s or towers in the way…you defeat these in order to get to the opposing guild lord).
• I assume there’s a time limit?
• Do we do VoD again to stop people from turtling?

Hi John,

There are many interesting game modes we would love. Heck even Factions introduced some really cool modes with the Kurzicks and Luxons? (hope i remember right) So there are many creative angles you could take away.

I understand your hesitancy about GvG with towers and it resulting in bunkering forcing VoD, I’ve read posts about how this was the reason conquest was implemented.

I think there are unexplored ways to make this work without going this route, I’ll share my thoughts and visions. Have you ever considered the following.

All you need to prevent bunkering and just fighting in your base with NPC’s is and objective out in the open field, something worth fighting for, an objective, that would give an advantage should Victory or Death occur.

This would also make both teams choose a decision, play for the secondary objective, which is fine because it still leads to some great open field fair fights, or play a strategy that would try to wrap it up before VOD.

This way you can force 2 teams to push at each other while smaller skirmishes happen at the secondaries as people will be concerned about them for end game. No team can bunker because it would basically loose them the game as team one just sends a lot to the secondary,

If a lot of fighting happens at the secondary, it could open up some interesting sneak attack tactics with some of the scout classes.

As an example,
*Take the conquest points and make it so the more territory you controlled, the more powerful your NPC’s at the end of the game became, It would prevent bunkering as people would leave the base to go control these territories. If VoD were to occur, the team that played the best through the match and controlled the most territories would be rewarded by powerful buffs at the end of the game.
*Or perhaps you get additional NPC’s for each territory under your control should VOD occur.
*Obviously you can even add another secondary objective like Flag running (OLD SCHOOL) to this to create intresting side fights and advantages and disadvantages to the main fights.

This would work great because you likely can still use the maps you would create for this for conquest as well.

My personal 2 cents
I’d like to see multi team from halo make a comeback
Where you have 3 – 4 groups of 2 – 3 people

So instead of the hardcore team comp-y 2v2s or 3v3s
You could have you. Your 1 or 2 pvp friends who are online, or random people that are qued for it. and you guys could play Conquest, CTF, or TDM

And yes multi team isn’t made to be a very balanced kidna game.
But my god if it isn’t insanely fun

I’ll keep this post strictly to discussion, and do another post some other time for suggestions.

I’m glad to hear the devs clarify the issue of having game modes that have more or less than 5 people in games. It was something I tried to bring up in another thread but it didn’t get too much attention/discussion.

Promoting Group Play, aka promote zerg…
One thing I would like to see most in the game mode is having the players stick together more as a group and zerg. I know this is an absolute sin and blasphemy to suggest such a thing, but really I wouldn’t mind seeing more team fights in PvP. In the current mode we see people splitting up and doing their own thing way more. You might have 2 people roaming who backs up someone camping a point or something, when I would love to see something a bit more traditional 4v4/5v5/8v8 we saw, with a small handful splitting off of 2 or so.

Individual play in current meta is very important, and I’m glad GW2 has that now, as it was something rarely seen in GW1 PvP. The most you got was 1-2 man squads breaking off to rush the guild lord or run flags. It just would also be nice to see/have what we’ve had in the past. We get a bit of this in WvW, but it is a little too random/lopsided

In hot join you see this a lot unfortunately still, but thats just a mob fight usually. I would like to see and participate in a more organized team fight (although this may come naturally with many game modes beyond conquest, it is something I just wished to mention specifically)

More than 2 Teams
Similar to what Kentrey mentioned, I wouldn’t mind seeing 3-5 way fights, with more than just 2 teams competing (although more than just a team of 2 or 3, but a standard team size of 5.) That was an extremely fun part of heroes ascent and added a really unique strategy. Although one of the biggest problems with such systems is it favors a team that finishes the opponent quickly and moves onto the middle section, or a problem of teams waiting around, relying on the others to make the first move. For the former problem it can be good to reward those most dominant, but it can be difficult to balance so that they don’t get too much of an advantage, not to mention it disfavors more defensive teams. That and it can be very luck based if a decent team goes up a weak team and gains an advantage that way rather than through skill alone.

I’ll make a separate post for more specific ideas that aren’t like the ones we’ve currently seen, and some promoting the things I’ve mentioned here. I detest long posts a mile long and cover 10-15 different things. Hopefully we can start seeing discussion on more than the vague “more GvG” or “MOBA”

Building a Super Weapon
I hate to steal blatantly from another game, but I wouldn’t mind calling attention to a game mode in Multiwinia. The important and most basic premise is you have to hold certain locations which gives you resource, and once you’re maxed out on resource you have a countdown until you liftoff in your rocket and win. During this final countdown your enemy (there are usually 2 or 3 others trying to do the same) can come and attack you, potentially breaking your rocket and causing you to lose a lot of the resources you accumulated.

In guild wars 2 the basic idea is a couple (maybe even only one) resource point that the players have to capture, similar to a supply camp in Wvw. They bring the supply back to their base and work on building up whatever it is they’re building, and at a certain threshold the enemy can attack to reduce its current supply total. Make it simple like your team is building an alliance cannon that can wipe out the enemy team instantly/permanently or whatever, the lore isn’t important, but rather the idea of the gameplay.

Giant Robot Fight!
A very similar idea with a lot of overlap could be a golem designer map. Each team has a golem they build up over time. To differentiate this from the previous, the goelm is already finished, they just move it around the map and have skirmishes. Around the map are bonus powerups for the golems however that each team tries to accumulate. Golem vs Golem damage is very high, while player vs golem damage is significantly reduced. The abilities of the golem would be different from those in WvW, as they aren’t meant to be siege weapons. The goal is mainly to take down the enemy golem, keep your own safe, and improve on it by bringing it to certain location that randomly spawn over time on the map to receive specific upgrades (whether it be unique abilities, boons, stat buffs, etc)

Tug O’ War
A dolyak or some slow cart spawns at the center of the map, and the team that surrounds the dolyak will have it follow them slowly. Victory to the team that gets it to their side.

There is a lot to this idea though that can really flesh it out. Map design with the dolyak taking a slow long roundabout path, while the enemy can cut across quickly to get ahead. Provide the ability to (conditionally?) kill the dolyak, but that causes it to wait 2 minutes to respawn, rather than walking it back right from where it currently is.

There are also some pretty glaring problems. What stops the team with the dolyak from keeping 1 person on it, and just rushign straight to the enemy to keep them too occupied to bother with the dolyak? It would quickly turn into a simple death match. Should there be conditions on when or how to kill the dolyak? There is a lot to go with this idea, simple enough yet requires a lot of forethought.

Football/Soccer
There is a ball on the map. Use knockback skills to hit it into the enemy base. Really I don’t know why this isn’t already in the PvE minigames already it seems so obvious

@ King of the hill: We’ve actually tried it a few times internally. It usually devolves into a stalemate in the middle of the map, or one big cluster of bodies. Imagine: the middle point is the only point on the map, and both teams just run right to it…..10 people pop their elites….. there’s a 5on5, and then the game is over. Are there things you’d like to add in order to spice it up a little? IT SOUNDS GREAT…and then you play it…and it leaves a little to be desired.

A rotating hill is an absolute necessity. That way, any team winning a team fight will have to reassemble at a different area of the map in order to win another team fight. In doing this, the team that lost the team fight has the opportunity to set up in the next hill and get a head start on winning that team fight through positioning.

The problem with this is time based hills versus the time it takes to win a team fight. Once a team fight is won, there are going to be numerous situations in which the team that lost that fight will have absolutely no chance of taking the hill back quick enough in order to turn the match around.

This gets alleviated by two options.

Off of the hill secondary objects that directly effect the capture process of the hill. Capture buffs like temple, or boss kills, or something similar or new, can be used, and then whoever wins over those secondary objectives can get buffs along the lines of “resetting the hill to neutral” or “the enemy team takes twice as long to capture the hill for x seconds” or etc.

The other way to make sure matches don’t snowball in the team that wins the initial team fights favor (besides a rotating hill and secondary objectives) is; don’t make the hill a “capture and hold” objective. Instead, whichever team manages to capture the hill gets 1 point (just an example number), at which point the next hill becomes active, the capturing team of which gets another point, and let’s say for the example, it only goes to 10.

In this sense, the game mode is less of a king of the hill and more of an area capture or area defense style mode, but it would be fast paced, fair (it would definitely make sure the team with the best overall coordination combined with their individual skill comes out on top), and fun to watch.

@ King of the hill: We’ve actually tried it a few times internally. It usually devolves into a stalemate in the middle of the map, or one big cluster of bodies. Imagine: the middle point is the only point on the map, and both teams just run right to it…..10 people pop their elites….. there’s a 5on5, and then the game is over. Are there things you’d like to add in order to spice it up a little? IT SOUNDS GREAT…and then you play it…and it leaves a little to be desired.

What if the center point were harder to hold?

Make it so that there are numerous other points around the map that are not control points, but that allow for control. They could be things like siege weapons, buffs, etc., that would make an assault team almost unstoppable. This would mean that to hold the center, which is the only way to score points, you also need to weaken these outer areas, so you’d have to divide up your team accordingly. If you leave the external points undefended, then you might hold the center for a little bit, but then a crushing wave would wipe you all out and the other team would hold the center just as long.

As for other game types, have their been discussions about team racing? I was inspired by that show that Toonami’s been rerunning, IGPX. Have a race track map, where like with Sanctum Sprint, the goal is to get from A to B, with obstacles along the way, but unlike with Sprint, it would not override your skills, you would have to fight it out using class abilities.

Some skill would help you pass obstacles, some would slow your opponents down, some would help you defeat them. If an opponent is downed, they are instantly teleported to the nearest (passed) checkpoint and can continue from there. Teams could maybe also teleport up to the nearest checkpoint of their fastest player, perhaps, to keep teams closer together, and of course there would have to be “blue shell” capabilities to take the fastest players down a peg.

I think that could be a lot of fun. I don’t think it should be too “jumping skill” based, and should never require using certain travel moves (like Ride the Lightning) to compete, it should just be more about activating traps for your opponents and punching it out on a fairly casual track, basically a standard PvP match but constantly on the move.

Alternately it could be like roller derby, where the goal is to move around a relatively small track and each lap you take you get points for, while some players just try to slow the other team down.

I had another thought, what about a sort of “buff-based” king of the hill. The map would be very simple, it would be an inner ring, within which points could be scored, and “outer ring” that would do nothing and be about as wide, and then respawn points. You could reach the center of the map within seconds of respawning. Just standing in the center ring would get you nothing, however.

To earn points, you not only have to be standing in the center ring, but you also need to have the “Crown” buff on you. This would be a bit similar to the magnetic charge the golem gives you in the Asuran Fractal. The first person on the map to gain the buff is the first to reach the center, and he can pass it to team mates by hitting “f” when near them, which does the Communing animation and can be interrupted by enemy attacks.

Conceivably you could give your entire team the buff, if enemies did not prevent it. The other element would be that if anyone holding the “Crown” buff is killed, they lose the buff and the person that killed them receives it.

What I hope this would lead to is a steady boil of combat in that center circle, as each team tries to spread the buff to as many of their team as possible, and to keep as many buff-holders alive and in the center as possible, so that they keep accumulating points for the team every few seconds. You could have five buff-holders racking up points, and then they all get wiped out and suddenly the enemy has five buff-holders. maybe both teams are fully buffed and just trying to knock out someone on the opposing team without putting their own at risk.

I’m thinking maybe the outer ring would have plenty of LoS-blocking terrain, so that crowned players could sneak off and buff their team members with less chance of interrupt, but of course every second they spend out of the center is one that they aren’t earning any points.

I think there’s a lot of gameplay opportunity there.

I think this MOBA-thing could actually work in GW2. And since it’s really one of the most popular pvp-modes, it’s really worth a try in my oppinion.

Please don’t think too much about balance and other problems that could occur in new gamemodes. If you just make the new gamemode available as an option for the CAs, the community can test it and give you some feedback about it. I think this was also a bit the problem when there were new maps – instead of making them available for tests in CAs first, they were just thrown into the rated matchs.

MOBA gameplay would be amazing. You already dabbled with it in numerous mini-games. Obviously the progression aspect would be different (unlock your chosen skills or w/e) or non-existent, but the core idea would be phenomenal. If you think about it, it’s essentially the “2 lords” idea with a few pre-requisites. And maybe a Guild Wars twist or two

That’s the kind of thing we need.

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ team sizes over 5: I know some people really like the idea of having games of 8v8 -> 15 v 15, but in reality, these games are often hard to set up. I think that 5on5 is much easier to organize as a player. When I was a GW1 player, playing competitive GvG, we had many nights where we had a hard time getting all 8 people on, night after night, in order to train. A lot of competitive games have settled on the 5 person team (CS, all mobas, etc.), and it’s an easier # to organize than 8 or 15 person teams.

I think 5 is the biggest team size we’d want for organized play, and we could try smaller teams, but due to multiple reasons, teams greater than 5 would probably be too large for GW2.

That will be the question if you dont try it. I can understand, that setting up 15 player will be tough for some guilds, but it could be solved with fixed teamsizes to join, lets say 5, 10 or 15 of one guild, the rest of another guild. And make more objectives that requires small squads, like supply camps in WvW.

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ King of the hill: We’ve actually tried it a few times internally. It usually devolves into a stalemate in the middle of the map, or one big cluster of bodies. Imagine: the middle point is the only point on the map, and both teams just run right to it…..10 people pop their elites….. there’s a 5on5, and then the game is over. Are there things you’d like to add in order to spice it up a little? IT SOUNDS GREAT…and then you play it…and it leaves a little to be desired.

King of the hill is a very tactical game mode, 2 sides waiting for the other sides mistakes, to punish them.
Current PvP maps arent good for king of the hill. King of the hill maps requires a large battle zone and lots of sneaky ways to get to this point. You shouldnt be able to see the enemies minutes before the fight starts.

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ GvG: There’s a lot of equivocation around "GvG’. Keep in mind that when we’re talking about GvG here, we’re talking about a GAME TYPE. Don’t get this confused with two guilds fighting each other for positioning on a ladder. That’s something else we can do (and want to do), and that would work for CTF, or KOTH, or GvG, or conquest, etc.

For the GAME TYPE, people seem to be asking for:

• 2 lords. If you kill their lord you win.
• There are obstacles in the way (a lot of people use the MOBA analogies of having NPC’s or towers in the way…you defeat these in order to get to the opposing guild lord).
• I assume there’s a time limit?
• Do we do VoD again to stop people from turtling?

I dont think an instant win keeplord would be the way to go. This would end in 1 thief and 4 warriors zerging invisible toward the enemies base and who is faster wins. With a group of 5 it is impossible to find the balance between defending and attacking.

I would call the above keep vs keep and not GvG. GvG should be a measurement of two guilds forces and this cant be done with 5 people out of 70 for example. I see GvG as a small scale WvW version, with organized teams.

Some examples I can imagine

• 15vs15 players. premade groups of 5 players up to 15 of one guild.
• 3 towers and a few smaller objective that give some bonuses
• inside these tower there is either a cap point or a tower lord. I would like a cap point because of the constant time needed.
• Doors need to be opened with bombs. Bombs need 15-30 seconds to blow up, but can be disarmed by the defending team (not while invisible and interrupted on attack).
• The person carry them is marked for the enemy team, 25% slower and cant be made invis. But with the possibility to throw it to other teammates like rocks, to be faster, but requires more coordination.
• Supply camps that allows building defense structures or reinforce the towers. With the difference, that the supply is carried as an environmental weapon, making supply carrier vulnerable.
• A NPC camp that can increase the pressure for one side of the teams. harpies landing on top of one tower and attacking the people inside.

If players want 8v8/15v15, why not give it to them? It’s clear that you (Arena Net) don’t want it, but players do. In the end, isn’t that what matters the most – what players want?

Heroes’ Ascent worked great in GW2, however ranks made the game mode frustrating for the newer players, not the team size.

I’m no designer or developer, but maps in HA/GvG were extremely simplistic with easy to understand objectives and mechanics, I find it hard to believe that it would be hard to recreate something similar in GW2.

2v2 arena ladder would be really really awesome (since 5v5 is such a mess and barely professional, there is no real room for making real tactical decisions and reactive gameplay to take place, you just get carried away by the flow of particle spam and such)

Also it would be awesome to have a game mode where you can be whatever character you’d like to be by the press of a button preprogrammed, so people could show off their skills in knowing all the characters in a pvp fight. (Like for example i preprogram to be a warrior with such and such skills on button press 1, and i preprogram to be a necro button press 2.

Maybe you should also give the chance to the community to actually let them program npcs, for example make scripts for self contained bosses in built guild castles, which could be challenged by other guilds. Also if you could come up with a real in game modding api, where people could allocate a certain virtual area, where they could put and program what ever they’d like to, so every guild should have their very own unique gaming ideas what others could try out. Or imagine a guild wars 2 where players define what is gonna happen to the environment, like moving guild castles with ghosts swarming the place where they go, or a dragon guild who hatches dragons to fight for their heir, or players riding giants into battle to swarm the all mighty capital cities. Let players to be the evil of the game, as how they want to define it. You could make this to the shop also, like adding modding features for also gold and diamonds into the shop, for example, you could buy an npc for x gold and an npc programming kit for another x gold while binding the two together would make out for something, so this would actually make people to work together to make something fantastic, unique in an always changing and interesting world.

I think Mobas could work, too. Maybe not as a pvp mode, but instead as an PvE minigame. But it should be possible as competitive PvP.

You need character progression to make a moba work, thats a fact.

• Starting with a “nacked” level 66 champion. They can choose one weapon set at the beginning.
• level 66 because you get 14 level ups and with each level up 5 trait points. (starting with level 1 and increase levels by 5 would be too imbalanced i think).
• every one has only his #1 skill and a heal skill at the beginning (healskills probably need to be tuned down by a debuff at the beginning -70% increasing (?) by 5% per character level)
• im not sure how to unlock utility skills. Get one slot every 3 level could work the best i think. other idea was skill points per level up and per X creeps killed
• every creep grants an amount of coins, which allows you to buy items.
• items could be some earrings, rings and amulets, which gives a total bonus of what we have now, but you get them in smaller steps.
• weapons could be white, blue, green, yellow up to exotics. which could be some tactical element, buy a green weapon and make some kills or wait until you get an exotic.
• runes and sigils stay the same. but no greens or yellows, this would make it to complex.

the map:
The map would be the normal moba map, with 3 lanes, a jungle and 3 tower per lane and a structure at the end that needs to be destroyed.
A normal map with forrest wont work, because you can see the jungler through there, some sort of ruins or a labyrinth with walls should work here.
Grass that makes people invisible was implementes in lasts year Halloween moba sort of thing, so this works.
An open question could be the view over this grass, it is possible to see the jungler behind the grass. Is this good or bad? I think it isnt that bad, we have no wards and no top view like in other mobas, so we cant see everything going on arround us.

Yogen.2395:

Also it would be awesome to have a game mode where you can be whatever character you’d like to be by the press of a button preprogrammed, so people could show off their skills in knowing all the characters in a pvp fight. (Like for example i preprogram to be a warrior with such and such skills on button press 1, and i preprogram to be a necro button press 2.

I think swithing classes you can define is bad, but what about a all random “fun” gamemode.

Builds are preprogrammed by anet or can be defined in custom arenas (doesnt matter here, would only be more work for anet). And you have to life with what build you get. This could be interesting for new player to understand all classes and learn to play, without creating all characters.

JonathanSharp.7094:

The current thinking is that a tournament could be decided by something like (using your examples):

1st game: Capture the Flag (not saying we’d do that, but it’s an example).
2nd game: One of the Conquest maps.
3rd game: King of the Hill (not saying we’d do that, but …you know the drill).

That way there’s variety, which means teams need to be strong in multiple game types.

@SinDen: Yep, we have a lot of cool features that are being worked on right now for PvP. A lot of them are really big, and take a lot of time to develop. That’s just how things are unfortunately when it comes to those new systems. I do think that new game types, in addition to the new features, would be good though, and that’s what we’re aiming at!

John, a mix mode is not a solution if every mode has many problems.

Main focus needs to be a game mode enjoyable to watch and to play. It means no massive fight (4vs4, 5vs5) in a small place, to not split the actions in many points at the same time so people can follow easy the game and player know what their team mates are doing every time.

When people organized a 3vs3 deathmatch tournament, it worked very well because there wasn’t fight on a small point and with 6 people on fight there wasn’t a big confusion and it was easy to understand what happened.

People (spectators) and players need to understand everything in game, if there is confusion, actions splitted, it’s a fail mode.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Phaeton.9582:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Has ANet given up on capture point PvP?

Yeah once they’ve released the new game type they’ll delete the old one

No, not necessarily. In the future, we could do a combination of game types, in the same way that Call of Duty does multiple game types, or counter strike does multiple (escort or disarm).

We’ll have to see how that pans out, based on fan feedback.

@John: Erm I was being sarcastic there, why would you halt an existing game mode which we are all clearly still playing? ^^

@Chris+John: Also check out this thread, discussing a possible change to the way the orb is handled on spirit watch. One of the more significant innovations to MMO game type design in the last few years..

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Can-we-take-anything-from-SWTOR

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ King of the hill: We’ve actually tried it a few times internally. It usually devolves into a stalemate in the middle of the map, or one big cluster of bodies. Imagine: the middle point is the only point on the map, and both teams just run right to it…..10 people pop their elites….. there’s a 5on5, and then the game is over. Are there things you’d like to add in order to spice it up a little? IT SOUNDS GREAT…and then you play it…and it leaves a little to be desired.

Why does it always have to be 5v5?? it could be 5v5v5 or even 5v5v5v5 ??? would be way more fun and it’s not just 4 Teams pop their elites. don’t u remember GW1?

JonathanSharp.7094:

I think 5 is the biggest team size we’d want for organized play, and we could try smaller teams, but

But this makes mid-scale strategic combat scenarios impossible (and don’t kid yourselves, WvW isn’t really strategic).
How can there be splits with only 5 players? Specialist roles like flag running? How can players role diversify to begin with, if due to the nature of small teams everyone is required to be 100% self-sufficient in both healing/support, but more importantly damage?
The value of one mainly control or mainly support player rapidly goes down as team size decreases. With 5, it’s more prudent to just take another fully-damage (+ intrinsic survivability) specced player, so that they are able to kill other players equally fast.
I know providing this “possibility” of self-sufficiency is your goal for most forms of sPvP, and it has it’s merit in hotjoin or Conquest, but really interesting organized play requires more than that.
Heck, look at WvW. The tactical team-play there (within guilds/other organized groups) is ironically much greater because the players are not forced into this one very narrow playstyle. They can diversify into control and support roles, their role isn’t just to spike a target down when called in TS.
You just don’t get that in tPvP.

Your reaction might be that we should go play WvW then. But we’re not talking about 30v30 engagements. We’re also not talking about only being able to play on an equal footing whenever the stars align.
We are talking about 8v8 GvG/KOTH/anything but Conquest, with strategic split skirmishes of 2v2/6v6, 2v2/5v5/1v1, etc. probably occurring more often than all 16 gathering at one spot (i.e. the “massive” 8v8 battles would only occur at key phases like lord battles anyway).
Where do you suggest a mesmer specced for blinds and rupts is more able to shine, in a 8v8 or in a 5v5? Where a shout/banner warrior? A supportive Consecration guardian?
You are crippling your own build variety with your insistence on 5v5! 8v8 needs it’s own organized format as well.
And if it didn’t work out you can still always remove it. It was done in GW1 all the time. Heroes’ Ascent switched from 8v8 to 6v6 to 8v8 and several game modes were shelved. You should be more confident!

@ King of the hill: We’ve actually tried it a few times internally. It usually devolves into a stalemate in the middle of the map, or one big cluster of bodies. …

This actually supports my point.
If you die in a 5v5 KotH, your team lost.
If two players die out of 10, you still have a chance to comeback. With bigger teams, there’s figuratively more buttons to push, more variables you can affect in your favour.
You played GW1 KotH, right? There were 24 players, on three sides, and the fight often raged for 10 minutes or longer. It’s not an inherent flaw of the mode in this context. I’d say smaller team sizes and only two sides make KotH, ironically, more chaotic.

Bigger cap points would be solution too. It doesn’t even have to be a traditional cap node. Make it a plaza with buildings on/around it. Or an actual hill with plenty of room to maneuever on. Why not? Or make it dangerous to approach the KotH node head-on without a plan. Put a strong NPC or traps there that will be a factor in the first 1-2 minutes or so of a game, but not after.
Of course, secondary objectives could on a KotH map exist as well, such that encourage splits or other specialists and benefit in the capping of the central node. This further increases healthy complexity. If you put to much emphasis on splitting, you’re weakening your position at the frontline. If you don’t split enough, your foe will gain an edge there. It’s ingenious.

We should appreciate KotH for what it is – it’s not a “fast paced” Arcade game mode as GW2 seems to have aimed for (I don’t consider Conquest that, since it has insane amounts of downtime just standing/running around, but whatever). It’s a battle of attrition where everything depends on strategy of resource allocation and masterful tactical tie-breaking moves.

JonathanSharp.7094:

The current thinking is that a tournament could be decided by something like (using your examples):

1st game: Capture the Flag (not saying we’d do that, but it’s an example)…

Yes, exactly! You don’t have to make half a dozen maps for each such game mode. If you bring it into one such framework it’s more than enough if there are only 1-2 per at the start. You won’t get monotony.

Admittedly I haven’t read back through all the pages and I’m not really a sPVPer, but I just want to put my two cents in. You guys say you want GvG and the like, and I’ve seen mentionings of a MOBA-like map… but personally I think it should be drawing inspiration from WvW.

Now I don’t mean a godly-huge map with all sorts of supply and towers and stuff like that. What I’m suggesting is plop down two towers (like from WvW) on either end of a map. Bam, you got the whole thing set up. Lord in the middle, guards around the tower, destructible walls and gates around it, possibly even defenses like cannons and oil and such (Maybe such upgrades purchasable for the Guild?).

Some things would have to be changed of course. Supply would likely be non-existant. Repairing defenses should probably not be an option (Allowing battles to last less time), siege might need to be worked differently (Perhaps spawned by capping points?), and gate and wall health might need to be toned down a bit.

There could also be “Assault/defend” variants similar to the original Guild Wars. One keep on one side, and one defended camp on the other. These could allow for other things as well, such as the Assaulters getting the option to escort siege golems to try to take down the Defenders’ gate, which the Defenders have to stop.

MarkPhilips.5169:

John, a mix mode is not a solution if every mode has many problems.

Well then they shouldn’t have. I don’t see the logic behind your assumption. It’s not like they would have to make an equal number of maps to Conquest, not anytime soon.

Main focus needs to be a game mode enjoyable to watch and to play.

A game mode framework that does not induce monotony is more enjoyable to watch and play.

and player know what their team mates are doing every time.

It’s called communication.

When people organized a 3vs3 deathmatch tournament, it worked very well because there wasn’t fight on a small point and with 6 people on fight there wasn’t a big confusion and it was easy to understand what happened.

Watching 6 people whacking at each other without a goal … except for whacking … sounds (and looks) boring to me.

People (spectators) and players need to understand everything in game, if there is confusion, actions splitted, it’s a fail mode.

Are you saying people are too stupid to follow split actions? Why then are MOBAs and Starcraft the most spectated games in the world?

General MOST IMPORTANT: DO NOT MAKE A MOBA MODE.

There are enough MOBA games out there, it is NOT your priority to make a MOBA mode inside of GW2 while it is really a type of game and not a type of pvp only. In my eyes a MOBA is pvp in a pve environment and that just doesn’t fit in the current sPvP/tPvP we have.

My suggestion isn’t simply about which game modes could be added. Adding new game modes is just a start. I think the way these game modes are implemented in the current pvp system is also a part of this “Discussion”. Like Jonathan has said: “Together we will share and evolve design philosophies which will impact how we develop the game moving forward.” These two posts are exactly about that.

The new game modes i suggest(in order of importance):

-Deathmatch => new maps for this mode

-Capture The Flag => new maps/adapted existing maps for this mode(new maps preferably)

-Improved Conquest mode. Make the maps bigger, add a new capture point and change them a bit. There have been many suggestions to improve conquest. => existing adapted maps for this mode

Many other game modes could be added or you could choose other game modes to implement. I’m sure Anet itself and a lot of other people have enough suggestions.

All of the following is about how you could implement any game mode in an all-around system of friendly and competitive play with adapted rewards.

sPvP

Make the rewards different for each division I make… 1v1 deatmatch rewards shouldn’t be of the same magnitude as 5v5 rewards etc. You could start off by slightly tweaking the current reward chests and then improving the reward for each XvX one by one until players are satisfied.( I think your best shot would be first introducing new game modes and a system to implement them in and then go on with rewards in the next big discussion…)

sPvP divisions I suggest:

-1v1 Deathmatch Mode

-3v3 Random Order Q(random cycling between all the game modes AND maps). TEAM Q ONLY

-5v5 Random Order Q(random cycling between all the game modes AND maps) SOLO AND TEAM Q(because it’s easier to find 2 friends to play with rather than 4)

• Matchmaking for deathmatch mode should be random. For 2v2/3v3 and 5v5 there should be some system so that experienced players face experienced players and vice versa. Some kind of “all-time-ladder” based on #games won in all modes and maps other than skywalker. soloQ teams don’t face teamQ teams.

-The current “8v8 hotjoin” For a Game Mode of Choice(NOT Random Order Q) This way people that don’t want to practice for tPvP can simply play their favorite game mode in sPvP !

These all only have an effect upon your rank and glory, nothing more. Make sure that you can’t farm glory/rank by only playing one particular division in one mode “because the distribution of glory/rank in one of the divisions is not correctly implemented”.

tPvP Completely Different Reward System then sPvP !

In my eyes tpvp should have some kind of “ladder-like” system which is reset monthly instead of the current leaderboards. Each division should have its own ladder.

Top5 or Top10 gets rewards according to their position. Rewards to be in the top of the ladder at the end of the month should be in the form of gold(so we can buy gems and pve stuff ingame ), laurels(with new PvP Laurel Vendors where you could get unique cosmetic items, preferably weapons, along with other things ; NOT ARMOR), glory points, rank points and be able to pick 1,2 or three pieces of armor from MULTIPLE UNIQUE SETS of armor that really distinguishes you from other players.

-IF Top 5, N1 can choose 3 pieces, N2-3 can choose 2 pieces and N4-5 can choose 1 piece.
-IF Top 10 N1-2 can choose 3 pieces, N3-5 can choose 2 pieces and N6-10 can choose 1 piece.

Special achievements/titles should be added. Being 2 months or more in a row in top5/10 should also be rewarded with more gold, laurels, glory and rank points according to the position and amount of times being in the top5/10 consecutively.

Matchmaking should be according to ladder position and gaining position in the ladder has to be experimented with thoroughly(something with points should work best, win = +points, loose = -points) !

tPvP divisions I suggest:

-Rated 1v1 Deathmatch Mode(let’s call it the DeathMatch Ladder)

-Rated 3v3 Where 3 or more Game Modes are cycled through in a random fashion.
Each game mode is only allowed to be played once. More consecutive wins means better rewards at the end of the match with a bonus to ladder position and a special reward if you reach the third/fourth/fifth/…(depends how many game modes available) win. TEAM Q ONLY

-Rated 5v5 Where 3 or more Game Modes are cycled through in a random fashion. Each game mode is only allowed to be played once. More consecutive wins means better rewards at the end of the match with a bonus(a multiplier would be best, something like 2nd win is x1.25, 3rd win is x1.5 and 4th win is x2) to ladder points and a special reward if you reach the fourth win. TEAM Q ONLY

Personally I would split the 3v3 and 5v5 ladder. This way you could make a Top5 where the TOP TEAMS are listed and each person that is member of the team gets the reward at the end of the month. The DeathMatch Ladder could be Top10. You can only get rewards for DeathMatch AND [3v3 OR 5v5]. This would force you to be mostly present in ONE team ladder + the DM ladder.

These were a couple of suggestions that could definitely be implemented in sPvP and tPvP to make it much more attractive for newer and hardcore players. This is far from perfect, but it is simply what I had in mind. I REALLY HOPE YOU ALREADY HAVE A SIMILAR SYSTEM IN MIND FOR THE FUTURE…

About big teams

I would like to see a game mode that puts several small teams in the same map, similar to AB in GW1. For example, 2 teams at each side consisting of 3 players each. That would be a 6v6, except each player would only need to gather two friends and queue.

It would also create an interesting situation where organized teams would have to cooperate with other organized teams. Maybe a good opportunity to meet new players?

About KotH

I can understand why King of the Hill would be a mess. Maybe it would work better in a 3v3 format, or as a secondary objective. It’s worth noting that Foefire map can already be adapted to different game modes. You could have, for example, an assault the base/ kill the lord main objective, with a KotH secondary objective at the middle.

About GvG

To be honest, I would like to see a fusion of MOBA style gameplay and WvW sieging. Why? Simply because it would be original, it would be epic, and it would make GW2 stand out from other PvP games in the market.

Here’s my rough concept:
1. Instead of minions waves to destroy towers, the map would have NPC waves to use siege weaponry to break doors and walls.
1.1. NPC siege soldiers would spawn if sieges exist.
1.2. NPC engineers would spawn to build or repair sieges.
1.3. The “guild leader” would decide where and which sieges would be build. NPCs would automatically move towards the build zone.
2. One of the main player’s objectives is to defend own sieges and to destroy or disrupt the opponent’s sieges.
2.1. This would be acchieved by slaying the NPCs, but if an opposing player would be there to protect them, a deathmatch would occur.
2.2. It would be similar to defending or assaulting conquest points, but there would be less emphasis on bunkers and more on ally support.
3. Somewhere in the map, perhaps at the middle, there would exist either a KotH point or an orb. Holding the point or taking the orb to the base would offer resource advantage (in own base) or help bombing the enemy’s gates (their base).
4. Somewhere hidden in the map, some NPC enemies could be destroyed and some treasures looted. They would spawn every few minutes, and the rewards would be resource advantage.
5. A resource system would allow teams to progress through the match, but not by level of by equipment. Instead, it would unlock new or stronger sieges, new or stronger food and other items buffs, and new or stronger NPC allies.
5.1. Examples for new sieges: just look at the diversity of sieges in WvW AND how wvw levels affect them. In GvG, there could exist base sieges, which would cost resources, and there could exist improved versions, that apply extra conditions or other effects.
5.2. Examples for food buffs: just look at pve. They would add regeneration, improve stats, etc. There would be plenty of them, so each player would have to know the better stats to invest on based on their team, the opposing team, the current situation and the meta.
5.3. Examples of new NPCs: armored NPCs (higher toughness), faster NPCs (roamers), bomber NPCs (they drop bombs when they are slayed), etc, etc, etc.
6. Once the walls or the doors are broken, the final objective would be to slay the lord, or maybe to spread the team and prevent the zerg, to destroy 2 or 3 different power cores within the base.
7. On death, players would spawn on their base. However, there should exist an ability to quickly teleport them to their base to get stronger item buffs, better sieges, etc.

Number of players required:
1 Guild Leader, with access to siege “shop”;
1 Second-in-command, to take the role of the leader whenever needed;
(Assuming there are two “best spots” for catapult sieges)
2+ players to defend their own sieges;
2+ players to disrupt the enemy’s sieges;
1+ player/s for KotH or orb running;
0-1+ player to roam where needed, or to hunt NPCs/ treasures;

This could work well in a 8v8 scenario or even for bigger teams, but I suppose it could also be done with 5v5, depending on execution. This level of team flexibility would be nice also for custom arenas/ hotjoin.

GvG

Guild Versus Guild is needed with completely different rewards then sPvP and tPvP. The rewards should be guild-oriënted. I’m not sure but some people want to see GvG implemented in sPvP and tPvP as big battlegrounds, but as you already stated, more than 5v5 will be hard.

In my eyes GvG is more of a PvE or WvW issue then sPvP/tPvP. It should be a 5v5 or 6v6 fight between guilds only with a Guild Ladder. What you COULD do is separate “PVP-GvG” and “PVE/WvW-GvG” to satisfy everyone. A guild can only inscribe itself in one ladder because obviously people that play sPvP and tPvP are “better” than regular PvE/WvW players skillwise. It could be a good stimulation for PvE/WvW players to actually check out PvP !

GvG itself should be separate from PvE, WvW, tPvP or sPvP. It should have its “own place” like PvP has heart of the mists, WvW has the battlegrounds and PvE has a whole world.

Getting Started

Now before you implement any of these game modes or would like to evolve into a system like this… you should do it with a lot of precaution.

What I think you could do is first implement the Deathmatch mode for 1v1 and 3v3(and MAYBE add 5v5) in sPvP AND tPvP(DM isn’t hard to develop so you can implement them in both s and t). It’s the most basic and wanted form of pvp at the moment.

Afterwards you can add any other game mode, one by one to sPvP FIRST. Other game modes should definitely be 5v5 aswell. Make them so that we don’t get kittened fights where no one knows what happens most of the time. When you first add them to sPvP you should not do it in “random order q”, but do it so that you can choose that specific new mode to play. When it reaches a “stable state”( = after you’ve fixed all the bugs and problems) you can add it in Random Order Q in both sPvP and tPvP and REMOVE the option to choose for that game mode specifically in sPvP.

If you follow my idea you would first develop a more or less “buggless” DM mode for sPvP and tPvP while adding capture the flag to sPvP afterwards. Once capture the flag goes to tPvP you can start working to improve the current conquest mode. You could also implement these improvements while adding the 2 other modes.

Thanks for reading and please don’t remove my posts and tell them to put in the “suggestions” thread. Because this is really only about this discussion.

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ team sizes over 5: I know some people really like the idea of having games of 8v8 -> 15 v 15, but in reality, these games are often hard to set up. I think that 5on5 is much easier to organize as a player. When I was a GW1 player, playing competitive GvG, we had many nights where we had a hard time getting all 8 people on, night after night, in order to train. A lot of competitive games have settled on the 5 person team (CS, all mobas, etc.), and it’s an easier # to organize than 8 or 15 person teams.

I think 5 is the biggest team size we’d want for organized play, and we could try smaller teams, but due to multiple reasons, teams greater than 5 would probably be too large for GW2.

Thank you.

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ GvG: There’s a lot of equivocation around "GvG’. Keep in mind that when we’re talking about GvG here, we’re talking about a GAME TYPE. Don’t get this confused with two guilds fighting each other for positioning on a ladder. That’s something else we can do (and want to do), and that would work for CTF, or KOTH, or GvG, or conquest, etc.

For the GAME TYPE, people seem to be asking for:

• 2 lords. If you kill their lord you win.
• There are obstacles in the way (a lot of people use the MOBA analogies of having NPC’s or towers in the way…you defeat these in order to get to the opposing guild lord).
• I assume there’s a time limit?
• Do we do VoD again to stop people from turtling?

If you read my post about flag being part of the gvg mode, I said that if you forfeit flags then you have to be put up against a timer to either kill the lord or cap the flag. What I wasn’t able to figure out yet is the case if a team has flag capped and they can successfully stop enemy from capping it, how do you make that team move into the enemy base for lord kill, since they could just wait outside and prevent enemy from capping and win after few “morale boosts”. It would have to be mechanic that would put that team that is ahead into a 50/50 chance to win position. That way if they are already ahead they would want to finish game early and avoid that 50/50 scenario at all cost. And the defending team would not be able to turtle inside their base till VoD hits, because they would lose from “morale boosts”. I think that would eliminate the stalemate that was seen in GW1 once one team wiped at flagstand and turtled till VoD. How exactly should VoD look like to give both teams 50/50 chance to win? I don’t know. Yet.

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ Giving you guys the tools so you can just make game types yourselves: I wish we could do this. I really do. This is how counsterstrike and dota were born. I was there when it happened, as a player, and I loved it. For GW2, it takes a LOT to make a map. It takes design, scripting, a map artist, programmers, a prop artist, a sound engineer, voice over, etc. It’s not as simple as “give us your tools and we’ll do it”. It takes a lot to make a map in an MMO.

I know it takes a lot to create a map, but art and sounds are just polishing. Scripting and programming could be done by community. If community is willing to spend time developing new map or game mode then why not. Forget about maps not being pretty or having no sounds. I wouldn’t mind if I had to run on a map made out of basic polygon cubes if it’s just for testing. If the concept works, if the scripting is done properly, if the basic idea of the map and game mode is fun and enjoyable and works, then you can take that and do you art&sound magic on top of that. Correct me if I am wrong.

2v2 / 3v3 Arena Deathmatch

3v3 to 8v8 Capture the flag (depending on map size). Flag could be an orb with a throw mechanic. Or maybe use a different mechanic for the orb carrier altogether like in keg brawl.

Has any consideration been given to mish-mashing many win conditions in to a single game mode?

Making multiple modes (in my experience) will just cause most builds and team compositions to function in one mode but not another. And if all modes are used in official play the most sure method of winning will have to be very specific builds and compositions which apply to more than one mode in the best way possible. It will discourage build diversity and team composition even more than the conquest-only mapset does now.

Putting many win conditions in a single mode (so long as those win conditions are properly balanced against each other) allows players to build team compositions around what they want to do, how they want to win, and require them to strategize around how their opponent wants to win. The game becomes less about construction (individual builds) and more about live play, team composition, and strategy.

Example:

• A mode gains points by (A) point control (B) CTF and ( C ) a scaling kill-point mechanic. Players will build around one, two, or all three of those objectives. But at the same time their enemy may build around the same win-condition(s) or a completely different one/set.
• So the question of strategy becomes what team resources do you use to maximize point gain and prevent enemy point gain? Your team builds with bunkers and point control in mind, theirs builds with mobility and CTF in mind.
• Do you have one person sit on each point and send two to disrupt the CTF chain? Or do you go full bunker on all three and make it a point race? What if they have a duelist build on their team that can take a 1-man guarded point? What if they get ahead using CTF then use the kill-point mechanic to force a death match?

So one thing that I would love to see:

Asymmetric PvP

Two teams with different objectives. One defends, the other attacks.

The background could be (for example):

• Defending the keep while building a weapon (like Fort Aspenwood in GW1). The defenders win if they complete their weapon before their base is destroyed.

• The defenders are transfering something valuable (npc or weapon or energy crystal or whatnot) through a dense forest. The attackers try to disrupt the operation skirmish style.

• The defending team is guarding an armory where a golem is being build. The attackers try to steal as many energy crystals as they can. After a set amount of time the engineers are done building the golem and there is a check for energy. If failed, the base explodes and the attackers win. If succeeded the new security golem will demolish the attackers.

• The attackers get a small timewindow in which to assassinate 10 essential npcs. After that the alarmbells start ringing and the doors get locked. The defenders are watching the area and guarding the NPC’s. 8/10 npc’s must die.

• The smugglers are trying to carry orbs from their camp to the pipelines. The defenders are guarding the border with stealth-revealing flashlights. The defenders get points by taking back orbs, the smugglers get points by delivering the orbs.

Basically any type of battle in which one team has different goals than the other.

The obvious downside is that it is really hard to balance (they did a really good job on FA in GW1 though).

The major upside is that we get a game mode that offers two perspectives that play wildly different.

This is probably not the best tournament material, unless teams are playing both sides and win by total score. (With points being awarded for how effective you were)

Is this asymmetric design something that is possible? Or will it be too much work to balance?

And most importantly: do you think it is fun? I sure do, it could create new roles to play and new strategies. It would reward careful planning more beforehand and adjusting the enemies strategy ofcourse!

Given that ANet is thinking about different game modes, will they be reworking how many of the existing mechanics work in order to support both capture point and ‘game mode X’?

For example, in capture point, the entire stealth mechanic is balanced upon the concept that a node cannot be captured while a player is stealthed. As we know from WvW, when you remove the capture points, stealth becomes an overwhelmingly imbalanced game mechanic. I believe Jonathan Sharp used the term ‘Apex Predator’. In something other than capture point, stealth is an Apex Predator mechanic.

Will developers be re-evaluating some of the game mechanics when they consider implementing a new game mode?

JonathanSharp.7094:

I think 5 is the biggest team size we’d want for organized play, and we could try smaller teams, but due to multiple reasons, teams greater than 5 would probably be too large for GW2.

It’s definitely easier to get together, but frankly team size should be determined by the game mode and map sizes, not by an arbitrary consideration of “ok, how many friends does the average GW2 player have?” 5 is good for Conquest, but for GvG it wouldn’t be. Why? Well, you want to make the base NPCs numerous and strong enough that they’re not too easy to gank, and so that the team that has the most NPCs alive at VoD has a distinct advantage. But if you do that, teams that employ a split strategy would need to send at least 2 people as a gank squad. This would leave the fight at the flagstand as 2v4 (assuming a flagrunner on each team as well), which because there’s just so much more damage in GW2, would be over in SECONDS! If the team size were, for example, 6 instead, the flagstand fight would be 3v5, which is a lot more manageable.
So please don’t put an arbitrary team size in your minds while designing new game modes: be prepared to be flexible, and trust your players that if then game is fun enough people will get together!
Think of it this way: in GW1’s heyday, even though the game had a lot fewer players in total, and even though PvPers were divided between tournament (Tombs), GvG, random and team arenas, the scene was thriving, it was pretty easy to get a pug team in Heroes Ascent, and there was even an IRC channel doing pug GvGs! I’m sorry you didn’t find it so easy but once I joined a big enough alliance I never had a problem (particularly after you dropped the minimum number of native guild members required for a GvG to 4 so people from the rest of the alliance could guest). I’m having A LOT more trouble getting 5 people together for GW2 even though I’m once again in a large guild and there are literally MILLIONS more players around – and the reason for that is simply that Conquest is less fun! Just make the game more fun, and trust us for the rest, don’t try to babysit us!

@ King of the hill: We’ve actually tried it a few times internally. It usually devolves into a stalemate in the middle of the map, or one big cluster of bodies. Imagine: the middle point is the only point on the map, and both teams just run right to it…..10 people pop their elites….. there’s a 5on5, and then the game is over. Are there things you’d like to add in order to spice it up a little? IT SOUNDS GREAT…and then you play it…and it leaves a little to be desired.

You could try the GW1 method of having a Ghostly Hero commune with an “altar” on the hill in order to capture it. And the hill is neutralised either by killing the enemy’s Ghostly Hero or having your own complete a commune. That way it doesn’t depend on a pile-on of bodies on the hill and rampant knockbacks to get them off.

For the GAME TYPE, people seem to be asking for:

• 2 lords. If you kill their lord you win.
• There are obstacles in the way (a lot of people use the MOBA analogies of having NPC’s or towers in the way…you defeat these in order to get to the opposing guild lord).
• I assume there’s a time limit?
• Do we do VoD again to stop people from turtling?

Sounds good to me, VOD at the 20’ mark (or even 15’), with all the NPCs leavign the base at once. I didn’t favour the original GW1 system of having them come out in waves. It made for a few exciting matches by creating a window in which lord ganks were a lot easier, but otoh it devalued the NPC advantage too much. Tiebreaker 5’ later in case both lords are still alive (for example team with the most player kills wins, or team whose lord has the highest HP). Obstacles in the way can be of various forms, from locked gates you have to carry an item to to open (like in the Warriors/Wizards/Hunters Isle maps), to NPCs you have to fight past (eg Burning Isle) to simply a long distance to run (eg Isle of the Dead).

I don’t see why you’re feeling the need to reinvent the wheel when you have such an awesome template to base yourselves on!

manveruppd.7601:

Hugs.1856:

Pvp never really took off because of:

- combat system itself – pace of the game mainly

<snip>

- does the pace of the game allow for clutch moments along with some more """""quiet"""" ones?
<snip>

I think if you’re discussing game modes it should be hand-in-hand with a discussion of the pace of the combat, as the action mechanics determine the scale of the fights. I’ve long suspected that then reason the devs chose Conquest as the main game mode is because they realised that the game is great for smallish fights, but full-on team fights are so fast-paced, chaotic, and drowned out in particle effects, that they become an indecipherable.

I also think one of the reasons the combat system and conquest were chosen is because it’s really not conducive To full, long and repeated team fights. The way gw1’s combat system and GvG mechanics worked could lead to 30 minutes stale fights.

To prevent this they decided to tilt the combat system toward a much more aggressive style: no dedicated healers, lack of death penalty, powerful skills that decide encounters if they’re not blocked/dodged/blinded/interrupted (coupled with the removal of the casting bar to make these skills even deadlier).

On top of this, they made sure that the game mode would always lead to """""""tactical""""""" moves to get the illusion of dynamism and that matches would naturally end without the use of an artificial mechanic (the current point systems vs old vod)

While it’s all well thought out, the implementation is quite poor IMO. The aggressive combat system leads to a game that is waaaay too fast for the majority of mmo players.

This is not a fps with headshots and only guns. Where’s the fun in a mmo to die in seconds because you didn’t recognise the skills used against you? Where’s the depth of team coordination when you don’t have time to lay down an offensive and defensive plan but rather you’re struggling to react instantly to a one shot skill combo?

As you said any game mode they come up with has to take into account the (too) fast paced combat system. Hence my fear that adding new game modes won’t solve the other issues:

- lack of competitive structure
- combat system and the fast pace and the visual mess
- learning curve that makes the game horrendous to learn and stick around
- lack of incentives for PvE and WvW players to play – rewards or the mere facts that nothing naturally leads to the mists-

Game Modes

Deathmatch
– 5v5.
– New Map!
– 2x side buff’s one gives extra points per kill other gives points per second. On spawn timers. (read below on why points per second and not kill)
– Point System based on kills.
– Grey Zone, Red Zone, Blue Zone Points are awarded based on what zone you have pushed into.

How the zone’s work.
– Gray Zone awards the most points per kill, grey zone is in the middle of the map and around the side buffs.
– Red/Blue Zone’s are outside of each spawn point, they award different points depending on if your defender or attacker. E.g. Blue side has pushed into Reds Zone, they get less points per kill and Red team gets more points per kill.

Map – High/Low ground, Red/Blue zone’s have object’s to help teams push back out, grey zone is more open field combat but with high and low ground and some object’s to kite around. Hopefully you get general idea of what I’m trying to get at here.

How will points be awarded to stop team’s from abusing pushing and pulling back to effect the point outcome, well its rather simple. Soon as you enter the grey zone you then become grey zone points even if you try to pull back into your zone.

How to stop team’s from camping there zone, one of the buffs award points per second so teams that refuse to come out of there zone will lose due to camping.

Buffs spawn right at the start of the game, so it splits teams up and makes them push into the buffs, the buffs come up every, lets say 4-5 mins. But you get the idea. Kinda like current buff system we have.

Put all this together and you have more complex type of deathmatch.

I love all the creative ideas in this thread! That said I feel that this discussion in general is overlooking the diverse groups of players within an MMO. Too often I see terms like “many people would like this” and “my friends would start playing again”.

Stakeholders
When working on concepts it’s always extremely important to keep a close watch on all the stakeholders involved. To get a good idea about the impact of the changes we suggest, it’s highly recommended to carefully identify and split all the stakeholders involved. There are in fact many suggestions in this thread that cater to different needs from different kinds of players. And some groups may very well be more vocal than others. The vocality and different needs from different players do not carry the same weight however. To illustrate: if everyone in the game received a pop-up with a multiple choice question, asking them want game mode they would like to see added to PvP I daresay that that 1v1 option would be the most popular, and the gw1’ish suggestions would score relatively poor. This data of course means very little in this discussion, but hopefully does illustrate the matter that different audiences wish for different additions. What person X would like to see added – might not be what person Y’s friends would return to the game for.

Why all of this matters is because of a simple but vital assertion: Adding game modes will inevitably affect the current PvP user base.
I firmly believe that carelessly adding new game modes will spread out the existing user base. But when done correctly , i believe that added modes and maps can in fact increase the user base and frequency of play. Similarly: some suggestions are so dislocated from the current sPvP scene that they may bring in new groups of players entirely, or actually harm the existing sPvP user base.

A stakeholder analysis can get very long-winded and would be over the top, for the sake of this discussion I’ll try to limit the stakeholders to: sPvP regulars, PvE’ers, WvW’ers and prospects (potential GW2 players).
A broader stakeholder analysis might divide players in more specific groups, you won’t hear me talk about the needs beginners, veteran pvp’ers or GW1 nostalgics for example. Nor will i discuss the aesthetics of games. I’m assuming sPvP is designed for players who wish to experience competition as a main psychological need[sup]1[/sup].

Ideal results would be to:
Increase frequency of play within sPvP regulars;
Attract more players from PvE;
Attract more players from WvW;
Attract new players to GW2.

When discussing game modes, attracting new players to GW2 is mostly limited to increasing the public perception of PvP in GW2 (through current GW2 players/streams).

I feel that for every game mode added or even for every significant action done it is important to consider who the target audience is and how the change will/might impact the other audiences/stakeholders.

Conquest – current mode
First of all, i really like conquest. I feel that it is a strong and intelligent mix between team deathmatch and MOBA style games. Where i feel that conquest mode falls short is in “hot join” games. Conquest requires players to understand and perform different roles as well as having a extensive understanding of the game system without any ingame communication (tutorial etc) explaining this. The easygoing nature of hot join doesn’t mix well with the way conquest is meant to be played.
Seeing as conquest mode isn’t a new addition, there is very little opportunity for it in this thread, mainly risks.

1 v 1 (/ arena)- popular suggestion
Personally i don’t believe in 1 v 1 as an arena game mode, but! Proper 1 on 1’ing is something the community has practically demanded since the start of the game and many have actually been doing for better and for worse. While 1 v 1 as an arena game mode isn’t a good idea (as many have pointed out already), supplying the tools needed to play 1 on 1’s in a more optimized setting is simple and effective. By creating simple maps(based on the existing themes) optimized for 1 on 1, allowing these to rotate would be all that’s needed to increase the popularity of the custom arena’s and PvP by itself. It won’t draw new people to sPvP, but it will have a positive impact on the frequency of play and allow for effective and meaningful completion of PvP daillies. It would simply serve as a “hotjoin” friendly alternative for many people. A negative result will be an increase in 1 v 1 builds in other game modes. Something that both the community and developers can react to. Allowing easy switching between multiple builds/templates for example – something that having multiple game modes quickly cries out for.

3 v 3 arena (and 2 v 2/5 5 v 5) – popular suggestion
If there is any suggested game mode that will succeed in drawing more players (new and old ones alike) to GW2 it will be 3 v 3 arena’s. I suspect 2 v 2 to bring too many balancing issues and 5 v 5 quickly turns into an AoE clusterduck which diminishes build viability and viewing pleasure greatly. Having more than one new arena format added will just split out the player base as well. Adding 3 v 3 arena’s goes great with the gameplay of GW2 and has the most positive effects on all the stakeholders that are looking for a accessible new PvP game mode. Implementation is manageable in the same fashion as the 1 v 1 suggestion – few new maps to rotate through and a separate option within custom arena’s. A similar addition as current arena’s for queue’ing and leaderboards. Leaderboards preferably fashioned based on team rating over personal rating.
Expected negative effects will be the decrease of conquest popularity, which many new competitive game modes carry with them.
Expected positive effect will be the attraction of new players to PvP and GW2.

“GvG” – zergrush – popular suggestion
Let us start by abandoning the ridiculous name of GvG. Nearly any form of play can be engaged in by guilds and the only thing the title seems to suggest is a limitation of accessibility. It may score points for relevance to the game’s title and nostalgia, but that’s about it.

There seem to be 2 general ideas that are called GvG. First we have the “zergrush” suggestion. Which is the good old vocal WvW community expressing their dearest wish to be taken seriously as a competitive form of play. Adding this as a competitive mode right now would be rubbish for a plethora of reasons. But i do feel that these people should be given a proper platform to organize, practice and execute their large group battles. There is no shortage of demand, but I suspect the amount of use it will see in general to be relatively low. None the less this was an opportunity that should’ve been wholly embraced with the introduction of custom arena’s. They seem to want nothing more than an empty field and an option to allow for a greater number of players. I see no reason why this can’t be a win-win scenario for everyone.

“Keep vs keep, MOBA, KotH, CTF, “GvG” – popular suggestions
The second concept seems draw inspiration from GW1 and WvW alike, at times even borrowing from the other MOBA suggestions. The general consensus here seems to be that you win once you defeat the enemy lord. There are some really creative and intelligent ideas in these posts but at times these lead to some pretty intense suggestions of things that should be changed in order to make their suggestion work.
Let us assume that no mechanisms are going to be reworked, and balancing would be shared with conquest mode. The options for keep vs keep, MOBA, KotH and CTF are nothing more than an innocent shift from the 3 capture nodes to a different victory condition. I think there is a lot of room for many of these ideas to work. But let’s not fool ourselves, the current system and balancing will require a certain way to operate.

Many tPvP players will understand that KotH with one capture point in the middle of the map would be a lot like Legacy of the Foefire without keep and side nodes.
Keep vs keep will be Legacy of the Foefire without the nodes and with added NPC’s and WvW elements.
MOBA will be like Legacy of the Foefire with added NPC’s and towers.
CTF will be similar to Spirit watch but without the nodes.

Most of these suggested modes are switching the main and secondary mechanics of conquest around. All these ‘modes’ could work and be lot’s of fun - but don’t expect them to change the entire play experience. That said, they will be a great improvement to the current sPvP scene. Generally speaking I wouldn’t expect these modes to draw large numbers of new players to GW2. They would cater to different groups within the PvE and WvW communities, which could potentially turn them into sPvP regulars. But this would mostly come from the renewed communication and labels (New CTF mode available! vs New conquest map: Spirit watch) than because of an intrinsically different sPvP experience.

Thank you for reading, if there are any questions regarding my way too long and overdue post please let me know.

PS: I would personally love to hear the dev’s point of view on 3 v 3 Arena’s as a new mode. As i personally think this has the most potential for ArenaNet and the amount of sPvP players in general.

kitten gvg, kitten conquest, kitten em all
2v2 will bring teh esportz
/thread

Jelger, I agree that the GvG moniker is a bit of a misnomer, since it “only” describes the act of two guilds fighting it out. Just so the devs know what we mean when we use it: We don’t mean the current WvW incarnation, we also don’t mean the mere fact of two groups who happen to share the same guild tag engaging in a PvP fight (that is more related to the matchmaking environment than gamemodes), we mean a very specific gameplay concept that would be an evolution of the GW1 one, with possibly some inspiration from other recent titles like MOBAs. It’s a carry-over term from GW1 and it’s important to mentally separate the gameplay- from the matchmaking associations, since I don’t think guild rosters should be the (only) way grouping in said game mode.
Nevertheless I do think that a specific GvG “mode” outside of the lord-kill GW1 GvG has it’s place, but like duels more in the PvE/WvW side of things. As in, a guild could challenge another to a duel and they could fight it out in the open world in a team-deathmatch, no specific maps or intrastructure needed. It’s essentially a duel, but for guilds. I’m sure this would satisfy the WvW-GvG crowd and also PvEers who aren’t as interested in structured PvP (yet) greatly.

I very much approve of 3v3 TDM as well. I think ANet should focus on those three core areas for structured PvP over the next year, with additional unstructured PvP ideas for the LS/WvW team to handle.
“GvG”
Mode: Regicide, base assault, you get the idea. Team size: 6, 8, and 10, with your monthly tournaments at a fixed size at one of those
Matchmaking: Queues and pre-formed groups. Matchmaking is depended on the average ELO of your groups member if different guilds, or your guild as a whole if everyone is a guild member. (Or you can even make it so that "GvG"ers still represent guilds, even though they are not in them, but it has to match one of the group members. This would heighten recognition value while not having a guild requirement)
Team Deathmatch Arena
Mode: Wave/individual respawn. You can use recycled Conquest maps.
Matchmaking: Hotjoin but with a 3v3 tourney queue/pre-formed teams. There’d be no specific matchmaking or tourney winners, your teams simply fights until it’s knocked out with a reward chest every n games.
“Heroes’ Ascent”
Mode: Fixed map progression, with everyone having a different mode. At first e.g. Conquest, Team Deathmatch, and crucially KotH (it’s required. It would be the last map that your teams needs to “defend” from your challengers so you can retain your current “title” as champion of the tournament). Later you can add more modes into the rotation like CTF. Team size: 5? or 6?
Matchmaking: Queues and pre-formed teams. Constantly running single elimination tournament.

Unstructured PvP:

Duels
Self-explanatory.
Guild PvP challenges
What I described above.

It sounds like more than it is, but I do not believe this would spread the playerbase to thin (especially considering that it would lure in or reactivate additional players who are sick of Conquest, like me). There’s not terribly much overlap. For example, if you have 6 buddies with PvP ambitions, you do a GvG. If you are only 3, you make a quick TDM Arena run. Just for blowing off some steam you join the hotjoin TDM arena or Conquest, or if you want an evening of team tactics but don’t have friends you join a “Heroes’ Ascent” queue.
“GvG” would be your prestige mode, followed by “HA”, followed by 3v3 TDM.

As I said, those should be the core areas for the mid-term. I would love to see asymmetric arenas like Fort Aspenwood, but I don’t think it’s feasible for that too over the next 1-1.5 years. Maybe sometime later, after the core modes are settled in.

JonathanSharp.7094:

I think 5 is the biggest team size we’d want for organized play, and we could try smaller teams, but due to multiple reasons, teams greater than 5 would probably be too large for GW2.

What is your opinion on a 2v2, 3v3 (etc.) Arena-style game mode? The combat-design in GW2 seems perfect for this, and some fair dueling is basically all that I personally miss from sPvP (without having the opponent either flee or have one side outnumbered)

(Two small teams fights to the death on a fairly small arena, about a few times bigger than the Graveyard node on LotF, possibly with a few obstacles or maybe some platforms or a bridge.)

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ team sizes over 5: I know some people really like the idea of having games of 8v8 -> 15 v 15, but in reality, these games are often hard to set up. I think that 5on5 is much easier to organize as a player. When I was a GW1 player, playing competitive GvG, we had many nights where we had a hard time getting all 8 people on, night after night, in order to train. A lot of competitive games have settled on the 5 person team (CS, all mobas, etc.), and it’s an easier # to organize than 8 or 15 person teams.

I think 5 is the biggest team size we’d want for organized play, and we could try smaller teams, but due to multiple reasons, teams greater than 5 would probably be too large for GW2.

Hard to set up? Well if your guild is like 30 people then…. yes it is difficult but why depriving other larger (more numerous) guilds of such format? I don’t understand that approach. Tell me then, why could I observe that functioning (pretty well) in Gw1? Was JQ or FA or GvG difficult to organize? Maybe your guild was focused too much on ranks (Sorry Xxx but Yyy has r5 and you got only r1)? It is difficult to organize if you have the holy trinity, like waiting for a r4 monk and r6 tank, agreed.

Very weird approach…. “Some people may not like it so let’s not do it at all” It’s obvious that some people may not find THIS PARTICULAR mode interesting so they will play another. The key word here is: “variety”.

JonathanSharp.7094:

For the GAME TYPE, people seem to be asking for:

• 2 lords. If you kill their lord you win.
• There are obstacles in the way (a lot of people use the MOBA analogies of having NPC’s or towers in the way…you defeat these in order to get to the opposing guild lord).
• I assume there’s a time limit?
• Do we do VoD again to stop people from turtling?

Player “zamalek” explained this to you very nicely and I like his idea.

Anet’s best bet, by leaps and bounds, is to just spam features, spam out new weapons/weapon skills/utilities/maps and let people play test them and anything that isn’t too OP or cheesy, release it.
That way you’re bound to get some good content in the game. That seems how GW1 made it big, and it worked gloriously, you guys had so many hundreds of skills that just by playing the odds, you ended up with greatness somewhere in it all.

The mentality behind building GW1 worked, the mentality behind GW2 isn’t working and new MMOs are right around the corner.

Suck it up, fix the problem, and move on
You guys aren’t god so can be wrong. After a year the game hasn’t gotten noticabley more enjoyable, so it’s probably worth scrapping the new game building mentality and going back to the old one that has made enjoyable gameplay.

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ SHOULD WE EVEN TAKE THIS COLLABORATION THING SERIOUSLY!?!??!?!?!?: That’s up to you. We are.

You guys seem to take allot of things seriously, when you guys start making content that’s worth being taken seriously, I’m sure the feeling will spread.

Just to throw some more ideas into this thread. I’ve been playing some Battlefield 4 and some of their modes seem like they may have a place in GW2:

Rush: The idea here is that the “attackers” have a certain amount of respawn tickets. The “defenders” need to prevent the attackers from blowing up objectives. The objectives unlock in pairs of two after the previous set of objectives are destroyed (the map also becomes larger when the objectives are destroyed). There are 10 objectives in total. Each team has a turn attacking and defending on the same map (the relative progress of the previous round determines who wins).
GW2 Rush: There are a set of keep walls (barring the attackers from progressing) on the map, each wall has 2 indestructible gates with a capture point in front of it. Once an objective is claimed by the attackers the defenders cannot reclaim it or neutralize it. Once both capture points are held by the attackers the gates open, allowing the attackers through to the next set of objectives. Each match lasts “2 rounds” (where the teams take turns attacking) and the round have a time limit. The first round runs the “default” duration (say, 7.5 minutes) – the second round runs the duration it took the first round attackers to succeed (or 7.5 minutes if they did not). If both rounds are 7.5 minutes the victor is the team that captured the most objectives. If the first attackers capture the final objectives the second attackers must beat their time.

Obliteration: Each team has a number of targets on the map. A bomb spawns at a random location on the map and has to be carried to one of the opposing team’s objectives. The team that destroys all the objectives wins.
GW2 Obliteration: A one-use weapon bundle spawns at a random location on the map. One player must carry this to an enemy structure and destroy it. Interesting side-thought: You might try use the Colossus Fractal mechanic – the player carrying the bundle must score a kill before being able to attack the objective with the weapon bundle. Additionally with that mechanic the weapon bundle might only remove a shield from the objective, but the objective itself must be destroyed by the players (whether or not the shield regenerates after some time would need playtesting, but I would err on the side of no regeneration).

Aside of the 2v2 & 3v3 deathmatch Arena-style ideas, wouldn’t these small team-sizes in general bring big benefits?
You can easily just hook up with a friend and thus have “full control of the team”, right? The 2 or 3 of you against the others.

Wouldn’t it feel a lot less Zergy and a lot more like you’re in direct control of the match?

Really like this concept a lot though.

IDarko.4709:

Survival

Both teams are assigned a captain. If the captain dies, you lose. Team mates need to balance their play around defending their captain and killing the enemy captain.

THIS sounds really interesting. I can imagine a great mode with this Idea and for example 3 teams at the same time. But there are problems like stealth that can prevent your team from damage. To deal with that you need a secondary task so that perma stealth or heavy bunkerbuilds don’t win.

Moba sounds really fun. And rounds would not last too long. Thats just depending on how it is designed. You can handle the progression with better stat points, weapon kit acquisition, stronger npc units on your side and things like this. There are enough options to make a League of Legends mode that is btw pretty similar to gvg. I still think this would be the best.. lot’s of league of legends and dota player could get interested because dota and league of legends still have this wc3/diablo gameplay and fights look and feel more exciting in gw2.

Blackjack.5621:

I never played a moba since i dislike the camera angle and movement, but it´s quite obvious that this game mode has a lot of potential. Maybe it´s possible to create a gamemode similar to “Smite” . This could also help increasing the playerbase since this is so popular.

Please this I wanna play lol or smite but I love gw2. Plzzzzzz

Option for custom arenas to have 1 node only (middle node).

1v1 , 2v2 with leader boards

Deathmatch

King of the Hill

I suggest:

5 teams with 1 player for each team

They have to kill each other everyone kills everyone.

The game ends when 1 survive, or the one who have the most kill or whaterver…

DiogoSilva.7089:

About GvG

To be honest, I would like to see a fusion of MOBA style gameplay and WvW sieging. Why? Simply because it would be original, it would be epic, and it would make GW2 stand out from other PvP games in the market.

Here’s my rough concept:
1. Instead of minions waves to destroy towers, the map would have NPC waves to use siege weaponry to break doors and walls.
1.1. NPC siege soldiers would spawn if sieges exist.
1.2. NPC engineers would spawn to build or repair sieges.
1.3. The “guild leader” would decide where and which sieges would be build. NPCs would automatically move towards the build zone.
2. One of the main player’s objectives is to defend own sieges and to destroy or disrupt the opponent’s sieges.
2.1. This would be acchieved by slaying the NPCs, but if an opposing player would be there to protect them, a deathmatch would occur.
2.2. It would be similar to defending or assaulting conquest points, but there would be less emphasis on bunkers and more on ally support.
3. Somewhere in the map, perhaps at the middle, there would exist either a KotH point or an orb. Holding the point or taking the orb to the base would offer resource advantage (in own base) or help bombing the enemy’s gates (their base).
4. Somewhere hidden in the map, some NPC enemies could be destroyed and some treasures looted. They would spawn every few minutes, and the rewards would be resource advantage.
5. A resource system would allow teams to progress through the match, but not by level of by equipment. Instead, it would unlock new or stronger sieges, new or stronger food and other items buffs, and new or stronger NPC allies.
5.1. Examples for new sieges: just look at the diversity of sieges in WvW AND how wvw levels affect them. In GvG, there could exist base sieges, which would cost resources, and there could exist improved versions, that apply extra conditions or other effects.
5.2. Examples for food buffs: just look at pve. They would add regeneration, improve stats, etc. There would be plenty of them, so each player would have to know the better stats to invest on based on their team, the opposing team, the current situation and the meta.
5.3. Examples of new NPCs: armored NPCs (higher toughness), faster NPCs (roamers), bomber NPCs (they drop bombs when they are slayed), etc, etc, etc.
6. Once the walls or the doors are broken, the final objective would be to slay the lord, or maybe to spread the team and prevent the zerg, to destroy 2 or 3 different power cores within the base.
7. On death, players would spawn on their base. However, there should exist an ability to quickly teleport them to their base to get stronger item buffs, better sieges, etc.

Number of players required:
1 Guild Leader, with access to siege “shop”;
1 Second-in-command, to take the role of the leader whenever needed;
(Assuming there are two “best spots” for catapult sieges)
2+ players to defend their own sieges;
2+ players to disrupt the enemy’s sieges;
1+ player/s for KotH or orb running;
0-1+ player to roam where needed, or to hunt NPCs/ treasures;

I think this is a nice idea, I was thinking along similar lines. One thing that is problematic here imo is the need for a “guild leader” (although the fraywind bg in Tera has a similar leader role with responsibility for executing massive bombing attacks and other key abilities and that works pretty well).

Anyway, I think you could easily go without a leader, say by making upgrades for your npcs available at a blacksmith in your fort (any player can do it if the team has enough resources). And the upgrades could end up sending golems out to break down doors etc; arm soldiers with fire weapons or whatever.

It could work fine as a 5vs5.

Jelger.6758:

“Keep vs keep, MOBA, KotH, CTF, “GvG” – popular suggestions
The second concept seems draw inspiration from GW1 and WvW alike, at times even borrowing from the other MOBA suggestions. The general consensus here seems to be that you win once you defeat the enemy lord. There are some really creative and intelligent ideas in these posts but at times these lead to some pretty intense suggestions of things that should be changed in order to make their suggestion work.
Let us assume that no mechanisms are going to be reworked, and balancing would be shared with conquest mode. The options for keep vs keep, MOBA, KotH and CTF are nothing more than an innocent shift from the 3 capture nodes to a different victory condition. I think there is a lot of room for many of these ideas to work. But let’s not fool ourselves, the current system and balancing will require a certain way to operate.

Many tPvP players will understand that KotH with one capture point in the middle of the map would be a lot like Legacy of the Foefire without keep and side nodes.
Keep vs keep will be Legacy of the Foefire without the nodes and with added NPC’s and WvW elements.
MOBA will be like Legacy of the Foefire with added NPC’s and towers.
CTF will be similar to Spirit watch but without the nodes.

Most of these suggested modes are switching the main and secondary mechanics of conquest around. All these ‘modes’ could work and be lot’s of fun - but don’t expect them to change the entire play experience. That said, they will be a great improvement to the current sPvP scene. Generally speaking I wouldn’t expect these modes to draw large numbers of new players to GW2. They would cater to different groups within the PvE and WvW communities, which could potentially turn them into sPvP regulars. But this would mostly come from the renewed communication and labels (New CTF mode available! vs New conquest map: Spirit watch) than because of an intrinsically different sPvP experience.

Thank you for reading, if there are any questions regarding my way too long and overdue post please let me know.

PS: I would personally love to hear the dev’s point of view on 3 v 3 Arena’s as a new mode. As i personally think this has the most potential for ArenaNet and the amount of sPvP players in general.

Well, playing a MOBA doesn’t feel anything like the current game mode in gw2 so I think you are overgeneralizing, kind of like saying brussel sprouts are the same as roast chicken because they are both food. Same for CtF, although that might be somewhat closer.

Its an interesting point though. What are the primary differences between the current gw2 game mode and other game types like MOBA? What makes the MOBA set up incredibly popular and so much fun to play?

I would say the scoring system and game progression are fundamentally different.

In mobas there is a “real” sense of progress, in terms of both character power and territory “captured”. GW2 is very abstract in a way. You take these kind of meaningless circles and build points, get enough points and win.

Mobas and are not based on a “score” but on an actual objective (kill lord/destroy base), and progress toward the goal is measured in tangible terms such as towers destroyed, npc/player upgrades etc.

The player progress is also key, I think. It gives the exciting element of levelling-up and gearing-up that we have in pve while providing a totally level playing field for pvp, all in one 30-40 min game sitting.

I think there is room to really push the bounds of the established thinking of what a “battle-ground” is in mmos. GW2 is set up like a moba in some ways-limited skill set, level playing field, can start pvping straight away; but the current game mode is locked into the mmo mindset imo.