Guild Wars 2

Blackmoon.6837:

I did PvP in GW1 every so often. When I did, it was pretty boring. GW1 game play just can’t compare to how action-orientated this game is. So PvP is a lot more fun, imo.

Battles in pvp were always predicable in gw1. You pretty much knew if you were going to win within the first 10s of a match. If one player died on someone’s team, that was a clear single that the other team had the advantage and would win.

With GW2 there’s actually more variation to how one can overcome their foe. So even though someone went down during a match, that doesn’t mean the other team is going to win. It’s awesome to how it works now.

Then you were not using GW1’s combat system to the fullest…

Stale?
-Okay, how about weapon swapping? It’s not stale trying to learn how to weapon swap 40/40 -> Defense set while trying to keep your group’s HP up (if you ran monk). -Neither is it stale to try and predict skills for interruption
-Nor is it stale to have diversion on you, Will you use your skill or be useless for 6 seconds?
-Not just diversion, the other hexes also. Backfire? Cast and lose MANY hp. Empathy? bye bye health bar on you’re physicals. Lingering Curse? Oh, did you just use Word of Healing, I thought it was an Orison. Shame? well kiss you’re energy goodbye unless you either wait it out or you pre-veiled.
-Oh I see (amber/flag) runners! I better cripple them with (X)! OR maybe I should just spike them down?
-Hmm… Siege Turtle using Siege Attack on Green Gate…
-That ranger… I better blind her with Blinding Fla-- (DISTRACTING SHOT!)

Now some of my “exciting” encounters in GW2?
Distortion + Blink = failed backstab…
lol you killed by clone, 5 times….

=
It was also mentioned here that the lack of builds is what keeps many away.
Keep in mind, builds =/= skills on your skill bar
Builds = Skills/weapon(swapping)/appropriate runes(superior vs major vs minor, and yes they have consequences as you go higher tier)/strategy

I remember, even back in factions, that I would spend around 30 minutes to make a build work totally against a player…. just to have that same exact player switch their build. I would also spend hours trying to make a “perfect” and “balanced” build, just to have it countered by a very simple “cookie cutter”

Blackmoon.6837:

I did PvP in GW1 every so often. When I did, it was pretty boring. GW1 game play just can’t compare to how action-orientated this game is. So PvP is a lot more fun, imo.

Battles in pvp were always predicable in gw1. You pretty much knew if you were going to win within the first 10s of a match. If one player died on someone’s team, that was a clear single that the other team had the advantage and would win.

With GW2 there’s actually more variation to how one can overcome their foe. So even though someone went down during a match, that doesn’t mean the other team is going to win. It’s awesome to how it works now.

… battles were predictable in GW1….? Lol… what?

Rhaps.8540:

-Yes, GW was a nightmare to balance. But they managed it very well and their perserverence made it the pvp legend it is today. Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.

I have it on good authority that they didn’t try to balance it much at all.

A staff member who worked on GW1 and GW2, but primarily works for LoL posted on the LoL forums about this.

What was overpowered in one game mode was weak in others, and they had gone too far to set a standard. Setting any sort of standard for balance would pull a tide of abilities into the —-- hole for one mode or another.

And they certainly weren’t going to balance all the modes individually.

There is a difference between “hard” and “ kitten well impossible”.

—

And on your comment about Elitism.

The fact it’s expected from tPvP and general eSports is all the more reason to minimize it in PvE and WvW.

Blackmoon.6837:

I did PvP in GW1 every so often. When I did, it was pretty boring. GW1 game play just can’t compare to how action-orientated this game is. So PvP is a lot more fun, imo.

Battles in pvp were always predicable in gw1. You pretty much knew if you were going to win within the first 10s of a match. If one player died on someone’s team, that was a clear single that the other team had the advantage and would win.

With GW2 there’s actually more variation to how one can overcome their foe. So even though someone went down during a match, that doesn’t mean the other team is going to win. It’s awesome to how it works now.

To be fair, GW2 being more action oriented than GW1 is more of a technical issue. There’s no reason that they couldn’t have imported GW1’s combat and skills, but added GW2 controls and the ability to jump. As for battles being predictable, I would argue that the outcome of battles in GW1 were more strongly affected by the pre-determined individual and group builds rather than the actions taken during the battle. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Much like Magic: The Gathering, most of the skill and enjoyment actually comes from building your deck than actually playing the game. Playing PvE in GW2 reminds me of Kingdoms of Amalur: Great graphics, controls and production values, but somehow I’m completely bored.

I’m not allowed to post anything under 15 characters so I’ll just tell you about that and then reply.

No.

Blackmoon.6837:

GW1 game play just can’t compare to how action-orientated this game is.

I don’t agree with you at all except this part of your post. I’ve even said that GW2 is like the pinball game of MMOs. I still feel that’s a good description. There’s bells and lights and all that stuff but it’s over too quickly. (And the devs are aware of that issue too.)

I think you misunderstand what we’re talking about here though. The ability to dodge and jump does not replace an eight-slot skill bar with hundreds of potential skills and dozens of drastically different builds (not to mention hundreds of similar builds). And ultimately, even in GW2 it is the builds that provide one with multiple ways to defeat an enemy. In GW2 you know what you’re facing by profession alone.

Unfortunately, in GW1, meta game was THE deciding factor. Sure it might have been possible for one non-meta profession to drop a meta, but a lot of that was dependent on which profession was going against which. The holy-trinity played a big role in defeating the purpose and having so much variety. Ironically, much to Czar Peter’s analogy, if you don’t run Meta game in magic the gathering, then you don’t win.

GW2 isn’t so heavy on meta, which is what makes it awesome. A lot of the variety comes from how you use skills and how you coordinate your skills in correlation with your opponents, this includes utilizing dodges etc.

I’m dissapointed with spvp. it was fun the first week i were playing a guardian then they started nerfing the class and i just completely lost interest. i also think the conquest gamemode got very stalled and old really fast. i loved alliance battles in gw1 and that you had to actually kill mobs before you could capture a point and some classes could do this better. The combat in gw1 felt more deep and sophisticated every class had +200 skills and could choose skills from a secondary profession. Those skills did not benefit from runes and there was a primary attribute so this system worked very well. in gw1 you could choose all the 8 skills on you’re bar and most of them were less than 30 sec cooldown. for example Barrage an elite skill had 1 second cooldown not 4 min like artillery barrage here. in pvp you never really knew wat you were up against but if random team running domination magic mesmer or healing monk you would guaranteed be useful. whenever i try pvp here i get nostalgic and is thinking is this all there is we have jade quarry but what about gvg or ab and why do i have to bring these 5 weapon skills. why can i not choose all the skills and experiment with builds. and mechanics like interrupt, high ground, stances, spirits etc. And healing were more powerful. here you can heal yourself for 2k and get hit for 5k right after. And you could get a lot of money from pvp not only aesthetics, did not require you to be a top meta player either. sometimes I’m wondering if the game were even developed by the same group of people or if they tried to hard to become as successful as wow. not saying its a bad thing but its just like an entirely different game. however i do enjoy wvw its different but still really innovative and fun.

DreamOfACure.4382:

Rhaps.8540:

-Yes, GW was a nightmare to balance. But they managed it very well and their perserverence made it the pvp legend it is today. Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.

I have it on good authority that they didn’t try to balance it much at all.

A staff member who worked on GW1 and GW2, but primarily works for LoL posted on the LoL forums about this.

What was overpowered in one game mode was weak in others, and they had gone too far to set a standard. Setting any sort of standard for balance would pull a tide of abilities into the —-- hole for one mode or another.

And they certainly weren’t going to balance all the modes individually.

There is a difference between “hard” and kitten well impossible".

—

And on your comment about Elitism.

The fact it’s expected from tPvP and general eSports is all the more reason to minimize it in PvE and WvW.

Didn’t try and balance it at all? A comment by a former member of staff working on a rival game posting in their forums is reliable? Come now, that’s just absurd.

A single glance at the extensive patch notes for the game’s lifetime will tell you that’s not true. I played the game a lot and yes, it may not have had perfect balance but it was more than good enough and done to a better standard than any other mmo I’ve played. Anet was constantly balancing the meta game and splitting pve/pve skills to keep the game fresh and competative.

They did that. It’s not impossible by a long stretch.

I agree, let’s minimise Elitism by all means. Dumbing down the game to the point where nobody will take it seriously as an eSport is great way to do that I guess. After all no, players, no elitism!

I enjoy WvW, although the large group centric game-play bothers me. I can’t stand SPvP though; the game mode is uninteresting and the incentives are lacking in my opinion.

Compared to GW1 I am unhappy with the current state of the PvP in this game and am hoping for some new game modes to come soon. Something like random arenas, fort aspenwood, and maybe that DotA style game mode I heard about would be pretty satisfying.

GW1 r12 here.

sPvP is still more of an alpha/minigame than a serious PvP environment.
The limit to combination of stats (2 gear pieces vs PvE’s 12 pieces) greatly reduces the metagame as we have little variety between builds.
The presence of point capping as the sole mechanic also quickly stagnated into bunker/roamer gimmick.

WvW is a lot more developed and doesn’t have the aforementioned problem of build variety and stagnation, it’s lacking a proper rank/title system.

Coupled with the fact we’re getting PvE updates as 99% of the new content (even keg brawl/house instance is coming before PvP) it turns out that a decent PvP system will take the entire 2013 to complete at this rate.

Honestly, seeing as PvE turned into a swamp of broken promise and a WoW clone (daily fetch quests, gear treadmills), that beta-ish PvP and the awesome combat of GW2 are the only reason I boot GW2 every day.
If GW2 combat was like traditional MMOs too I would have already moved on.

GW1 r11, top 10 GvG guild about 2 years at that level

No, GW2 PvP is nothing on GW1, Anet aren’t so blind as to not know this, but it was probably never their intent. PvP in GW1 was for the tough PvPer (though AB, Hero Battles, RA did cater for the casual PvPer)
Actually the more you reflect on GW1 PvP it had everything.

Mind boggling why they directed themselves into capture point, you’ll only ever build 2 ways, bunker or roam.

Anet need to invest in WvW, that is where all the promise is.

WvW is clearly the future and it needs a lot of polishing. Also it could be extended to involve “controlled PvP population” in certain areas.

Also PvP looks like a subsystem within GW2 and could be extended independently.

Corvi.3278:

WvW is clearly the future and it needs a lot of polishing. Also it could be extended to involve “controlled PvP population” in certain areas.

Also PvP looks like a subsystem within GW2 and could be extended independently.

There’s a LOT of players looking at WvW as the “end game” content that will keep them coming back, IF they manage to revamp the current content with updated maps, rewards, titles, progression, ect. This is what I’m hearing in various areas of the forums. The Hall of Monuments was one of the best additions to GW, and kept players coming back again and again. If they don’t beef up the WvW content as promised this month, I see a lot of people leaving. The culling and lag issues with large groups is killing WvW. Not to get off topic here, but that is THE big issue in WvW.

Blackmoon.6837:

I did PvP in GW1 every so often. When I did, it was pretty boring. GW1 game play just can’t compare to how action-orientated this game is. So PvP is a lot more fun, imo.

Battles in pvp were always predicable in gw1. You pretty much knew if you were going to win within the first 10s of a match. If one player died on someone’s team, that was a clear single that the other team had the advantage and would win.

With GW2 there’s actually more variation to how one can overcome their foe. So even though someone went down during a match, that doesn’t mean the other team is going to win. It’s awesome to how it works now.

I used to play the low level 1-10 arenas quite a bit back in the prime of GW1. Ascalon Arena was my absolute favorite. One player down? Ok no problem. Two players down? Ok no problem. Three players down? Ok well it looks like I’m gonna have to do this all by myself. I did it literally thousands of times. 222 consecutive wins was the longest I cold tolerate sitting for hours on end. Was it exciting? Hell yes it was! You missed out on a great PvP system obviously.

c4,r8 or something like that… whatever
I havent touched GW2 SPVP since beta. WvW i dropped since the game performance is just plain horrible on anything lower than OCed i5 sandy/ivy CPUs.

Here s the major flaws and reasons why this game wont ever be an esport in no specific order that i can think of right now:
you only get one launch as ANET said it themselves and there wasnt much of a launch for SPVP
boring game mode
low build variety
messy stat/trait/skill system
no observer mode/replay tools
no ANET sponsored tournaments/events
no brand recognition and effort in the esport scene
complete separation from PVE/WvW – cant show off your flair
little to no incentive for casual PVE players to play SPVP (no rewards for non-tournament play like zkeys that translate into PVE)

WvW has less problems but at least it seems they are working on some of them:
culling
game performance
zerging
map variety
PVE stat creep with ascended gear
low rewards/time invested compared to PVE
speed/teleport hacks

Zero build variety. 5% bonus to power here, 5% bonus to healing there. That’s all we can choose from!…. just wtf is this?
Give me back Hexes, Enchantments and other cool skills from GW…
Oh. Another PvE grindkitten is on the way.
Just… ugh…gotta cry in the corner.

GW2 PvP definitely has potential, but it falls short.

The combat system, for one, makes PvP very fun. Unlike in WoW where beating the enemy is mainly reliant on you making sure your enemy can’t do anything through CC, GW2 is based more around movement and positioning. There is a lot of CC, but there’s also a lot of CC breakers. (Stand Your Ground, for example, is an AoE stability buff.)

I don’t agree with the people that say there isn’t a lot of build variety. It’s not like the variety you get in GW1, true, but I find there’s still a lot of variety and a ton of room to make your own, unique build.

I don’t think Guild Wars 2 can be seriously considered and esport yet. Keyword of course is yet. There’s definitely potential for PvP, but Guild Wars 2 falls short. The main thing that comes to mind is there being only one game type. Conquest is, to be honest, pretty dull in my opinion. Not to mention it’s currently the only game type. If they added game types like CtF and Last Man Standing and even reintroduced old gametypes from the original GW(like Fort Aspenwood) then I think the PvP scene would start to prosper.

Ascended gear speaks a lot about the direction GW2 Devs want the game to go.
E-sport and class balance seem to be some of the team’s internal jokes.

Conncept.7638:

Shirogatsu.3150:

Well, I don’t see new and interesting things in GW2 sPvP, except maps
In GW 1 I saw mindblowing builds, but in GW2 there is no surprises, you always know what you will face

Yeah, there was a ‘mindblowing’ build every other week, which ran the devs ragged with constant balance changes, prevented the game from ever being balanced, and completely alienated casual players.

It was cool having such a ridiculous amount of skills, but GW1 claimed to be a PvP oriented game and never was nor ever could be. GW2 is claiming to be one, and isn’t yet, but unlike GW1 actually can be.

I disagree with this statement. As a casual player, I rather resent that the word is being used in this post as basically meaning a “lazy” player, who is unwilling to even keep up with the most basic of patch notes while playing.

As many games as there are with mindless pvp for lazy, or as you called them “casual”, players who are unwilling to at least read forums once a week and incapable of putting out even the tiniest bit of brain power to try out new builds once in a while, it was nice having at least 1 game that required you to put your thinking cap on.

Reading GW’s huge patch notes was a pleasure. Skill balances have constantly been adding some fresh air to PvP (and PvE aswell).

I kinda liked AB, but I wouldn’t call my self a true pvper.

Seeing as each class has the same few skills to choose from, as some one else said, you know what your going to be up against. Back in GW, I use to help my Alliance members test there pvp builds by trying to finer the weak point in there builds. Now you only really have a hand full of skills to choose from and your weapon will give your attack skills away, as they are all the same, by that I mean a warrior with a great swords attack skills are the same as the next.

This is why I’ll not bother with pvp, at least till there is a bucket of skills to choose from.

Bellocchi.4593:

E-sport and class balance seem to be some of the team’s internal jokes.

Am I the only who gets embarrassed when someone refers to a video game as an “e-sport”. I laughed out loud the first time I heard that term… I was floored when I realized they were being serious =D

Rhaps.8540:

Didn’t try and balance it at all? A comment by a former member of staff working on a rival game posting in their forums is reliable? Come now, that’s just absurd.

It’s better then what you’ve got:

• Nothing but your own subjective opinion.

And yes, that statement is reliable, because those staff members that proven time and time again that they care about their players and are always working to bring a better game.

A statement from a lead game designer with experience in ANet’s internal affairs is significantly better then what either you or I can say on the matter. Ever.

You can’t trump that. :P

—

Oh, and LoL is not a rival game, it’s an entirely different genre. You’re the one making absurd comments.

—

If you can’t trust the developers who work hands-on with the products, then all you have to rely on is your own opinion.

And I’m speaking from personal experience when I say, personal opinion (without any genuine experience) is a kitten poor form of measurement when it comes to knowing how things work behind-the-scenes.

edit: oh my god, everyone come see how long winded I got!! Sorry, I separated my main point the OP’s question at the bottom:p

I played GW on all of the preview weekends and after its release played it as a second full time job all the way up until eye of the north. I still continued to play, just none of North’s content. In fact, I had decided by the first expansion that it was the greatest video game I had ever purchased and built a ridiculously expensive tower and bought a top of the line monitor and surround sound system strictly to enjoy GW even more.

I am a pvp player. Since my first introduction to a pvp server on the FIRST Everquest, I have not cared to participate in MMO pve content and in general don’t really play mmos because I find pve content so boring I can’t justify spending a monthly charge on it regardless if I can afford it. An exception being Warhammer Online (i know i know) which I have payed montly for since release. WAR actually replaced the first GW as my top game of all time, perhaps largely because I got to lvl40 rr90 on an MMO without ever having to kill a single npc. Amazeballs!

With the release of GW2, I had fully expected to leave Warhammer and return to gaming not paid for monthly… But I was wrong:(

And it’s actually kinda crazy because I reaaaalllly like GW2!! But I only like it for all of the wrong reasons….

This game has changed me. I… I uhhh… I enjoy PvE content. (please don’t tell my friends I said that) And I mean really enjoy it. So much in fact it keeps pulling me away from…. Which is aggravating because i WANT to pvp!

But Spvp sucks in GW2. So now I have reinstalled GW and go back and forth between it and GW2 pve…. Which is also aggravating.

What ArenaNet has done with GW2 on the PVE or even WvW aspect is… Well, regardless on if we enjoy them or not, they are massive achievements on a technical standpoint not just online games, but video gaming in general. Any hardcore gamer that disagrees with that has either been purposely misguided or is f’ing crazy.

And kudos to you aNet for what you have accomplished!

But what has happened makes little sense to me. Was too much time focused on these new aspects while Spvp was pieced together as it could be?

GW had an amazing 2team, 4 on 4 match. Amazing. Something aNet seemingly tried to do away with until the two team testing of this new patch? How can you release with such a few number of maps to which can’t be played any other way? By that I mean it’s all 3-zone capture…. All of it. How can there not be any other modes, many of which have come to be standard in a deathmatch type game? The 3-point capture could have been a welcome addition to the GW ‘here ya go, kill eachother’, but instead you offered it up as a replacement?

WvW is a concept of 2 week pvp matches verse three sides… Awesome, save for the fact it’s 3 servers against eachother. Still cool…. but…. the guild matches… the GvG instances from the first title that kicked so much kitten Where are they? Don’t tell me they are planned for later please….. Because this is Guild Wars. We should have that and the level of quality in arena matches that we had in the first one.

And that’s why so many GW1 players are mad or gone or leaving. This is a new game, not a sequel. It’s based in the same wonderful world that Anet created but do not be mistaken…. This is NOT Guild Wars 2.

This is Server Wars. And the Guilds will weep.

I played GW for about 4 years approximately starting from launch, then stopped and took a couple years break before GW2. I’m currently not playing GW2, but I stay on the forum to keep updated in case something were to draw me back in.

I was a pretty moderate pvper overall (r4 or 5 gladiator.. mostly RA), but there were phases when I’d do pvp exclusively. I was hoping GW2 would carry over GW’s amazing and varied pvp, and when it seemed it wouldn’t, I was hoping I’d be blown away by pve instead.

So my answer is no. GW was about the individual build, the individual’s skill at playing, and how they played or fit into a team build, whether random or premade. Wv3 is zerg3, which is not interesting to me personally.

DreamOfACure.4382:

Rhaps.8540:

Didn’t try and balance it at all? A comment by a former member of staff working on a rival game posting in their forums is reliable? Come now, that’s just absurd.

It’s better then what you’ve got:

• Nothing but your own subjective opinion.

And yes, that statement is reliable, because those staff members that proven time and time again that they care about their players and are always working to bring a better game.

A statement from a lead game designer with experience in ANet’s internal affairs is significantly better then what either you or I can say on the matter. Ever.

You can’t trump that. :P

—

Oh, and LoL is not a rival game, it’s an entirely different genre. You’re the one making absurd comments.
.

LoL is an esport game with RPG elements, GW was an eSport CRPG. They are competators.

A statement made by a former employee on his new employer’s forum is ever so slightly likey to be biased don’t you think?

And you lecture me about objectivity :P

Well a lot of answers mainly saying the same thing :

Lack of build variety
Lack of Game modes
Lack of ladder/ranking

Heres hoping for the future

kRiza krimos.1637:

Deified.7520:

sPvP needs a lot of work. I use to sPvP a lot. Same goes with WvW. AB (Alliance Battles) seemed to be them attempting to experiment with some WvW ideas in GW1 and honestly it was a lot better. It had the perfect mix of teamwork and player skill. IT wasn’t just who has the most people playing/biggest zergs or biggest nigh shifts. The sPvP in GW1 had a lot of builds to use, each one good. Interested maps and fun game modes. GW2 will eventually be good, but I hope it doesn’t take too long

Alliance battles cant even compare to WvW. 12 vs 12 running in circles and on other side massive player numbers on huge battlefield with constant dynamics, sieges, camp assaults, supply caravan raids and what not. Geez AB really was better yea…

The only time I got spawn camped in FA/JQ or AB was when most of my team left the game. I never played better than my opponent only to lose to superior numbers. Every time I went into an encounter I knew it was against people with max armour, max stats and equal numbers (at least on the map). All the PvP formats in GW1 were on a level playing field, and as much fun as running in zergs can be, nothing WvW can offer even comes close the fun you can have in a balanced arena.

I really crave a format like FA/JQ/AB (current sPvP is like AB, but 5v5 isn’t the same as 12vs12 and combat/skill/build balance isn’t as enjoyable as it was in GW1). I haven’t had as much fun in GW2 PvP as I did in GW1 PvP. The formats and the combat just aren’t on the same level. WvW is constantly ruined by zergs and superior numbers. One of the first things I expect from a PvP format is equal numbers. WvW doesn’t offer that.

I really resent how the developers seem to respond to topics that are less important than this, but for the sake of GW1, which i played for almost 6 years, i will throw in my $0.02.

- GW2 combat is shallow

- The skill system is rigid and restrictive

- There is no real point to grouping up outside of dungeons

- roles are homogenized and indistinct

- things quickly deteriorate into button mashing with very little thought involved

- the traits and player attribute systems are bloated with junk and messy, respectively

- there’s an apparent lack of social cohesion because everything in this game seems to segment players rather than bring them together

(segmented story missions, FoTM, can’t take your PvE gear into sPvP, etc)

- boss fights have no real challenge, just hp in scientific notation and OHKO moves

- Questionable design choice to remove monk class, personally, i think it’s been detrimental in many, many areas (listed above)…rather than advantageous.

- Boring, shallow, linear, predictable, one-dimensional PvP

- Zerging is not fun or mentally engaging in the least. Now, ABing (GW1) with teams that have inherent roles structure…those types of zerg encounters were actually fun and skillful because of the healer role, not just a cooldown party and a numbers game.

- No skill capping

- laughable difficulty because all mobs have is simple mechanics rather than skill bars and team (mobs would travel in packs and often have complimentary builds comprised of player skills) compositions rivaling, but not surpassing the PvP challenge.

GW2 doesn’t have this.

- Buggy

- Badly written story

- Missing the most basic of features.

Why doesn’t ArenaNet realize they lost so much in forgetting what made GW1 great?

Just my opinion, I wish they had just expanded upon GW1 rather than make this game.

Gw1 was better in skills. And yes I do not play Gw2 nearly as much. Lack of skills in the classes in my opinion hurts GW2. PVP in some ways is better.

jdkentucky.2871:

Gw1 was better in skills. And yes I do not play Gw2 nearly as much. Lack of skills in the classes in my opinion hurts GW2. PVP in some ways is better.

Well i seen a blog video they are working on traits and cleaning up classes , And thats good but i just dont like the fact im stuck with same skills in 1-5 slot , im guessing this is what you mean ?

I miss random arenas. Also, one thing that made GW1 pvp fun was that you could create so many builds. Too bad Anet made it that each weapon gives you a set of skills, which I find to be of a, no offense, kitten tier.

Flamenco.3894:

I miss random arenas. Also, one thing that made GW1 pvp fun was that you could create so many builds. Too bad Anet made it that each weapon gives you a set of skills, which I find to be of a, no offense, kitten tier.

So true!!

Decrypter.1785:

jdkentucky.2871:

Gw1 was better in skills. And yes I do not play Gw2 nearly as much. Lack of skills in the classes in my opinion hurts GW2. PVP in some ways is better.

Well i seen a blog video they are working on traits and cleaning up classes , And thats good but i just dont like the fact im stuck with same skills in 1-5 slot , im guessing this is what you mean ?

Yes indeed GW1 you had to go here and there to get certain skills for that 1 to 5 slot. I had all of them in Gw1, here I am stuck with what they gave me.

Decrypter.1785:

jdkentucky.2871:

Gw1 was better in skills. And yes I do not play Gw2 nearly as much. Lack of skills in the classes in my opinion hurts GW2. PVP in some ways is better.

Well i seen a blog video they are working on traits and cleaning up classes , And thats good but i just dont like the fact im stuck with same skills in 1-5 slot , im guessing this is what you mean ?

Can you provide a link to the blog video that says they are cleaning up traits and classes? How current is it?

Mendax.9506:

Zero build variety. 5% bonus to power here, 5% bonus to healing there. That’s all we can choose from!…. just wtf is this?
Give me back Hexes, Enchantments and other cool skills from GW…
Oh. Another PvE grindkitten is on the way.
Just… ugh…gotta cry in the corner.

So much this.

I find it funny when people justify the lack of skills in GW2 with the argument that a lot of GW1 skills were useless.

All ANet did was remove the awesome, various pool of skills from GW1 and replace them with boring passives in GW2. (and all of those passives are totally 100% worth taking, right? >.>)

From somebody who liked WAR’s WvW, I adore Gw2’s. As far as sPvP goes, I don’t play it because it would make me nostalgic of GW1’s Halls. The only thing I dislike about Gw2 is the lack of skill combinations. I don’t care how many skill duplicates we had in GW1, I always felt I could make unlimited amount of builds, and building that unique build was half the fun.

80% of my guild left the game in October. Most of these people had been active in PvP in GW1. They are playing LoL now. So, no, they were not happy with PvP in GW2.

It’s crap. I play this game for PvE and nothing more.
I was addicted to PvP in GW1, played it for 6 years. Holding Hall of Heroes days on end, one of the first to achieve my awesome rank 12 Phoenix emote, playing in the most top-rated GvG guilds. I was so excited for GW2 PvP. But it just feels like Alliance Battles in gw1. Random, boring capping points. It’s not fun at all.

I laugh at anyone who calls GW2 PvP, and everyone who has played GW1 PvP knows what REAL PvP is and will agree with me.

I think it has a lot to do with the mechanics though. See, in GW1 you had to watch the field, position yourself correctly, watch for certain animations so you can interrupt them. Watch for certain players their playstyle, watch for ticks they did, patterns, and knowing how to counter them.
Even just making a skillbar took me forever, but I enjoyed it. Reading all the skills, thinking up different combo’s. There were times late at night where I would sit next to the skills guy with my notepad and making whole skillbars for an 8 man team to go try out. Thinking of every other ‘meta’ builds I might come across and picking certain ‘counter’ skills so we wouldn’t get blown up by these groups. Then gather some people and see if it worked.

In GW2 it just feels like you go in, do your normal combo (with hardly any variation), dodge some stuff, and repeat. Probably due to every skillbar being the same and having no build customization. And that’s not even considering the capping stuff, it’s just more fun to play deathmatch or whatever, but I’m sure they’ll add this playstyle some time in the future. It would definitely be a lot better than capping.

In short: It’s a disgrace to call what we have in GW2 ‘PvP’.

As a former GW1 player a member of one of top 50 4×4 teams back in GW1 i can say i hate pvp in GW2.

Yes i spend 20 or 25 minutes from time to time doing sPvP but only to kill some time or help someone test his build ir something like that. First month or so i was participating in spvp much but it clearly holds nothing competitive to it. Just a zerg with 2 broken classes which pretty much still dominates all games , no variaty of viable builds and generally nothing to work on.

As about WvWvW it has potential it just need some tweaking. I dont enjoy going solo and just following zergs cause its pretty pointless too but then my guild runs WvW nights its always fun to do some stealth missions with 5-10 ppl.

WvW is a numbers game, like any actual siege warfare. The larger, better equipped, better funded force wins, without regard to skill or strategy. This can’t be fixed without destroying the whole of WvW as we know it.

Real PvP had some potential, but some major problems ruined it for me. There are (or were, before I quit) very few tournaments, if any, ever. Most of the time, my whole team would show up, only to find that we were stuck in hotjoins because nobody really cares. There was absolutely nothing to foster a real competitive environment in the huge pool of randoms. No team builds, no strategy, just a bunch of people running around and doing stuff, hoping they win. With my team, I’d win every time, all the time, no matter what. Without my team, I had a 75% win rate. In the few tournaments that ever happened, we were pretty average, with a 60% win rate. The basic mechanic of every fight was hold two points with roamer/scouts to harry the third point, get the extra mechanic, or generally keep the enemy on their toes. On every map, it’s the same.

I miss elimination matches the most. Nothing is more pathetic than killing the entire enemy team at least twice. You know you won, but you have to wait it out, until time is up. It’s even worse when they all give up and leave, so you either stand there, draw straws for who on your team goes to the other side, or just leave and miss out in the winning bonuses.

It could be amazing PvP if it wasn’t so poorly designed, with no incentive to develop a real metagame or competitive environment…

Gw1 player too here and the pvp format in GW2 is Boring.

-Lack of variety in skills/builds
-Lack of RA/GvG/AB (WvW is seriously just a ZvZ)
-The flow of the battle is lacking (real time interrupt system? no? okay…)

GW1 was already esport
There is just too many things missing.

Another 7+ year GW1 vet. The pvp in GW2 just doesn’t compare. I’ll be playing WvW and find myself longing for the days of Alliance Battles.. And I’m casual. I never was very good at making builds, either. But I’d take that any day over boring monotony. When everyone uses the same skills and builds, there are no surprises.
And uh, GW1 never exactly suffered invisible zerg rushes due to culling that was apparently impossible for the dev team to fix, heh.

Decrypter.1785:

Hey just wondered how the gw1 vets view the current spvp n wv3 ?

No I am not happy. WvW is fun but I don’t see it as an alternative for the awesome PvP we had in GW1.

Outstanding design mistakes in GW2:

• fixed weapon skills
• weak elites
• weak traits, imbalanced traits
• dropping the elite capture system
• removal of energy as a resource (and energy management & denial skills)
• lack of conditional effects, eg: skill effects based around onRemoveCondition, onAcquireCondition, onRemoveBoon, onAcquireBoon, onMove, number of skills on CD, etc — there’s just not enough depth
• the weakness of AOE combo fields
• strongly linking trait line to weapons & utility types (aura, cantrip, trick, etc)
• strongly linking stats to trait lines
• ascended gear in WVW
• downed state mini-game in PVP
• rallying in PVP
• combat rezzing under fire

WVW is the strong point of this game, the smart thing to do would be to work on strengthening that.

I know this is only for Gw1 players. Technically I did play Gw1, just never did PvP. But Im going to represent a ex WoW player. A diff perspective for you guys.

The PvP in this game, both Spvp and WvW are extremely horrible imo.

I will admit i only played Spvp like only twice. Never came back after that. The game mode wasn’t so much fighting……it was more running around and strategically capturing points and abandoning points. Kind of like a cat and mouse game.

I have stepped into WvW a bunch of times. Always trying to give it a good chance. But in the end, there was just no point to it. I have no clue how anyone could take it seriously….i mean….THERE IS NO WINNER!!! That’s the biggest flaw in the game mode out of a ton of them. Don’t even let me get started on night capping…….

Is it too much to ask for a server to be able to WIPE the other server off the map???

Too bad i quit WoW (would never come back) but i sure do miss the PvP there.

Charming Rogue.8071:

It’s crap. I play this game for PvE and nothing more.
I was addicted to PvP in GW1, played it for 6 years. Holding Hall of Heroes days on end, one of the first to achieve my awesome rank 12 Phoenix emote, playing in the most top-rated GvG guilds. I was so excited for GW2 PvP. But it just feels like Alliance Battles in gw1. Random, boring capping points. It’s not fun at all.

I laugh at anyone who calls GW2 PvP, and everyone who has played GW1 PvP knows what REAL PvP is and will agree with me.

I think it has a lot to do with the mechanics though. See, in GW1 you had to watch the field, position yourself correctly, watch for certain animations so you can interrupt them. Watch for certain players their playstyle, watch for ticks they did, patterns, and knowing how to counter them.
Even just making a skillbar took me forever, but I enjoyed it. Reading all the skills, thinking up different combo’s. There were times late at night where I would sit next to the skills guy with my notepad and making whole skillbars for an 8 man team to go try out. Thinking of every other ‘meta’ builds I might come across and picking certain ‘counter’ skills so we wouldn’t get blown up by these groups. Then gather some people and see if it worked.

In GW2 it just feels like you go in, do your normal combo (with hardly any variation), dodge some stuff, and repeat. Probably due to every skillbar being the same and having no build customization. And that’s not even considering the capping stuff, it’s just more fun to play deathmatch or whatever, but I’m sure they’ll add this playstyle some time in the future. It would definitely be a lot better than capping.

In short: It’s a disgrace to call what we have in GW2 ‘PvP’.

OMG Dude you sound SO much like me… late at night sitting there with a notepad making 8 man team builds. I even went so far as to test all the skills/builds on my heroes against REAL people in Guild Hall scrimmages (before they nerfed using heroes in GH). We got spoiled on the awesome PvP they gave us in GW1 I suppose. They even catered to the people like us by coming up with the Codex arena, testing your mettle to come up with builds based on a limited skill pool. I dearly miss the GvG and HA. I hope you’re right and they do change/add/diversify the build/skills system, but I’m afraid that if they don’t do it soon, there will not be anyone left to play with. Btw, I played GW1 for 7+ years and I hear PvP is active again there. I’ve been contemplating going back.

mjharrison.3209:

WVW is the strong point of this game, the smart thing to do would be to work on strengthening that.

I agree 100%, but unfortunately it’s the one thing that’s getting the very least amount of attention.

Hell no.

Hell no happy at all.