Guild Wars 2

First off, I think a leaderboard that show’s a player’s skill in PvE is a great idea.

Not only does this allow the top players to compete in a way beyond “who has the fastest speed record,” but it also attaches a deeper meaning for more casual players to improve themselves (as well as what players they should be looking towards for how to improve themselves).

What worries me the most is: at present going from 30-50 would take very little time. To prevent this, we’ve been told there will be:

• reset on AR
• Mistlock Instabilities

AR really doesn’t mean anything, as all of those attacks can be dodged, except for maw (and I would it will also be un-dodgeable with the molten duo and Mai as well). In any case grinding out AR for final boss’s undodgeable attack isn’t really something that is going to be a huge challenge nor something that shows a player’s skill.

So “Mistlock Instabilities” – are these going to provide enough challenge that being in the top 10 of the leaderboard will mean something, or are we going to end up with a leaderboard filled with everyone tied for first at rank 50?

Either nobody will hit lvl 50 and the content will be nerfed or the ladder will be full of lvl 50s. My wish would be lvl 31 being equal to current lvl 80 but there is no way that’s going to be the case.

Konu.1826:

Either nobody will hit lvl 50 and the content will be nerfed or the ladder will be full of lvl 50s. My wish would be lvl 31 being equal to current lvl 80 but there is no way that’s going to be the case.

Sorry:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

We fixed a number of bugs and made lots of balance changes to existing fractals. Also the difficulty scaling has been tweaked overall to create a slightly less difficult curve up to 50.

I expected nothing more than that and even still forums will be flooded with nerf nao threads. Also that quote screams for some clarification in my opinion. Less difficult curve compared to what? Current 1-50 compared to new 1-50 or something else?

If it is going to be easier… uh oh. Scale 80 was already quite easy.

We’ll have to make a new discipline for level 50 blindfold snowblind solo.

I don’t understand how leaderboards will work if the max level is 50, level 50 is easier than before, and level 50 was already pretty easy before the update.

Me = confused.

I think leaderboards is a silly idea that nobody wanted. What’s the point of leaderboard for PvE? Just put /age in a board and let us keep our levels.

Fractal leaderbords are probably going to say as much about skill as AP leaderbords currently do. Little hint: saw someone selling his 17k AP account with 5x Cleric and 3x Celestial gear.

JMar.3254:

I think leaderboards is a silly idea that nobody wanted. What’s the point of leaderboard for PvE? Just put /age in a board and let us keep our levels.

Let me rephrase that for you.

What’s the point of a leaderboard in PvP? Just go and face someone in a match to show you’re better than them.

Silly right?

Leaderboards attach meaning to skill and promote competition to improve skill.

Now the thing is, in PvP, you’re constantly matched against something that is working to improve it’s skill as well.

For this to work in PvE there needs to be one of two things:

1. hard enough content that progression is nearly impossible to really attach meaning to the people in the upper ranks

1. Some sort of reset interval, similar to the ladder in Diablo 2, so it becomes more of a race.

Option one is already out since they’ve said they’re making content easier (though there was a post alluding to opening up the 50 tier in the future….. maybe that will be harder?)

As for the second one, the reason it worked so well in D2 was because you were starting with a new character each reset. It also required you to get new gear – of which was a difficult task in that game. This really goes against the what most of GW2 is about, so I don’t see something like this being implemented (though it would make for a fun player driven event….. if fractal level wasn’t account bond now).

Anicetus.1253:

Fractal leaderbords are probably going to say as much about skill as AP leaderbords currently do. Little hint: saw someone selling his 17k AP account with 5x Cleric and 3x Celestial gear.

I’d say they’ll mean even less if it ends up with there ends up being a few thousand players tied for first.

Sure the devs have alluded to opening up higher difficulty tiers. And if they’re making 40s easier the the old 40s, maybe they’ll realise they need to progress to making the new 50s, 60s, 70s harder than their older counterparts. But, if they take too long on opening those difficulty tiers, they’ll be no hardcore PvE players left to complete them.

durend.6237:

JMar.3254:

I think leaderboards is a silly idea that nobody wanted. What’s the point of leaderboard for PvE? Just put /age in a board and let us keep our levels.

Let me rephrase that for you.

What’s the point of a leaderboard in PvP? Just go and face someone in a match to show you’re better than them.

Silly right?

Yes I agree

I also generally agree with the principal behind it, and I like that they’re looking at ways to encourage people up the skill curve.

Me thinks Mistlock Instabilities would be the meat and potatoes of all of this. I can’t imagine why levels would be calculated into your position, much less the alpha and omega of the thing. You really wouldn’t need to use something as Dynamic as a Leaderboard to keep track of something as Static as a race to level 50.

They probably start you at 30 for some other reason. Like, they thought a level 50 with mistlock instabilities would have a harder time than a 30 with mistlock instabilities and it wouldn’t be fair to your score. Or something like that.

How does a fractal leaderboard work anyway? And will it be as terrible as the PvP leaderboards with 2 hour degen?

I’ve never been a fan of leaderboards in video games, and this is certainly no exception. All this is going to do is make room for more pug scrutinizing and ego flexing.

It’s not all ego, painted in broad enough strokes it’s just a feedback system.

A really good leaderboard/rating system can help you feel like you’re making progress up the skillcurve and lets you know when you’ve hit a plateau you might need to approach from another angle to work through.

That said, there are alot of really bad ones out there.

GW2’s leaderboards in particular tends to get waylaid by game trying to use them as a method of pushing features rather than making a good leaderboard where features just happen to factor in. For example; the open-world PvE leaderboard is little more than a support system for the achievement grind, instead of being something you’d actually want to keep track of in it’s own right.

Konu.1826:

I expected nothing more than that and even still forums will be flooded with nerf nao threads. Also that quote screams for some clarification in my opinion. Less difficult curve compared to what? Current 1-50 compared to new 1-50 or something else?

even if it’s compared to 1-80 … it would still be easy for most 80’s sooo anyway it will be a joke and most ppl will be on 50 after the time they have the gear or things that are needed if they would make it so you can choose the difficulty Level you want and get it once you complete it ( so you don’t have to farm low Level junk) than you would see lvl 50’s in a day:)

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

even if it’s compared to 1-80 … it would still be easy for most 80’s sooo anyway it will be a joke and most ppl will be on 50 after the time they have the gear or things that are needed if they would make it so you can choose the difficulty Level you want and get it once you complete it ( so you don’t have to farm low Level junk) than you would see lvl 50’s in a day:)

I’m fully aware of that, and no matter how the difficulty will be it won’t justify any of this for me.

I see it now. fotm lv 50 for sale 20G

Raven.3248:

I see it now. fotm lv 50 for sale 20G

Lvl 50, LF1M, heavy only, Ping gear, 55 AR+, Be rank 500 or better.