Guild Wars 2

ANet just has to admit that some skill design was just poor to start off with. No matter how much you play with the numbers, if the skill design and mechanics fall short to start with, it’d never be balanced.

Look at GS for warriors in pvp for example. You can increase the numbers, decrease the numbers but the fact is that the skills are simply poorly designed for pvp. Hundred blades is great but it completely takes away GW2’s signature trait: mobility.

What Riot did that helped them evolve into such a huge e-sport is that in addition to balancing, they recognized that sometimes some skill sets simply did not work for the game mechanics. It’s not uncommon for them to completely trash out the whole skill set for a champion if that’s what it takes to make it work.

Now, Anet. You have tried, fiddled with numbers and let your fans down by failing to turn this game into an e-sport. will you keep fiddling with your numbers, hoping for a change or will you actually take some drastic changes?

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
-Einstein

I still remember what happened when they swapped around the GS skills and cooldowns on Guardian. I don’t think Anet wants to do anything drastic.

?? I dont think the entire point you wanted to come across was all written down in your post, cuz Im feeling a disconnect somewhere, also how is hundred baldes “poorly” design and the way Lol made their champion abilities the reason their successful?

also I spend alot of time in the Lol forums both in my country and international and that was before they purged many of the trolls, and I think alooooooot of people on the forums would disagree the Lol is a great example, the amount of complaints here is nothing compared to the amounts there on an hour by hour basis. paragraphs upon paragraphs on almost every champion, remember the old tryndamere? the orignal heimer and the reaction to the turret nerf after? irelia? not to mention every new champ being basically buffed in its introduction patch and debuffed in the patch or even days after.

Not to mention the very simple fact that most MMOs aren’t considered esports, where as many mobas are . It has to do a lot more with the genre of game than any one specific company’s decisions.

I mean, League of Legends is only about PvP. It’s not a PvE game at all. It doesn’t have to think about or balance for anything but PvP.

Guild Wars 2, arguably, has a very strong PvE following that it has to contend with as well as a PvP following.

It can’t make decisons just based on PvP, because even now, PvE’ers complain about that.

Anet’s wanted the game to be an e-sport, they also wanted the game to be a major PVE MMO. They were not willing (or not able) to do what it would take to bring both desires to fruition.

Ashen.2907:

Anet’s wanted the game to be an e-sport, they also wanted the game to be a major PVE MMO. They were not willing (or not able) to do what it would take to bring both desires to fruition.

if they wanted to, they could tweak skills so that they have a bit of a different effect in pve and pvp so that some traits work both ways. e.g. how unsuspecting foe is worthless in pve

SpehssMehreen.5897:

?? I dont think the entire point you wanted to come across was all written down in your post, cuz Im feeling a disconnect somewhere, also how is hundred baldes “poorly” design and the way Lol made their champion abilities the reason their successful?

also I spend alot of time in the Lol forums both in my country and international and that was before they purged many of the trolls, and I think alooooooot of people on the forums would disagree the Lol is a great example, the amount of complaints here is nothing compared to the amounts there on an hour by hour basis. paragraphs upon paragraphs on almost every champion, remember the old tryndamere? the orignal heimer and the reaction to the turret nerf after? irelia? not to mention every new champ being basically buffed in its introduction patch and debuffed in the patch or even days after.

but here’s the thing.

tryndamere was remade as a result of feedback. so was heimerdinger.

so was evelynn, master yi, xerath, twitch, sivir, and the list goes on.

the game shouldn’t be judged by the amount of QQ on the forum but the end result. and the end result in terms of progress as an esport is quite sad

i think ANet also responded very poorly to feedback first half a year of launch. they deleted feedback threads that didn’t even say inappropriate things and ignored them. the players that wanted to go ‘pro’ were neglected and ignored. before we had elitist guilds and players streaming and putting up guides. where are they all now?

i guess what i’m getting at is that ANet has:
1. launched the game with poor pvp features and
2. didn’t incorporate feedback fast enough/ignored them completely and
3. made the game e-sport unfriendly (high rng-based combat, particles everywhere, limited game mode options, class imbalance, unmodifiable UI)

and it’s lost a ton of player base and built a bad reputation for itself. any company – not just gaming – needs to make some drastic changes in the way it operates to change the mind of its disappointed players.

big changes bring in media coverage, old players back, and keep new players engaged.

fiddling with numbers all day long does not.

Warriors don’t have to use greatswords in PvP.

You can use axes, maces, swords, hammer, rifle or longbow as well.

Vayne.8563:

Not to mention the very simple fact that most MMOs aren’t considered esports, where as many mobas are . It has to do a lot more with the genre of game than any one specific company’s decisions.

I mean, League of Legends is only about PvP. It’s not a PvE game at all. It doesn’t have to think about or balance for anything but PvP.

Guild Wars 2, arguably, has a very strong PvE following that it has to contend with as well as a PvP following.

It can’t make decisons just based on PvP, because even now, PvE’ers complain about that.

you’re absolutely correct. balancing pvp and pve aspect of MMO’s is possibly the hardest thing to do. the only mmo i’d argue came closest to becoming an e-sport was World of warcraft. it was even in MLG – then what happened? devs decided that it’s way too hard and announced that they won’t balance the game around pvp. the e-sport scene disappeared immediately.

that being said, here’s the difference
1. the number of skills a class can use in GW2 arena situation is drastically lower
2. effect of skill tweaks aren’t as evident in pve. this is of course debateable.
3. no new skills are being added to the game. and how long has it been since launch again?

Peetee.9406:

Warriors don’t have to use greatswords in PvP.

You can use axes, maces, swords, hammer, rifle or longbow as well.

the only weapon i’d argue has a clever design would be hammer and sword. this isn’t simply an issue of viability but rather, the flaws in the intial design that is making the weapon either very situational and difficult to balance for all three areas (wvw, pvp and pve)

for example: mace is designed in a way that it’s great in spvp but almost worthless in pve (bosses can’t get cc’d). rifle is designed in a way that it’s good in wvw but almost worthless in spvp (due to the lack of cc)

now you may say: well then why don’t you just use weapons good for spvp in spvp, and weapons good for pve in pve?

well if that’s the direction arenanet moves in, I actually wouldn’t complain. the weapon selection may become narrowed and limited, and of course combat limited. but at least then you’d have a consistent, balanced pvp and the devs would be able to solely focus on trait balance and new trait introduction.

Jae.5138:

SpehssMehreen.5897:

?? I dont think the entire point you wanted to come across was all written down in your post, cuz Im feeling a disconnect somewhere, also how is hundred baldes “poorly” design and the way Lol made their champion abilities the reason their successful?

also I spend alot of time in the Lol forums both in my country and international and that was before they purged many of the trolls, and I think alooooooot of people on the forums would disagree the Lol is a great example, the amount of complaints here is nothing compared to the amounts there on an hour by hour basis. paragraphs upon paragraphs on almost every champion, remember the old tryndamere? the orignal heimer and the reaction to the turret nerf after? irelia? not to mention every new champ being basically buffed in its introduction patch and debuffed in the patch or even days after.

but here’s the thing.

tryndamere was remade as a result of feedback. so was heimerdinger.

so was evelynn, master yi, xerath, twitch, sivir, and the list goes on.

the game shouldn’t be judged by the amount of QQ on the forum but the end result. and the end result in terms of progress as an esport is quite sad

i think ANet also responded very poorly to feedback first half a year of launch. they deleted feedback threads that didn’t even say inappropriate things and ignored them. the players that wanted to go ‘pro’ were neglected and ignored. before we had elitist guilds and players streaming and putting up guides. where are they all now?

i guess what i’m getting at is that ANet has:
1. launched the game with poor pvp features and
2. didn’t incorporate feedback fast enough/ignored them completely and
3. made the game e-sport unfriendly (high rng-based combat, particles everywhere, limited game mode options, class imbalance, unmodifiable UI)

and it’s lost a ton of player base and built a bad reputation for itself. any company – not just gaming – needs to make some drastic changes in the way it operates to change the mind of its disappointed players.

big changes bring in media coverage, old players back, and keep new players engaged.

fiddling with numbers all day long does not.

you missed the point of my post, The OP was saying that Anet should follow what Lol is doing, but many many people in both the forums and the competitive teams will tell you its hardly a good example, posting something like this in the Lol forums will definitely invite flame, whether the adjustments made by the riot staff or anet to their games are purely relative.

on a side note those i’ve probably seen most of those “feedback” and “critism” topics, and although some have good apple posts within them the vast majority are well worth closing, especially when they devolve into a personal fight between two or three posters who want/believe x,y,z, throw in some trolls and memes and its a mess.

Jae.5138:

now you may say: well then why don’t you just use weapons good for spvp in spvp, and weapons good for pve in pve?

well if that’s the direction arenanet moves in, I actually wouldn’t complain. the weapon selection may become narrowed and limited, and of course combat limited. but at least then you’d have a consistent, balanced pvp and the devs would be able to solely focus on trait balance and new trait introduction.

I always assumed that’s how it’s always been.

As an Elementalist, our weapon choices are clearly designed for specific areas of the game. Staff for WvW, Scepter for PvE, Dagger for SPvP. I guess I assumed it was like that for all classes.

Peetee.9406:

Jae.5138:

now you may say: well then why don’t you just use weapons good for spvp in spvp, and weapons good for pve in pve?

well if that’s the direction arenanet moves in, I actually wouldn’t complain. the weapon selection may become narrowed and limited, and of course combat limited. but at least then you’d have a consistent, balanced pvp and the devs would be able to solely focus on trait balance and new trait introduction.

I always assumed that’s how it’s always been.

As an Elementalist, our weapon choices are clearly designed for specific areas of the game. Staff for WvW, Scepter for PvE, Dagger for SPvP. I guess I assumed it was like that for all classes.

I have to say youre wrong that its designed that way, not only does it go against any design philosophy there are many many builds that run different main weapons for eles, not only the scepter dagger combo you normally see, but also scepter focus, supportive bunker staff and even a conjured weapon power build using staff and icebow which can wreck anyone caught in the icebows skill 5 cc

I really wouldn’t cite League of Legends as an example of great skill design and balance work, considering they’ve been mostly stuck in the same meta (at least in the NA scene) for well over a year now. Apparently, it’s just starting to move towards a different strategy.

Riot is a bad company, look at how much contents they released in the past months with 1100 employes. A fractions when compare to GW2

Then you look at valve with less than 200 employees on Dota 2

My point is dear god pls don’t try to imitate Riot Anet we love you the way you are right now

Jae.5138:

What Riot did that helped them evolve into such a huge e-sport is that in addition to balancing, they recognized that sometimes some skill sets simply did not work for the game mechanics. It’s not uncommon for them to completely trash out the whole skill set for a champion if that’s what it takes to make it work.

You can’t even being to compare the two games because Riot still believe in the holy trinity and Anet do not. The type of team work that Riot’s game promotes is very different than the type of team work that Anet is trying to promote.

The major flaw in Riot’s game is when the there’s no tank or the tank failed on his build or the tank dies, the whole team falls apart. While in Anet’s team based game, there’s always a contingency plan.

I do I agree that some weapon sets needs to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch (i.e. Thief’s P/P set), however comparing GW2 to LoL is an example of a bad comparison.

I certainly think there are some utilities that can be entirely scrapped and redesigned. Some utility lines, such as traps, are not broad enough to support a versatile build and could do with fresh ideas.

100b is like the charge-up attacks you find in fighting games. It’s very difficult to land it, but if you do, your target is in for a world of pain.

It’s one of the few skills in the game which I think has a good risk to reward ratio.

What we got so far is good, we just don’t have enough of them.

Jae.5138:

ANet just has to admit that some skill design was just poor to start off with. No matter how much you play with the numbers, if the skill design and mechanics fall short to start with, it’d never be balanced.

Look at GS for warriors in pvp for example. You can increase the numbers, decrease the numbers but the fact is that the skills are simply poorly designed for pvp. Hundred blades is great but it completely takes away GW2’s signature trait: mobility.

What Riot did that helped them evolve into such a huge e-sport is that in addition to balancing, they recognized that sometimes some skill sets simply did not work for the game mechanics. It’s not uncommon for them to completely trash out the whole skill set for a champion if that’s what it takes to make it work.

Now, Anet. You have tried, fiddled with numbers and let your fans down by failing to turn this game into an e-sport. will you keep fiddling with your numbers, hoping for a change or will you actually take some drastic changes?

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
-Einstein

This is all to true and the suggestions are great. It is also never going to happen.

The biggest mistake in the MMO genre EVER is trying to make them into esports. Huge waste of money, time, development, and balancing. Esport games should be created and developed around the idea of esport, not mmorpg. But like many mmo’s as of late they want the cash grab of that esport community at launch.

I don’t know what’s worse every other new mmo shouting esport! Or the esport community falling for it every time.

ESport and MMO are two contradicting phrases to me anyways.

ESport is defined by heavy restrictions to allow the degree of balancing to foster competition. What eSport game out there has hundreds of skills and countless build to choose from? None.

MMOs on the other hand, needs that diversity and complexity to thrive, and that diversity and complexity needs to be constantly added to. If you want people to spend years playing your game, you gotta keep them entertained. That inherently means endless balancing problems.

You can have PvP in a MMO, but certainly not an eSport, and if you try to make a MMO into an eSport, you’re gonna wreck it.

Can’t have Esport with no DR on CC.

GW2’s competitive PvP was sort of doomed right from launch due to lack of variety. Anet created some incredible looking maps for Spvp but only 1 game mode? Seriously?? How long did they really expect the PvP player base to stick around with only 1 game mode? MMO’s need variety, without enough variety they die off as we are currently seeing with the Spvp portion of Gw2. Class balance will never be perfect or even close in anyway, that is just how MMO’s are, sometimes it is fun times for your class other times not so much, but a lot of that can be solved by having more variety, more game modes, more different ways to play, a class/build that is performing weakly in one mode, might be extremely strong in another. Work on the fun element first and maybe Gw2 will get lucky enough to stumble into something good later.

Step 1: Stop trying to make GW2 some eSports, just get over it.
Step 2: Stop balancing everything around tPvP and ruining PvE and Wv3
Step 3: Profit!

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Step 1: Stop trying to make GW2 some eSports, just get over it.
Step 2: Stop balancing everything around tPvP and ruining PvE and Wv3
Step 3: Profit!

Simple. Direct to the point. I like it.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Step 1: Stop trying to make GW2 some eSports, just get over it.
Step 2: Stop balancing everything around tPvP and ruining PvE and Wv3
Step 3: Profit!

I like it.

Xae Isareth.1364:

100b is like the charge-up attacks you find in fighting games. It’s very difficult to land it, but if you do, your target is in for a world of pain.

It’s one of the few skills in the game which I think has a good risk to reward ratio.

Couldn’t disagree more – 100b is a terribly-designed skill. Any channelled melee dmg skill that roots its caster IMO is anathema to the kind of fluid, reactive gameplay you want in a game like GW2.

roamzero.9486:

I still remember what happened when they swapped around the GS skills and cooldowns on Guardian. I don’t think Anet wants to do anything drastic.

They kinda did with Warrior 1handed sword. Now it’s insanely powerful. :s

Main reason I dislike the whole e-sport thing is it keeps us from having more variety in spvp matches. We have capture the point, how about capture the flag, or keep, deathmatches or something more? Steal all Team Fortress 2’s game mode types if you must. :s

scerevisiae.1972:

Xae Isareth.1364:

100b is like the charge-up attacks you find in fighting games. It’s very difficult to land it, but if you do, your target is in for a world of pain.

It’s one of the few skills in the game which I think has a good risk to reward ratio.

Couldn’t disagree more – 100b is a terribly-designed skill. Any channelled melee dmg skill that roots its caster IMO is anathema to the kind of fluid, reactive gameplay you want in a game like GW2.

Why should every skill have you moving around? I’m not sure what else can I say about this but, that’s a question which I can’t answer myself.

Having diversity in the types of skills we have adds diversity to the gameplay. I don’t see whats the problem of having a skill which requires you to set it up and condition it right to pull off.

Solution: STOP TRYING TO BE AN ESPORT!!!

Knighthonor.4061:

Solution: STOP TRYING TO BE AN ESPORT!!!

It’ll never happen anyways. We don’t have any champion spotlights or moba maps, other than that one last Halloween.

Vayne.8563:

Not to mention the very simple fact that most MMOs aren’t considered esports, where as many mobas are . It has to do a lot more with the genre of game than any one specific company’s decisions.

I mean, League of Legends is only about PvP. It’s not a PvE game at all. It doesn’t have to think about or balance for anything but PvP.

Guild Wars 2, arguably, has a very strong PvE following that it has to contend with as well as a PvP following.

It can’t make decisons just based on PvP, because even now, PvE’ers complain about that.

It doesn’t have a strong PvE following, it has a strong group of farmville refugees and suckers that actually believed this game had anything to do with Guild Wars.
A strong PvE community would involve challenging and/or competitive content, ways for players to earn what they want in game faster with time spent IN THE kitten GAME.

As far as balancing pve/pvp I always found that split balancing them was the most intelligent thing I had ever seen. The fact that they were so against this initially was fairly disappointing.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Step 1: Stop trying to make GW2 some eSports, just get over it.
Step 2: Stop balancing everything around tPvP and ruining PvE and Wv3
Step 3: Profit!

One of the few things you’ve said I actually agree with. lol

Judge Banks.9018:

Vayne.8563:

Not to mention the very simple fact that most MMOs aren’t considered esports, where as many mobas are . It has to do a lot more with the genre of game than any one specific company’s decisions.

I mean, League of Legends is only about PvP. It’s not a PvE game at all. It doesn’t have to think about or balance for anything but PvP.

Guild Wars 2, arguably, has a very strong PvE following that it has to contend with as well as a PvP following.

It can’t make decisons just based on PvP, because even now, PvE’ers complain about that.

It doesn’t have a strong PvE following, it has a strong group of farmville refugees and suckers that actually believed this game had anything to do with Guild Wars.
A strong PvE community would involve challenging and/or competitive content, ways for players to earn what they want in game faster with time spent IN THE kitten GAME.

As far as balancing pve/pvp I always found that split balancing them was the most intelligent thing I had ever seen. The fact that they were so against this initially was fairly disappointing.

I’m not a farmville refugee and I have a relatively large guild and there are other relatively large guilds that are more casual.

A PvE community doesn’t have to mean a hard core/competitive PvE community, which is usually the minority of players anyway, particularly PvE players.

RPers, they’re part of a PvE community to. Just because you don’t like the content, or some people feel they must grind doesn’t mean everyone subscribes to it and it doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who enjoy the game without grinding.

Colin Johanson:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/8/4392552/guild-wars-2-developers-eye-esports-with-aims-to-create-the-most

Our goal is for Guild Wars 2 to be the number one PvP game in MMOs and we feel there is a really open space right now for PvP within eSports, in particular for MMOs.
…
We’re seeing a ton of response from the PvPcommunity, we just need to get those last bits in place and then we’re really going to dive in and try to become a big part of eSports.

They’re almost there, apparently. Those pesky last bits!

BlueZone.4236:

Colin Johanson:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/8/4392552/guild-wars-2-developers-eye-esports-with-aims-to-create-the-most

Our goal is for Guild Wars 2 to be the number one PvP game in MMOs and we feel there is a really open space right now for PvP within eSports, in particular for MMOs.
…
We’re seeing a ton of response from the PvPcommunity, we just need to get those last bits in place and then we’re really going to dive in and try to become a big part of eSports.

They’re almost there, apparently. Those pesky last bits!

Well that’s nice to hear finally. At least they’re almost there. Because, we (players) are not even half way there.

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Step 1: Stop trying to make GW2 some eSports, just get over it.
Step 2: Stop balancing everything around tPvP and ruining PvE and Wv3
Step 3: Profit!

One of the few things you’ve said I actually agree with. lol

I think it is probably because we both like PvE more than PvP. My other statements are obviously nothing personal, perhaps the game has grown out of what I expected it to be, perhaps I did.
Not every game is made for everyone (but hey, I will still post my opinion). ^^

Anet pass their chance for eSport long time ago. No need to create any more topics about it.

BlueZone.4236:

Colin Johanson:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/8/4392552/guild-wars-2-developers-eye-esports-with-aims-to-create-the-most

Our goal is for Guild Wars 2 to be the number one PvP game in MMOs and we feel there is a really open space right now for PvP within eSports, in particular for MMOs.
…
We’re seeing a ton of response from the PvPcommunity, we just need to get those last bits in place and then we’re really going to dive in and try to become a big part of eSports.

They’re almost there, apparently. Those pesky last bits!

I really hope that quote is just for publicity purposes and that they don’t truly believe they will become an esport. The sooner they give up on the esports idea (because it’s just not going to happen) the sooner we can have better balancing in PvE/WvW.

Well, it was fairly obvious (back in 2010(?) when they had a PvP match at GamesCon) that GW2 won’t be an e-Sport.
GW1 could have been e-Sport, but Arena Net tried reinventing the wheel with GW2 and failed.

Lord Kuru.3685:

BlueZone.4236:

Colin Johanson:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/8/4392552/guild-wars-2-developers-eye-esports-with-aims-to-create-the-most

Our goal is for Guild Wars 2 to be the number one PvP game in MMOs and we feel there is a really open space right now for PvP within eSports, in particular for MMOs.
…
We’re seeing a ton of response from the PvPcommunity, we just need to get those last bits in place and then we’re really going to dive in and try to become a big part of eSports.

They’re almost there, apparently. Those pesky last bits!

I really hope that quote is just for publicity purposes and that they don’t truly believe they will become an esport. The sooner they give up on the esports idea (because it’s just not going to happen) the sooner we can have better balancing in PvE/WvW.

Just in case anyone didn’t notice, that was 5 months ago. However…! In a thread named “Gw2 and the state of Esport” in the Structured PvP subforum (2 weeks ago):

Justin ODell.9517:

Personally, I think we can get there.

It’s awesome that each day I get to help move things a little bit closer to that goal than the day before.

And keep reading, as there’s more dev posts further on.
They haven’t given up.

Esports!

This game could easily be made into an e-sport. It has the potential.

The only thing that should be changed is that WvW, PVE and PVP should be balanced differently.

Yes – each of these should have its own variation of skills and numbers – so that each could be well polished and fine-tuned.
The way it is now – with universal balance – you fix one thing and break another. Or more.

It’s just silly and I DO NOT understand why they do it like this.
They have FAR fewer skills than GW1. And GW1 was balanced separately for PVE and PVP.
What gives?

As long as skills have to work well in both pvp and pve, gw2 will be lackluster in esports.

danbuter.2314:

As long as skills have to work well in both pvp and pve, gw2 will be lackluster in esports.

interesting, I was thinking that as long as skills have to work will in pvp and pv2, gw2 will be lackluster in pve. So it may be that you can’t serve two masters.

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Step 1: Stop trying to make GW2 some eSports, just get over it.
Step 2: Stop balancing everything around tPvP and ruining PvE and Wv3
Step 3: Profit!

One of the few things you’ve said I actually agree with. lol

As do i, someone take a screen shot me and Vayne agree on something.

More leaderboards!