Guild Wars 2

Death and Taxes Presents: The Trio Invitational Competitive PvE Tournament

Overview: Teams of three will compete head to head in a race to complete randomly selected dungeon paths in the shortest time. Quickly and efficiently clearing these paths with only three party members will be a test of individual playskill, preparation and build selection; the winner of this competitive PvE tournament will be the team who can lay claim to the prestige of being counted among the game’s most elite PvE players.

The Format: Teams will race randomly selected dungeon paths streamed side by side against their opponents. They will be matched up in a best three out of five format, with the winner advancing. The semi finals will be a best of seven and the finals will be a best of nine.

No dungeon path will be run a second time in the tournament before all other paths have been run once. Once all paths have been run once, the list of possible paths will be reset.

List of Paths Available

AC: Story, P1
CM: P1, P2
TA: FWD, UP
SE: P1, P3
COF: Story, P3
HOTW: Story, P1
COE: P1, P2
Arah: P2, P3 (P4 reserved for the rubber match of the Finals)

The runs will be officiated using the community defined Restricted dungeon record rules defined here: http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/22998165-competitive-tournament-restricted-rule-set. Exceptions will be discussed and clarified as needed on that thread.

The Teams: Guilds may enter multiple teams. Each team must have at least one member live streaming on twitch to participate.

Each team will consist of three members and an optional alternate. If at any point you elect to use your alternate, the player whom the alternate replaces will not be able to participate for the remainder of the day. The original member will be allowed to return to the team the next day, if applicable. This will allow for unforeseen circumstances to be covered without allowing the alternative to be used for gamesmanship.

Seeding & byes for the tournament will be based on each team’s cumulative Competitive PvE Points for their trio. Current leaderboard: http://dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/21531347-competitive-pve-tournament-series-individual-leaderboard

If greater than 12 teams register for the tournament, selection will be in order of Cumulative Points first and then at host’s discretion.

Registration: Closes August 14, 2015 @ 8pm EST (GMT -5) http://dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/22785939-guild-wars-2-trio-invitational-competitive-pve-tournament-registration-thread

Prizes: Minimum prize pool of 1,000 gold. Winning team will received 2000 gems per player, second place team will receive 800 gems per player. Winning team will receive three GW2: Heart of Thorns CD Keys.

How to Watch: The tournament will be shoutcast live at http://twitch.tv/nike_dnt on August 22 and 23rd, 2015 @ 11am EST (GMT -5).

Looking forward to it, the last trio tournament highlighted some really interesting strategies that I didn’t think were doable 3-man (E.g Andal corner stacking in HoTW P2). I also love the 3-man format, the combat in GW2 really shines with 1-3 players.

Best of luck to all teams that enter!

Could you please do something about the way paths are selected this time?

I know that they paths are picked by a script that selects completely random paths, but to make things less repetitive for the viewers I think it’d be better if there actually was some variety. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m the only one with this opinion, but I’d just hate to see another tournament where it feels like every second path is CM or HOTW.

Bukkebruse.2810:

Could you please do something about the way paths are selected this time?

I know that they paths are picked by a script that selects completely random paths, but to make things less repetitive for the viewers I think it’d be better if there actually was some variety. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m the only one with this opinion, but I’d just hate to see another tournament where it feels like every second path is CM or HOTW.

Guess you didn’t read the part of my post where I talk about how paths are selected.

Actually I didn’t :^(

I’ll be honest, I really enjoyed watching this format, but best of 5, best of 7, and best of 9 is really tedious and boring as a viewer. I am really surprised we don’t just do best of 3 for everything; that’s sufficient to show skill without dragging it on and on and on. The finals of the last tournament were really sluggish from a viewer perspective. Also worth noting I felt the tournament simply took too much time because of this.

Either way, looking forward to watching it again.

Also, it’s cool that HoT keys are included in the winning prizes.

I honestly liked how “long” it took because of the best of 5, 7 and 9 setting.
Everybody is going to have his own opinion about it, but people are probably gonna watch it anyways.

Props to Nike and DnT for organizing the tourney again!

As long as every other path isnt always Hotw or CM it should be a lot less boring. The main reason it got boring last time was because the same paths kept getting picked despite the “random” map picker.

One issue that has been brought up in the past about the 3-man format is that it takes people farther away from their daily routines than the classic 5-man which probably was a decisive factor on so many teams dropping out late in the last one. While theoretically it’s easier to get a 3-man group together than it is a 5-man one, getting people to consistently practice in a trio format is harder and that is a big contributing factor to why so many teams dropped out late last time, I personally would like to see a return to the classic 5-man format. And having at least 1 alternate per team should be mandatory to prevent situations that have been observed in previous tourneys like people disconnecting and forcing the festivities to halt for considerable amounts of time until they reconnected.

Also as mentioned above, the best of 7 & 9 rounds were simply a drag to watch. In some ways the length of the final rounds made the tournament reach it’s air time quota as a lot more teams were expected to participate at first but from a viewer’s perspective it was just too long. I’d lean towards best of 3 series with the finals being best of 5, this of course depends on the number of teams that participate as time is something to consider.

Plus, fractals tourneys would be a refreshing change for the future. Yes, these are heavily RNG influenced and don’t appeal to as broad an audience as dungeons though it remains the only true high-end content in this game (well not so high-end since the most recent balance patch).

Veckna.9621:

One issue that has been brought up in the past about the 3-man format is that it takes people farther away from their daily routines than the classic 5-man which probably was a decisive factor on so many teams dropping out late in the last one. While theoretically it’s easier to get a 3-man group together than it is a 5-man one, getting people to consistently practice in a trio format is harder and that is a big contributing factor to why so many teams dropped out late last time, I personally would like to see a return to the classic 5-man format.

Also as mentioned above, the best of 7 & 9 rounds were simply a drag to watch. In some ways the length of the final rounds made the tournament reach it’s air time quota as a lot more teams were expected to participate at first but from a viewer’s perspective it was just too long. I’d lean towards best of 3 series with the finals being best of 5, this of course depends on the number of teams that participate as time is something to consider.

Plus, fractals tourneys would be a refreshing change for the future. Yes, these are heavily RNG influenced and don’t appeal to as broad an audience as dungeons though it remains the only true high-end content in this game (well not so high-end since the most recent balance patch).

I would like to see a trio fractal tourney, a 5-man one would honestly be a bore at this point

dboylolz.3916:

I would like to see a trio fractal tourney, a 5-man one would honestly be a bore at this point

That is a very good idea actually, I’ll hop aboard that hype train!

List of Paths Available

AC: Story, P1
CM: P1, P2
TA: FWD, UP
SE: P1, P3
COF: Story, P3
HOTW: Story, P1
COE: P1, P2
Arah: P2, P3 (P4 reserved for the rubber match of the Finals)

What happened to so many of the paths?

They were terrible and no one wanted to do them or practice them. #hotwunderwater #cof2defendmag #ACp3Burrows

NikeEU.7690:

They were terrible and no one wanted to do them or practice them. #hotwunderwater #cof2defendmag #ACp3Burrows

Ye, I can understand some of them even though I don’t quite agree. But I don’t understand the removal of CM P3 and CoE P3, they are quite similar to the other paths in the same dungeons.

Why isn’t CM P3 included when P2 is? And what exactly makes COE P2 any different than P3 aside from the husk/destroyer?

CMp3 is actually much lamer than p1 and p2. CoEp2 husk is a bit more interesting than Destroyer.

COEp3 is too similar to p2 so one or the other is preferred. CMp3 is fine, but we wanted to stick with the concept of two paths per dungeon.

Fair enough
_____________

What about adding in the uncategorized fractal at difficulty 40? It’s an easy shard to roll, with a lowish AR req that many ppl already have and is easy to obtain by mid August, as well as the fractal not having the RNG element like swamp does, or being an underwater 3man like the krait-filled depths. Not sure what the urban battleground is like as a trio, maybe it as well.

Urban Battlegrounds has a lot of RNG considering the path from Dulfy to the Courtyard.

Awww yeah stickied.

Nike like’s it sticky he probably uses elixir gun with streamlined kits.

Incase people haven’t heard, the event is cancelled due to lack of interest from the community to register teams.

EcoRI.9273:

Incase people haven’t heard, the event is cancelled due to lack of interest from the community to register teams.

who represent “community” here?

Iris Ng.9845:

EcoRI.9273:

Incase people haven’t heard, the event is cancelled due to lack of interest from the community to register teams.

who represent “community” here?

Anyone was free to register a team, so the community in reference was any interested trio team.

People complain that they don’t get challenging content, that anet doesn’t pay attention etc. Then when stuff like this happens they don’t participate because the truth is practicing is hard work and time consuming and they aren’t really looking to be challenged.

NikeEU.7690:

Iris Ng.9845:

EcoRI.9273:

Incase people haven’t heard, the event is cancelled due to lack of interest from the community to register teams.

who represent “community” here?

Anyone was free to register a team, so the community in reference was any interested trio team.

People complain that they don’t get challenging content, that anet doesn’t pay attention etc. Then when stuff like this happens they don’t participate because the truth is practicing is hard work and time consuming and they aren’t really looking to be challenged.

Wanting a challenge and jumping into a competitive scene is a very different thing.

Jerus.4350:

NikeEU.7690:

Iris Ng.9845:

EcoRI.9273:

Incase people haven’t heard, the event is cancelled due to lack of interest from the community to register teams.

who represent “community” here?

Anyone was free to register a team, so the community in reference was any interested trio team.

People complain that they don’t get challenging content, that anet doesn’t pay attention etc. Then when stuff like this happens they don’t participate because the truth is practicing is hard work and time consuming and they aren’t really looking to be challenged.

Wanting a challenge and jumping into a competitive scene is a very different thing.

Literally the only barrier is how much practice you’re willing to put in. But I would agree with you that the tournaments are extremely competitive and that is likely off putting to casual teams who don’t want to practice.

PvP tournaments get around this by giving good rewards to teams that win a single round (mini llama) so you get enough casual teams who want to take a shot at beating other casual teams for a prize. We don’t have that luxury so there isn’t a strong incentive for teams who know they arent top 4 material to enter.

It’s not just not wanting to practice. Simply put, if I wanted to compete against people I’d probably be playing an actually good PVP game, not GW2. Competition and challenge are not synonyms. I’d like a challenge that I could casually go through with friends at a pace we determine. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t have timers pushing us, but when it comes to running instantly after finishing a fight and not being able to take a second to do whatever, well it’s just a different style. Doesn’t mean I don’t want a challenge to make me play better, it just means rushing around isn’t my style.

These tournaments and the speed run community is a group of people who want to compete but prefer the PVE and in general a more indirect competition rather than the direct PVP.

Don’t get me wrong, I used to do this type of stuff in other games, and I love watching it, sad to see this didn’t work out this time, but don’t link challenge with competition.

Forgot to add, Yes it takes a ton of practice to reach a high level, though it’s not required. You could just go in and as long as you all have the same strat in mind you could still pull out a good time. Though of course the teams that practice and perfect their stuff are likely going to wipe the floor with a team that didn’t, but I can’t help but feel that the desire to compete is a more limiting factor than the devotion to practice.

@Nike

Speaking like you then they should demolish ESL Weekly altogether because it’s outright obvious who’s gonna win each week?

Also, as far as I understand, the community you speak of seems to only evolve around a certain elite number who actually cares enough to compete and those who are interested to support the tourney as the audience don’t count as the community?

or is it the same community which was described by you as “ingrate, jealous, foolish, etc” or the community who has authority over speed run record ruling?

I have seen this word thrown around a lot to describe different groups of people but in the end it is almost always used loosely as a straw man to take any kinds of blame, insult and responsibility.

Am I safe to count myself not a part of this community?

Iris Ng.9845:

@Nike

Speaking like you then they should demolish ESL Weekly altogether because it’s outright obvious who’s gonna win each week?

It’s pretty obvious who is going to win, but so long as people still enter each week and people still watch it seems viable to continue. So no, you’re mistaken.

Also, as far as I understand, the community you speak of seems to only evolve around a certain elite number who actually cares enough to compete and those who are interested to support the tourney as the audience don’t count as the community?

The fact is, Iris, that only 5 teams were entered. I see more than 5 guilds holding current meta restricted records. That’s who I am referring to, plus the myriad other guilds who define themselves as “dungeon guilds” and chose not to enter.

or is it the same community which was described by you as “ingrate, jealous, foolish, etc” or the community who has authority over speed run record ruling?

Take your personal grudges elsewhere. There are a lot of ingrateful jealous fools in this community, and every other one.

I have seen this word thrown around a lot to describe different groups of people but in the end it is almost always used loosely as a straw man to take any kinds of blame, insult and responsibility.

I didn’t use those words in reference to this topic. I’ll thank you to not conflate them.

Am I safe to count myself not a part of this community?

The community is open to who ever wants to be a part of it, as I said the only barrier is a team’s willingness to compete. I believe you were in the first ever tournament, so by definition you were already in it.

NikeEU.7690:

Literally the only barrier is how much practice you’re willing to put in.

I just want to put it out there that this is not entirely true. There is at least one other barrier, and that’s the stress of a tournament setting. It is extremely stressful to join a tournament that people watch, and this is magnified if you’re an introvert in general, regardless of your skill level in the game and what kind of content you want for it.

Rising Dusk.2408:

NikeEU.7690:

Literally the only barrier is how much practice you’re willing to put in.

I just want to put it out there that this is not entirely true. There is at least one other barrier, and that’s the stress of a tournament setting. It is extremely stressful to join a tournament that people watch, and this is magnified if you’re an introvert in general, regardless of your skill level in the game and what kind of content you want for it.

I am very much so an introvert and have streamed for nearly 2 years now and even I felt a little uneasy compared to how I normally feel. However, it was a lot of fun. I completely understand and agree that it is very stressful to know there are over a thousand people watching and judging you xD

:-/ i feel like im in my room in my boxers playing a game.

EcoRI.9273:

:-/ i feel like im in my room in my boxers playing a game.

I feel you man

I think the lack of interest has partly to do with this thread being stickied.

IIRC, the previous trio thread was still stickied when this thread popped up, and was then replaced with this one. I think that most people dont pay attention to the stickies (like me) and didnt even notice the new thread.

If I hadn’t seen the thread when it was still unstickied, I probably wouldve missed it as well.
Not saying this thread shouldnt be a sticky, but I can understand people not seeing the new thread.

The tournament will be shoutcast live at http://twitch.tv/nike_dnt on August 22 and 23rd, 2015
I’ll admit english is not my first language, but August is what I believed to be the current month. Is it the current date or am I just stupid? For a long while, I was thinking the tournament would be taking place today (+yesterday), but now I’m super confused. Coming to the twitch link provided, I see nothing. Can someone please tell me when is it gonna be happening? Did I miss something or am I now unable to even read dates? I was really looking forward to this event, I’d like to not miss it.

Read up a few posts, it was canceled due to lack of interest/sign ups.

Awww, that’s terrible. I see now. Though I think even those 5-6 teams would make for a pretty entertaining show. Having new faces show up could be interesting, but I’d still be perfectly happy with the same guys from previous tournaments coming up with neat new strategies. Hope Nike and DnT will reconsider doing it in the future, even with a smaller pool of competitors. I’d watch anyway!