Guild Wars 2

Seeing as i just got done getting all 50 points out of the Dragon Ball Champion achievement, I figured i d go ahead and point out everything that went wrong with the Activity from a Design point of view.

1. The Jump-Pads
They work when they want to, not when you want them to. either they dont bounce you up at all, or not high enough or delayed, so that you face plant into a wall and fall back down. this happens about 60% of the time trying to get out of spawn. They shouldnt be fully centered if you assume that the player doesnt stand still as soon as they are bounced up.

2. It Encourages Toxic Behaviour
Seeing how you only get rewarded for Winning 10 games, unlike pretty much every other activity that rewards you for playing one or several games, a good 80% of players that end up on the losing team leave and find themselves another match where they are on the winning team. You encourage players to leave matches they cant win, because there is literally no reason for them to continue playing. thats a mayor design flaw in my eyes. Let alone that most of the time teams are so unbalanced that a 500 – 0 match is more likely than, say, a 500 – 400 match.

The above is mostly caused by players leaving early, or auto balance switching players from the winning team to the other and them leaving in return because it is just a waste of time at that point.

3. It is not fun
Not only do you not get rewarded for playing, in addition you mostly find yourself constantly hunted down by a group of 2-4 players.

These are just a few points i could think of at the top of my head. I have been sticking around with the Guild Wars franchise since 2005/2006 and this game has so much potential, but it pains me to see how so many design flaws make it past QA. Does play testing even happen? if so, why didnt anyone notice that this isnt fun, rewarding content that people would want to play? Most people in there probably just stick around for the tokens, and not because they enjoy it.

I would much appreciate it if more thought would go into the content released. And yes, I am aware of this content is now roughly 2 years old, but thats no excuse for all the flaws it has. Just because it is returning holiday content, that doesnt mean its issues can be left unattended.

What sticks out as the most wrong is the dailies.

Dragonball Participant = Participate into 2 games of Dragonball.
Dragonball Boss = Win 5 games of Dragonball.

This should clearly be the other way around. Participant should be 5, Boss should be 2.
This would fix things because even if players lost, they would still get Participant, and that makes it worth staying. Perhaps you would lose 3 games and win 2 and be done with your dailies.

The way it is now, you have to win 5, and win includes participation, which means it is clearly more efficient to simply leave a losing match(actually there is NO reason to stay in a losing match other than waste your own time) and re-enter, because you will get Participant either way by winning the next match.

This is really badly design.

Its not fun.

Thank Grenth that I’m not an AP maniac and can avoid these annoying mini games.

At the beginning of the event people were rage quitting losing teams because they wanted to get their 50 wins faster, so you could be robbed of a victory when the broken autobalancing system shunted you to the losing team.

Near the end of the event people who got their 50 wins AFK for two games every day to get their daily rewards, so games are even slower with fewer active participants.

Didn’t we have this problem last year too?

I find dragon ball to be a total drag. I don’t participate. It’s worse than the snowball fight.

1) The jump pad from where you spawn is iffy at best. I’m often stuck not getting vertical enough to get out before it sticks me somewhere surrounded by the opposing team. Don’t really have an issue with the other jump pads.

2) Funny, I get rewarded for participating. But there are times when players “check out” but I’ve never seen a mass quit. And since I’ve been added to matches in progress as long as there are players queuing it’s rarely a lopsided match up of players.

3) I think it’s great. It’s the ultimate equalizer, everyone is the same, no pre-made teams, it’s all about reading the situation and playing.

I sense the OP wants hyper-competative play to win rather than play cause it’s fun.

Behellagh.1468:

1) The jump pad from where you spawn is iffy at best. I’m often stuck not getting vertical enough to get out before it sticks me somewhere surrounded by the opposing team. Don’t really have an issue with the other jump pads.

2) Funny, I get rewarded for participating. But there are times when players “check out” but I’ve never seen a mass quit. And since I’ve been added to matches in progress as long as there are players queuing it’s rarely a lopsided match up of players.

3) I think it’s great. It’s the ultimate equalizer, everyone is the same, no pre-made teams, it’s all about reading the situation and playing.

I sense the OP wants hyper-competative play to win rather than play cause it’s fun.

no. I am just not going to sugar coat bad, half-baked content overflowing with design flaws, when its basically the only “festive” content the lunar new year event brings with it.
i highly doubt you get rewarded for participating. I dont get anything for playing a match, and the only thing i get for a win is a +1 for the champion achievement. if you do actually get some sort of loot for participating, that only further proves what a buggy mess this is.

also, there is literally NOTHING fun about losing the only progress or reward you can actually get in there because the entire enemy team ragequit and you get teamswitched as a result, volunteered or not.

Assuming stable and fairly even teams, I find Dragon Ball really fun.

But yeah, the bugginess and screwed up incentives hurts.

Jump pads – seems much worse when there’s a bit of lag. Could use a similar treatment to what we got with gliders being controlled by client instead of server if that’s the cause and is feasible. If not, an easier fix would be to adjust the floor level at the spawn point a bit so it doesn’t take a near perfect jump to get out. (and how about adjusting the position of the billboards in the spawn so I don’t keep getting stuck behind them when I fail a jump)

Leaving teams/volunteer – Incentives for this are all messed up. I remember the very first time DB was introduced in LS1, and there was some kind of reward for being on the losing team which just encouraged a lot of AFK farming, so I can imagine that’s why we’re in this situation. But if you’re on the winning team and volunteer to the losing, you definitely should get credit for a win. That would at least encourage people to volunteer to even out the teams without their losing credit, even if it doesn’t stop the initial reason some leave a losing team.

Tamasan.6457:

Assuming stable and fairly even teams, I find Dragon Ball really fun.

But yeah, the bugginess and screwed up incentives hurts.

Jump pads – seems much worse when there’s a bit of lag. Could use a similar treatment to what we got with gliders being controlled by client instead of server if that’s the cause and is feasible. If not, an easier fix would be to adjust the floor level at the spawn point a bit so it doesn’t take a near perfect jump to get out. (and how about adjusting the position of the billboards in the spawn so I don’t keep getting stuck behind them when I fail a jump)

Leaving teams/volunteer – Incentives for this are all messed up. I remember the very first time DB was introduced in LS1, and there was some kind of reward for being on the losing team which just encouraged a lot of AFK farming, so I can imagine that’s why we’re in this situation. But if you’re on the winning team and volunteer to the losing, you definitely should get credit for a win. That would at least encourage people to volunteer to even out the teams without their losing credit, even if it doesn’t stop the initial reason some leave a losing team.

I assume afkers would be kicked, like in other activities and pvp aswell for being inactive for too long. this however never triggers because they are being teleported outside after a little while, so that counters that mechanic. On the other hand its necessary to prevent spawn camping. it should just kick out people who are inactive even after being teleported and potentially attacked by the enemy team. But that is yet another design flaw, i suppose.

Behellagh.1468:

1) The jump pad from where you spawn is iffy at best. I’m often stuck not getting vertical enough to get out before it sticks me somewhere surrounded by the opposing team. Don’t really have an issue with the other jump pads.

2) Funny, I get rewarded for participating. But there are times when players “check out” but I’ve never seen a mass quit. And since I’ve been added to matches in progress as long as there are players queuing it’s rarely a lopsided match up of players.

3) I think it’s great. It’s the ultimate equalizer, everyone is the same, no pre-made teams, it’s all about reading the situation and playing.

I sense the OP wants hyper-competative play to win rather than play cause it’s fun.

…..except everyone is not the same. As soon as one team gets dragonspeed (or whatever its called) they’re faster to pick up the spheres and you’re screwed. I was running to get one and I was literally outpaced by the enemy players. And when all you’ve got is the basic #1 skill that can’t seem to hit anything at point blank range and they’ve got the super version that somehow hits you from across the arena… it’s not fun. Not to mention that there’s only one arena and it’s a small sewer. Normal pvp has bigger, more interesting arenas and gives you a chance to at least catch up. And if you’re coming from a mainly-pve play style and trying to learn dragon ball you’re up against very difficult odds. Experts have fun in this. Newbs get eaten for breakfast before they can learn anything.

They need to modify it based on the feedback in this thread, then give it a new name when the festival comes around next year so players will know it was improved.

I suggest Dragon Ball… Z.

Majic.4801:

They need to modify it based on the feedback in this thread, then give it a new name when the festival comes around next year so players will know it was improved.

I suggest Dragon Ball… Z.

:D ..and there needs to be a skill called the Kamehameha.

AysonCurrax.3254:

Behellagh.1468:

1) The jump pad from where you spawn is iffy at best. I’m often stuck not getting vertical enough to get out before it sticks me somewhere surrounded by the opposing team. Don’t really have an issue with the other jump pads.

2) Funny, I get rewarded for participating. But there are times when players “check out” but I’ve never seen a mass quit. And since I’ve been added to matches in progress as long as there are players queuing it’s rarely a lopsided match up of players.

3) I think it’s great. It’s the ultimate equalizer, everyone is the same, no pre-made teams, it’s all about reading the situation and playing.

I sense the OP wants hyper-competative play to win rather than play cause it’s fun.

no. I am just not going to sugar coat bad, half-baked content overflowing with design flaws, when its basically the only “festive” content the lunar new year event brings with it.
i highly doubt you get rewarded for participating. I dont get anything for playing a match, and the only thing i get for a win is a +1 for the champion achievement. if you do actually get some sort of loot for participating, that only further proves what a buggy mess this is.

also, there is literally NOTHING fun about losing the only progress or reward you can actually get in there because the entire enemy team ragequit and you get teamswitched as a result, volunteered or not.

I do believe we get at least one lowest level red envelope for each of the two matches a day achievement. Don’t know beyond that because it wasn’t important to keep playing. The reward for winning 10 matches is a token that will let you buy up to 10 high tier red envelopes for 10 gold and even boosting my magic find to over 450% still was a 2-3% gold loss opening all my envelopes.

I must play at a different time because I never had a team rage quit while we were losing by a wide margin. Go AFK in the open so it’s over quicker sure but leave while the match is going on, didn’t see it. Like I said, there is no reason to be hyper-competitive. You win some games, you lose some games. It’s all happy pretendy fun time games. Didn’t matter to me if we won or loss as a team, as long as I didn’t embarrass myself in number of kills for the match.

I do like the idea of Dragon Ball Arena as a fast-paced game that rewards co-operating over soloing. However…

Due to the fast pace, the lag/latency issues become extremely clear. It’s not uncommon to have even your “fastball” be “obstructed” even when the graphics HIT the other player, or to suddenly go from 50 to 0 health because you took 3 hits in a split second (from the same player), or to suddenly have 3 fireballs appear in your face from enemies you don’t even see until you’re already dead (I even ran on lowest graphics and I have a pretty solid setup so should not be due to my equipment being slow). I also have issues with constantly untargetting enemies, especially in close quarters combat, which leads to unnecessary frustration.

Another HUGE issue I experienced was the nearly constantly unbalanced teams. Not only is it more common that a team wins 500-0 than 500-400 as previously stated, it’s also nearly constantly 5 v 4, 4 v 3, or even 5 vs 2..
From my experience this has one main reason; the game only (mostly) rewards victories, making players on the losing team leave and look for another matchup since they don’t want to “waste time” on finishing a game they’re going to lose anyway.
This imbalance is further skewed by peole being able to SWITCH TEAMS from the losing to the winning side in the middle of the match. I cannot stress how frustrating it is to see your losing team go up to 5 v 4 players, giving you a sparke of hope, only to have the best player on the team swap to the other side a second later.. Please either remove the ability to switch teams manually, or simply prevent people from swapping to a team with more points than their current one.
There’s also the problem with the Red Team always winning. Well, not true. Not always. Just in what feels like 90% of the matches. Why? Because they ALWAYS get prio on new players. If teams are evenly distributed any new player that joins the match gets assigned to the red team.. Can’t you randomize this a bit?

And the final pet peeve? “Volunteer Rewards”.. 25 measly rank points to voluntarily throw away my chance at winning? Pffft! This is also assuming they’re even distributed upon volunteering, I failed to notice it concidering I need 20000 for my rank up and 25 points isn’t a noticable ammount on the “experience bar”.. And what exactly is the “guaranteed win bonus” ? Double of nothing concidering there ARE no direct rewards for winning? Atleast throw in a bone like the “guaranteed to count as victory” reward from past events (although I’m pretty sure that one never actually rewarded you with a victory inspite of being voluntarily transferred).

It’s not my bag at all but I think the experience would be greatly improved if it didn’t use the dailies to tempt reluctant players to play it. If you have a daily that says “participate 5 times” you are going to get a whole bunch of players who don’t really want to be there, just waiting out the game to get the daily, or committing suicide if it’s quicker. That makes it hard for the system to balance the teams.

You see the same thing when the dailies include an activity. I’ve been in Crab Toss where everyone is basically just standing around watching the time tick down (yes, I was doing the same). That’s human nature for ya.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

(actually there is NO reason to stay in a losing match other than waste your own time)

except being fair and not waste other ppl time by quitting and forcing them to change teams and loosing a game they should have won.

I like it for 10 minutes per day. I can see how it can be frustrating if you take it too seriously though.